Part 4 = You don’t know,what you don’t know

Part 4 = You don’t know, what you don’t know 

Friday started off like any other day. The kids went to school, Jack went to work and I rested just as my Doctor ordered. Jack and I had been messaging throughout the day when he told me Jacob was going to be home late after school. He was going to meet with the counselor and build his resume since every job he’d been applying for required one. I was resting when Jack came home early and told me Jacob had just given him attitude and was snippy when he asked how the resume went. I got up and went to his room to see what was making him act like that and to ask how the resume went as well. He snapped at me and said he hadn’t gone. I asked him why and he said, “I just didn’t feel like it” to which I replied, “Jacob the counselor made an appointment with you, took time out of his day to try and help you and you just don’t show up?! Did you at least let him know?” He just shrugged his shoulders and replied, “No. I’m tired Mom leave me alone.”

They say hind sight is 20/20, that’s because it is. Looking back now I know that I should’ve probably left the situation alone. Just asked him if he was ok and talked to him if he wanted to, but I didn’t. I didn’t see beyond his anger and this starts one of the conversations that I regret most with him. 

“Seriously Jacob you can’t just treat people like they don’t matter. You can’t just make appointments and not show up without letting him know you aren’t coming. That’s rude and disrespectful.”

“Moooom! I don’t care! I’m having a bad day and I feel depressed and angry.”

“Angry about what?” I asked him. Not knowing what was going on with him, not having the answers and not getting anywhere with him except constant anger, left me frustrated. I didn’t understand how to help or respond or talk to him.

Because of that, I will regret this conversation.

“What is so bad about your life that you have to be depressed all of the time? I just don’t get it. Your sister has been through some horrible, traumatic stuff and she still gets up every day and tries to make the most of it. She doesn’t let it control her life.”

 

I know what you are thinking and no one will ever be more critical of me, than me.

Remember that hind sight being 20/20?

Looking back now, I know that this was wrong to say and it breaks my heart but at the time I didn’t fully understand what was going on.

I didn’t know that what was controlling Jacob’s behavior was in fact uncontrollable.

He wasn’t doing it on purpose.

You see, at times I thought it could be controlled and he just needed to stop acting like that. At the time, I thought nothing since nothing traumatic had ever happened to him, well then why was he acting like this?

I didn’t recognize the signs of depression.

I thought this was normal, teenage laziness.

It wasn’t.

I didn’t know enough to recognize the signs.

Jacob got upset and I could see in his face at that time that he was not my Jacob. He stood up on the bed and yelled,“Moooom, I said I don’t want to talk about it, get out!!”

He turned, punched a hole in his wall, jumped off the bed and ran out of the house. 

By this time Jack came running out of the room and asked me what happened. I told him Jacob and I were arguing and then he punched the wall and ran out. I tried calling him on his phone over and over but he didn’t answer. 

I could feel my heart racing so I sat down on the couch to cool off and try to calm down.

Dominic came walking through the door about 30 minutes later from school and said, “Oooh mom our neighbors are in trouble the cops are at their house.” Knowing that our neighbors were not trouble makers I said “I highly doubt it babe, they’re probably here for us.”

I went outside to see what was going on and met an Officer walking up our driveway.

“Hi Ma’am. Are you Angela?”

I took a deep breathe. “Yes I am”

He said, “I just need to know what happened. Jacob called and said you were being mean to him.”

I kinda laughed and said, “I’m a parent, he’s mad because I was parenting him.”

He asked what happened and I told him.

He said, “Well that’s destruction of property I can arrest him right now.”

I said, “No. I don’t want my son to have a record. That’s not necessary.”

He told me that Jacob said he wanted to go stay with his dad. “I said no he doesn’t, he wants to hurt me because he got mad at me and that’s his way of thinking he will get to do whatever he wants and get away with whatever he wants.”

The cop told me that by law he had to call the crisis team out to talk to Jacob. I was so irritated because we just dealt with these people 2 days prior.

We talked to the cop while we waited for the Crisis team to getto our house about an hour later. We talked with them and answered their questions and then they interviewed Jacob with and without us. They explained that they felt that Jacob was showing signs he may harm himself but that they didn’t feel it was an immediate danger because of the situation. They explained that he was just feeling that way but said they felt he wasn’t going to act on it. They did say maybe a break away from each other would be good so I called Jacob’s Grandma. We told him he could stay the weekend with her and we could all reset and talk in a couple of days once we settled down. 

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen because Sunday morning I woke up with a horrible pain in my stomach and ended up in emergency surgery. Jacob’s sister Arabella was born that day, 13 weeks earlier than expected. The doctors told us all it was a miracle that we both lived. Jacob came to see me once I was out of the ICU and we both told each other we loved one another and hugged and at that point, the argument was a thing of the past. I was going to be ok and he was thankful for that. He even talked to Jack about God and how my life was spared because HE was watching over me and his sister. If you knew Jacob, you knew he wasn’t big on religion or God, so for him to acknowledge that was huge. 

He went to the NICU with Jack and met his baby sister later that night and all was fine in our house. It was a hectic and busy time with Arabella remaining in the NICU but the kids were very understanding about why I spent a lot of time there. 

Then October happened.