By Friday I was getting restless.  Sitting at home with my family was making me crazy and I craved physical activity.  To give myself a little breathing space from my family, I took a walk first thing in the morning.  The last week had been a physical struggle for me and I needed to get back to some regular exercise routine to feel better.  The quiet mornings were always my favorite time of day and walking was the perfect way to get some thinking done. As I was walking, I thought about what I wanted to accomplish at the family meeting I scheduled for today.    I was expecting my parents and siblings, including my brother Casper, to be there.  My thoughts also drifted to the strange behavior of my family toward me.

Sometime in the afternoon, I went to the bathroom and returned to the TV room.  I didn’t hear noise and no one was in the room, which is surprising given the number of people at my parents’ house that week.  It made me suspicious. So I went looking for everyone.  I found my dad, he was napping.  So I continued to look, wondering what my sisters were up to.  I found my sisters and my mom in my dad’s office.  They were acting secretive, talking in hushed voices, choosing an out of the way room to meet.  When they see me, they stop talking. That kind of thing where you KNOW they were talking about you or something they don’t want you to hear.

So, I can’t help myself, I ask, “What are you doing?”  Nothing they say.

I push a little more.  “No, you’re doing something on the computer, right?”

Scarlett fesses up to looking for “a place for you to rest — one with horses.”  She’s found something in Malibu or Tennessee. They just need to know if they’ll take my insurance. She’ll call tomorrow.

So I had reason to be suspicious.  “Stop searching.  I don’t need to go anywhere but HOME to rest,” I said.  They all looked a little put out at my reaction, like they were planning a party for me or something.

Like I want to be further shipped away for someone’s convenience? Some mental health place I’m sure.  I’m just trying to get my shit back together, trying to fix all that’s been broken, and here she is thinking I need a fucking vacation with horses.  Or worse, I need some electroshock therapy hospital that lets you recover your treatment trauma by playing with horses.  My family trying to make decisions for me only made me feel more unsafe and unsettled.

“Thanks for coming, I understand my husband called you both, but you need to go home to your families. I’m fine.”

Agatha interrupts me, “What happened at the doctor’s office?”

“It’s none of your business, but he asked us to leave.”

“Why?” she asks.

“I wanted to meet with the doctor alone and the doctor asked us to leave.” I remind her again, “It’s none of your business.”

They voiced their concerns that I needed to meet with a psychiatrist.

“The discharge papers didn’t mention anything about seeing a psychiatrist within X days. I don’t see the urgency.”

They reiterated how I need to get in there soon. I asked why. All I got was “You just need to”. It made me suspicious.  Again.

“I’m going home tomorrow,” I inform them as I walk away, cutting off further discussion.

It was almost time for the family meeting I had called.  My objective was to get them to go back home so I could start fixing my life. We were all in the family room of my parents’ house.  Mom, Scarlett and dad are on one couch, Agatha and my husband on the other.  I’m sitting on the barstool near the kitchen.  Everyone is here, except our brother Casper.  Agatha tells me we can’t start yet.

My mom and dad are letting her control this whole week and she is loving it. I’m usually the family organizer, so she’s happy to have the spot light this week. There’s some part of her too that I think is happy that I’ve had a fall from grace in the eyes of the family. (She became insecure ever since her position in the family became clear, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I hadn’t seen my brother since before the hospital, but knew he’d been told all the sordid details. Thankfully he stayed out so far.  I ask if we’re waiting for Casper. I wasn’t sure if he was coming since he avoids most family interactions, and especially whole-family gatherings. But she says no, we’re not waiting for Casper.

The reason is revealed, when my husband walks through the door.  I don’t want him there, for what I consider a family meeting.  My plans are quickly squelched as I realize a plot is afoot. I didn’t realize what was happening at first, but I caught up.

I start with, “Everyone, please listen to me. I called this family meeting-”

“We need to talk first,” Agatha interrupts.  She looks around the room, “Wayne.”

Wayne says, “Go to the doctor.”

She calls Scarlett next. Scarlett says, “Go to the doctor.”

She calls on mom and dad and the same reply.

“I’m fine,” I tell them.

Agatha reminds everyone, “You were released from the Psych ward against medical advice.”

Then she says, “Everybody go around and describe how you view Nikita.”

My meeting had been used to stage an intervention. I had this flash of intuition that she learned these “group session” skills from her own experience with a husband in rehab. Everyone seems confused, unsure of what they are supposed to say. I can see this was poorly planned. She only gave them each one line in the script, but then started ad-libbing.  They had no idea where she was going.  Definitely lost the power of the moment.  So she has to start with herself.

“I’ll start”, she says. “I think Nikita keeps secrets”, she says.

My husband says nothing.

My dad says, “I think she’s ok”.

Thank you dad, we’ve always had a close relationship that my siblings have resented.  Finally someone sticks up for me.

Scarlett says, “I don’t think she keeps secrets, she’s just private”.

