Calmness isn't a good sign.

He said he had done this before
Just walked out
Into traffic.

Last night Josh hit me and tried to bite.

Became fixated, rigid and moving if you can imagine?

He suddenly hit me on the forehead, hard.

It was almost like something you would see in an exorcism, as if he were the preacher?

But then he did it again, with obvious aggression.

I told him he must take his medication for at least a month, in front of me.
He seemed to take this in.
I told him I would call the crisis team if he did not do this.
In truth I really felt I should be calling them.
I asked him if he would agree to go to hospital, but he said no.

. 

I didn't phone because

I'd felt so alienated by the hospital process when we had gone to them for help before.

This stopped me from just phoning....

I didn't feel they would help.

By 8pm he seemed better.
He was calm, more rational.
Took his medication.

His pupils were really dilated.

He went out into the garden.
I answered one email.
Looking up...he was gone!

We went out looking.
His friends were searching.

At 10pm I phoned the police.
A policeman came round half an hour latter and told me they had Josh.
He had been involved in a road accident but he was alive.
Having a CT scan.

He had  ran into the road in front of a bus.

My husband
Had seen the bus parked up, police, dazed and shocked people...
The windscreen closest to the pavement side, shattered.
Had thought, NO...

I phoned him
He came home
We got the blue light to the hospital.

The police were so kind.
Really treated us with care and respect.
I cannot tell you how much their conduct mattered to us.
They and the hospital staff were golden.

We didn't see our son.
Josh doesn't want to see us.

All we know is he has multiple fractures.
No major head trauma.
Not life threatening, nor life changing...
But a long recovery.

He is in theater latter today.

The policeman told us about 70% of all the incidents they are called to are related to mental health issues.

---

We saw Josh .
Very smashed up.
Wearing a wrist band that called him Jack Trauma, DOB 1/2/1900.

it is a good name.
He told us he wanted to die
That this is the Underworld, and we are not his parents.

Also that he should have gone to the sea that day...

I followed his bed out of the ward as he went down to surgery.

Six hours later we were back.
J. Trauma was lost again.
The nurse said, ' he's gone to intensive care section two.

The hospital has critical care, and no section two.

People made phone calls and typed requests.

J Trauma had vanished.
This was too close to what happened last night
I was beginning to fall apart.

Eventually he was supposed to be in the brain injury section of Critical Care..

I thought of all his fractures.
Imagined the intracranial bleed...

He was still in theatre.

We were still waiting to hear at 8:25 pm...

But then, we were called in.
And strangely...He was a lot saner than he's been in weeks.

Even managed to joke..

Opiates