Sunrise, Sunset

Sunrise, Sunset!

The sun is setting on a very sick little boy named Donnie Harbeck.  After a 72 hour hold in the ICU at the VA hospital in West LA and then a fourteen day mandatory hold by the state of California, a countless number of psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, social workers and a medical team have put this "Humpty Dumpty" cracked little egg back together again.

Does Donnie suffer from Depression, Paranoid Schizophrenia and/or Bi Polar disease?  The jury is still out deliberating.  While reading the September 2000 Biography magazine, I stumbled on an article "In the Spotlight" about Daryl Hannah.  Page 22.  Daryl Hannah has been "diagnosed borderline autistic, she often retreated into fantasy worlds and films like The Wizard of Oz.  Even today, she's said, she likes to sit in a corner and observe." 

How interesting we thought!  We like to do the same thing.  One of my youngest recollections is sitting in my room and singing, "In my own little corner, in my own little world, I can be whoever I want to be....."
Turns out the final diagnosis is that I have a borderline personality.  Dave Libby was right all the time.

Today is a new day.  The sun rises.  Now I must learn how to live with this disorder while being heavily medicated on three different medications.  My greatest challenge is to make sure that Donnie takes his meds.  As you all know, Donnie hates taking medicine.  I have two choices.  Either, I as John Thomas can take care of Donnie or the state of California will take care of both of us.  We prefer the first option.  We never want to have to go back to the psychiatric ward again.

The sun sets on the nightmare that Donnie has lived in for too many years to mention.

The sun rises on all the new dreams that I encourage Donnie to believe can come to fruition.

What a beautiful day this is going to be!

Good News About Donnie

I do not think I even understand it so I do not expect you to understand it either.  I, John Thomas, is merely a figment of Donnie's imagination.  He created him so that he would not be lonely.  He created him because he was unable to function anymore.  The Good News about Donnie is that he has been moved to a different facility where he will be able to continue his psychiatric work as an outpatient.  Even Uncle Sam does not have the money to support Donnie in a full time mental facility.

Donnie is being watched very carefully on a ninety day suicide watch.  The care facility that he is now at has very specific rules and he is being monitored very closely.  He will continue to take medicine which has eliminated the external voices which were telling him to do very harmful things like walking in front of a train.  Donnie still insists that those voices were demons waging spiritual warfare for his soul.

Donnie has been very depressed because he is becoming aware that his entire life has been nothing but delusions of grandeur.  He is never going to be Dr. Doolittle.  He is never going to be the King of England and he never had a chance at marrying Princess Diana.  He is never going to be a Star on Dancing With The Stars.  One of the hardest things for him was to face that he will never be a guest star on GLEE.  The fact that Donnie will never win an Oscar, a Pulitzer Prize or the Nobel Peace Prize seem to be like nails in his coffin.  Donnie just reminded me that his coffin is in a Public Storage space in Illinois.  I told him it is much better than in his dining room.  He just told me that at least he had a dining room.  We both laugh.

Donnie wanted me to thank his Mother, Mary Ellen Andersen, his Aunt Do, and Tim Page for being so thoughtful as to sending him get well cards.  They really meant a lot to him and me.  For everyone else, we want to thank you for your continued support in prayer.

Today was a remarkable day.  I took Donnie to the ocean today.  We had a wonderful time reading the Bible and the verse that meant the most to Donnie was John 1:1  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  The Word became flesh.  I told Donnie that this is the closest that he will ever get to this on earth.

He seemed to be good with that.  We are creating a new list of favorite things for Donnie.  The first as you and I know is that Donnie feels closest to God when he is by the ocean.  The second item on the list is Donnie loves to feed the seagulls.  He remembers being in Israel and feeding the seagulls on a boat similar to the one Jesus rode on when he was on the Sea of Galilee.  We walked along the ocean, we walked through the City of Santa Barbara, and Donnie wanted to walk to the library to have me let you know that he is doing well.

We both are.