Part 3
As many of you know, Jacob was a beautiful soul with a huge heart. He was funny, brilliant, caring, sweet and a friend to so many. THIS was Jacob. THIS was what made him, HIM and what I loved so much about him. There were things he battled with during this sickness and some of those things at times almost diminished the person that we knew above. During these battles he wasn’t himself, he wasn’t so sweet, he wasn’t as caring, he didn’t like me as much and he wasn’t as easy to like himself. But I know that during those times, THAT wasn’t him. I know this battle was painful for him because of how far from himself he would be. It saddens me to put this part of his story out there, but in order for us to continue to spread awareness for him I have to tell the whole story; even the not so sweet and loving parts.
The first week of September 2017, the actual date was Wednesday the 6th, Jacob was at his intensive outpatient group at Oasis (which he visited 4 times/week for 3 hours a day) when I found a bag hidden in his closet. This held vapes, vape juice containing nicotine, a pipe used for smoking weed, and containers of homemade vape juice along with several bottles of cinnamon. I was upset, I mean, he knew how I felt about this stuff. I had to wait until he got home to confront him.
( Ok on a side note, I seriously thought I was going crazy because I could never find my cinnamon in my spices! I kept buying cinnamon when I would go to the store and every time I’d go to use it, it would be gone. I couldn’t figure it out! )
When he got home, I called him to my room and showed him the bag. “Jacob, what is this?!” I asked him. He tried telling me that the bag was old and he forgot about it, but that was a lie because I checked his room regularly. I didn’t want to but I told him he was grounded for a month from his PS4, his laptop and seeing his girlfriend. I let him keep his phone because with anxiety and depression, I knew he needed an outlet and that outlet was to be able to call and talk to his friends and even his girlfriend Mona.
Once he heard he wasn’t allowed to see her, he flipped out. He didn’t care about the other things, all he cared about was being able to see her. The hard part for me with that relationship was it was toxic. It was draining for him. I hated seeing him that way but he loved her and she made him happy so I dealt with it. He tried pleading with me to take everything else away from him, anything but her.
He told me I would regret punishing him. Then he went to his room and went to sleep. I knew exactly what that threat meant.
I went to sleep that night knowing that I would get a call in the morning from the school nurse. I knew she would tell me that he was sick, or say that I needed to come get him and take him to the hospital because he told her he was suicidal.
Never in a million years did I think he would do what he actually did.
At about 10:00 am I got a call from the school counselor saying that he needed to talk to me about an important matter. I said, “Ok. What did Jacob do?” He told me that Jacob came into his office and said he was suicidal and had a plan to carry out his intentions. Jacob told him that we had guns and he was going to use the 9mm to shoot himself.
Even though I had an idea the night before of what was to come, hearing those words about your child, well it crushed my heart. I knew what Jacob was trying to do but it still shook me to my core.
I cut the counselor off right then and there and told him that there was no way Jacob had access to any of our guns. We had a bolt lock on our bedroom door and the same lock on the closet door where the guns and medications in the house we all stored.
You see, Jacob’s way of getting back at me for punishing him was to try and get ME in trouble. He was mad, angry even and this was the only way he knew to get back at me for taking his girlfriend away.
I told the counselor he could come to my house and see all of the precautions I’d already taken once I knew Jacob was depressed and having suicidal thoughts. He then told me that Jacob told him he was going to jump off of a bridge. It was the counselor’s responsibility to report it, so he called a crisis group out to the school and I had to come talk to them.
I called Jacob’s stepdad, Jack, at work and told him what was going on. At this time, I was almost 7 months pregnant and high risk, so we decided it best that we go to the school together. I called Jacob’s private counselor, Maria, and told her what was going on. She decided she needed to be there as well. We all arrived at the school and met with the school counselor first. Jack and I explained everything that had happened the night before, everything that had happened the past couple of years and we explained Jacob’s other side. We finished speaking with the school counselor and then we all joined the 2 crisis counselors, along with Maria. We brought Jacob into the room as well.
At first, he had the crisis counselors fooled. They believed we weren’t involved, that we didn’t care and that Jacob was serious. After an hour long meeting they explained to Jacob that they could see this all stemmed from him getting in trouble. They assured us that they could see he was in a loving home, caring hands, and we were completely competent parents who knew when he needed to go to the hospital.
They told us they felt comfortable sending Jacob home with us and that they knew we knew what to do if we felt he needed to go to the hospital. We made an appointment with Maria for the next day and I took Jacob home. Jack and I met for lunch to discuss what had happened and just debrief.
That night I ended up in the hospital with pains in my lower stomach. It really scared me and I thought it was due to the stress from the day. The doctors observed me for awhile and ran several tests. I was released home after a couple of hours and told to take it easy.
Then Friday happened…..
#LiveforJacob 