“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. This was my meeting. You need to listen to me.”

Agatha says, “We’ll listen. We’re here to listen to you”. (More rehab skills).

I try to reason with them by saying, “I want to say that I love you guys and I appreciate that you love me and want to support me and my family because this happened. But this is a mistake. It’s over. You have your own lives to live, so go home to your families. Scarlett, didn’t you just start a job? You’re the main income, you shouldn’t miss work. Go home. Focus on your new job. The last thing I want is for you to lose your job over me. ”

Scarlett replies, “I want to be here”.

“I will call you when I need you. Agatha, take care of your family. You’re still working. Your husband retired, but you’re the breadwinner, so go home. And thank you.”

During this exchange, my husband is quiet. Thankfully he didn’t look mad — just like he didn’t want to be there. It was unusual that he wasn’t stepping in to take charge. I couldn’t tell if this was part of the script or just their “united front”.  Everyone kept reiterating they were here for me.  It was a polite way of saying they weren’t leaving.

So I stand up, and tell them, “Look. I’m not asking now. If you’re here for mom and dad, fine. But I don’t want you here and for you to put your nose in my business. I don’t believe you need to be here and I’m more concerned about the impact on your own families.” And I leave.

I realized there were two issues. The first was that my husband was telling them it was a condition of my discharge and the police record that I take antipsychotic meds or the police could put me back in the hospital. (The police had nothing to do with my being admitted to the hospital). The second issue was my husband telling me I couldn’t go back home unless I took the meds and went to the doctor.  This was all too clear in his “My Way” threat.

In looking to solve the issues, I called the doctor who told us to leave, mentioned I had been there the other day, and I’d like to make an appointment for this week. I was told he’s busy until next week.  That was fine with me, as I didn’t see the urgency in getting back into seeing him.  I told my family about the appointment to show them I was in charge.

Waiting a week for an appointment with a psychiatrist didn’t suit my sister Agatha.  She looked for other options.  She called around. She was urgently trying to find an appointment in the next day, certainly that week.  She was adamant, but she couldn’t find someone who had room that soon.

Looking back, my husband’s actions of telling my siblings that I was bat-shit crazy and there was no hope I’d ever be the same, is why they treated me like this. They were all wondering when the bomb would go off or I’d flip a switch and freak out. That’s why they were all walking on eggshells around me.  It also explains why my sisters felt the need to drop everything and come see me. They probably thought it was the last time.

I don’t think my parents were as convinced that I was crazy.  When I was at the emergency room, my mom tried to take me home, but the hospital wouldn’t let her and my husband stepped up to take control.  I felt my parents were on my side, but they didn’t want to get between me and Wayne. For this meeting, they chose to let things play out and the siblings have their say.

I wondered why they didn’t include Alex and Ben in the intervention to really put the pressure on me.  I wasn’t telling anyone about my health, so I wasn’t sure if Ben had even heard about my weekend stay given he was away at college.  It would make sense that Wayne wouldn’t want him “distracted by his mom’s illness”. Wayne would put more importance on keeping Ben in school and at peak athletic performance.

I assumed Alex wasn’t included because Wayne probably scared her.  While concerned about my welfare, I’m sure she was worried by everything he communicated about my “illness” and prognosis.  Since I was the “crazy” person and kicked out of the house, Alex only heard Wayne’s perspective.

During this general time, Wayne was circling the wagons.  He continued to promote his version of my mental health to friends and family, which was that I had a mental breakdown and would likely never be the same again. It didn’t help matters that Wayne made it clear that I did this to myself or could “cure” myself if I’d only see a psychiatrist and take serious brain changing medicine.  Anyone questioning his narrative got shut down from what I could see.

Wayne knew I would HATE people knowing my business.  And yet, it felt like he engaged everyone we knew in his battle to get me medicated.  It felt like he was cagey, filtering information, and selectively telling me things that I needed to know.   As this played out, I got more suspicious. I never doubted my mental health, but I did worry that my suspicious nature would have them label me paranoid.  We couldn’t have a trusting relationship unless we trusted each other. And I know I was losing mine. I was hoping we could recover, but in the back of my mind, I felt something shifted.

It wasn’t until much later, as I looked back and talked with Scarlett that I discovered he’d been plotting all along. I don’t think he planned to put me in the hospital, but now I think he wanted me there. I think this was part of a well-played chess match and he was several moves ahead of me.  At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on why nothing felt normal. It wasn’t just my weekend stay, it was that he had changed our relationship so fundamentally that I couldn’t even grasp it at the time.  In my mind, this was my issue.  I’d ended up in the hospital by mistake, but I would fix things and life would get back to normal soon.  But this weekend had significant ripple effects.  Not only had it caused a huge rift in my family, it was a trigger for Wayne’s next moves.

Photo by Dimitar Belchev on Unsplash

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How to Hold an Intervention