Under Her Care(62)

The overdosing on Tylenol isn’t as alarming as the psychosis that happened to her afterward. It’s common for kids to impulsively take Tylenol because it’s such an easily accessible drug. Sometimes kids do it as a genuine attempt at suicide, but more often than not, they do it as a suicidal gesture rather than truly wanting to end their lives because they think Tylenol is harmless. Most people don’t know that Tylenol is a lethal killer. Too much of it causes liver failure, and it’s not long before all your organs start shutting down.

Maybe she was suicidal—maybe she wasn’t—but there’s no question she was psychotic. Was it happening before her overdose or as a result of it? The notes aren’t clear.

Unfortunately, Savannah’s progress was short lived. She ended up in the emergency room two months after her discharge. Genevieve ran into the hospital screaming for someone to help her and that her daughter was trying to kill herself again. She created a huge scene, and half the security team came outside to help her. It’s all very detailed in the nurse’s note.

The emergency room physician recommended inpatient hospitalization again because this patient’s condition requires 24-hour monitoring due to potential danger to self and severe deterioration in level of functioning. Prior suicide attempts. She stayed for eleven days.

Her next intake note from White Memorial doesn’t get any better.

Patient not oriented to place and time. Affect lethargic. Largely unresponsive. Oppositional when pressed. Speech slurred. Tangential. Rule out psychosis.

She was the one who received electric shock therapy almost exactly eighteen months from the date of her first hospitalization. Her diagnosis traveled all over the place, from major depressive disorder to bipolar 1 to oppositional defiant disorder, then back again, before settling on major depressive disorder with psychotic features, where it stayed. No matter where she went, though, Genevieve never left her side. She remained her biggest support even when Savannah fired ridiculous accusations at her like that she was trying to poison her food or that someone else was controlling her mom’s behavior. For a girl who looked really good on paper throughout her adolescence, she was a train wreck on the inside.

What if she still is?

I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but all her reports describe a consistent pattern of delusional and persecutory ideas about her mom. At one point, she even freaked out and said her mom had brought a knife to one of their family visits and tried to stab her with it. They had Genevieve searched by hospital security right in front of Savannah to get her to calm down, but it didn’t help, even when their search turned up nothing. She was convinced her mom was out to get her.

Then there were other times, once she was medicated and stabilized, when she took it all back and described her mom as her best friend. I would have an easier time believing Savannah’s story if she ever made one accusation against her mom when she wasn’t in the throes of a psychotic episode. Even if she just hinted at something being wrong during one of her stabilized periods, the stories she told me about her mom would be more believable, but she didn’t. That’s what makes me wonder.

There are only two ways to look at it. Savannah was a very mentally ill girl who might still be sick, or she’s a girl who was so desperate for her mother’s attention and love that she was willing to do anything to get it, including becoming a complete mess. The latter seems more likely to be true when you read the descriptions of Genevieve during Savannah’s hospitalizations. Genevieve thrives when her children are sick and in crisis. Maybe all Savannah ever wanted was to win back her mom’s love and attention again, and being mentally ill was the only way to get it.

For three years, Savannah bounced in and out of different treatment centers and institutions, and then suddenly, there was nothing. No more reports. No more intake notes. No more hospitalizations. It all just ended.

Why?

In the same way that Savannah described Mason’s symptoms and troubles seeming to start overnight, hers appear to have just stopped the same way—overnight. How is that possible? How do you go from being so impaired you needed electric shock therapy to fine? If it was all for attention from her mom, what made her stop needing it? A boy? A girl? That’s the age when everything changes and you care much more about your friends and romantic attractions than you do your parents. I have some of the best parents in the world, and I still distanced myself from them the last few years in high school. Thinking about my parents makes me remember Harper and brings my attention back to my phone.

I swipe off Savannah’s number and pull up my dad’s number instead. It barely rings twice before he answers, as if he was already expecting my call.

“How’s it going?” I strain my ears for any sound of tantrumming in the background, but things are silent.

“She’s asleep. Totally knocked out.” I can hear the huge smile in his voice.

I glance at the clock. “It’s only nine o’clock. Half the time I can’t even get her into bed by then on a good night. How’d you do that?”

“I put YouTube on her iPad and rocked her in the rocking chair until she fell asleep,” he whispers like he might still be near her and doesn’t want to wake her. “She fought it for a while, but eventually, the combination was too strong, and she couldn’t resist.” He laughs quietly.

“Dad! You can’t put her to sleep like that. She—”