Day 4: March 22

Our son has been transferred to an in-patient treatment facility. There is a one-hour visitation period in the evening and his mother and I split the time. First she goes with her husband, then I go. Our son has three pieces of paper with him. One is a mandala he colored in art therapy. One is a drawing that is supposed to be one happy thing and one unhappy thing. He has drawn a sun and a black hole. The sun is bigger than the black hole and I am glad for that. One is information about the drug therapy that is being recommended. He has not consented to take it yet. I let him know that it is his choice as an adult and he asks if I think he should. I say yes. He says he did not like the anti-anxiety meds they gave him, they made him feel wavy. I tell him I will visit every day so we can talk about how the medication is making him feel and if it is uncomfortable we can take action. We agree. He tries to tell me about how he came to this place. He doesn't remember much about the ER, doesn't remember his father and I being there. He says the BSU was called Exodus and that seemed like an ominous name. He wasn't sure what would happen if he left there or what came after. He is ready to talk about the zombie apocalypse today. After he had spent several days time traveling he felt like he should leave his room. It was perhaps 3 or 4 AM. He went into the kitchen and ate some Cheerios. He thought that maybe the expiration dates on food meant you might die by then if you ate them, but September seemed far enough away to be worth it. He went outside for awhile and when he tried to get back in the door was locked so he went walking. At the middle school he heard a child call him names from inside the building "Child molester." I ask him if that's the worst thing you could be and he says yes. There is no one around and he thinks it is because he is part of the zombie apocalypse. There are few people left to prey on, and he feeds on their misery. He asks me again if I have seen a commercial for a government-created brain drone. I tell him no, but I will check it out and I will be careful just to do research. He seems to be struggling really hard to order the sequence of events and his thoughts. I ask him if he would like to write it down to keep track and he's noncommittal. That's all the time we have.