TW: Suicide attempt in detail, Abuse, and Medical grossness in general.Please don’t share on other platforms.I’ve made a few other posts about my JNFIL, and while I’ve flaired them ‘no advice wanted’, I am open to anyone’s advice or perspectives. This is THE story. The BIG ONE, that I still can’t get over a year and a half later. It is so very long, and if you take the time to read it, thank you BIG. If you read and comment with some insight, thank you BIG BIG! (Hugs)TLDR: JNILs use our near death experiences to try to tear us apart.A little background on my JNFIL. He was very abusive to his three sons, but especially so to my husband, J. J (M43) has spent the last 27+ years trying to prove his dad’s constant criticism wrong, being constantly told he was worthless, and will never amount to anything. J is a firefighter/paramedic in one of the highest crime cities in the US, and runs his own successful business outside of that. JNFIL pretends he’s proud around other people, but when he gets J alone it’s constant “Why are you doing things this way, this is a mistake, you don’t know what you are doing, you shouldn’t buy this machine, this is a waste of money, you’re going to fail.” And on and on. J hates his Dad, but tried to keep a relationship going because he loves his mom. She’s not as abusive, but she enables JNFIL and never did anything to protect her children, so I have no respect for her whatsoever anymore. J has seen a lot in his line of work. Things no one should ever have to see, but he loves his job and he’s very good at. This is the story of how all the trauma finally caught up to him.It all starts in mid-March of 2019. After three pregnancies and significant weight gain, my stomach was wrecked. I knew something was up after my last pregnancy, but with three children and a husband working two full time jobs, I often put myself and my health on the back burner. One morning, while waiting on my coffee to finish, I coughed and sneezed at the same time, and felt a massive explosion in my stomach. If you’re easily grossed out, skip to the next paragraph. The pain was excruciating and I have a fairly high pain tolerance. I knew immediately what happened, and could see the evidence under my skin. My intestines had come out through my abdominal wall. I called J at the station and told him what happened. He took an emergency leave, and rushed me to the ER. The ER doc poked and prodded, and then, very forcefully might I add, pushed my intestines back in. I could actually hear the sound of it inside my head... Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop. I had an umbilical hernia, and would need surgery fairly soon as this would likely happen again at any moment.The surgery was scheduled for the end of March. Leading up to it, I had a very bad feeling that something bad was going to happen. I was scared, and told J so. I don’t know why, but I thought I was going to die. He assured me everything would be fine. I was going to be down for several days, and unable to drive my two oldest to school or take care of my youngest, so J took off from the Fire Station. Surgery day comes and he takes me to the hospital. He asks JNMIL to pick up the kids from school, and keep my youngest while we are at the hospital. I know this is a bad idea but he wanted to include her, so I agree. (She didn’t change my youngest’s diaper the entire day, and he was soaked, leaking, poopy, and raw by the time we got to him).When I come out of surgery, I find out that what we thought to be one hernia was actually four. This left me with a drain, and a much more difficult recovery than we had anticipated. Once home, I did as instructed by my doctor. Took all my medications when instructed, got up every couple hours to walk around the house. I was tracking my steps and had gone from 2000 a day in the beginning to 4000+ by the end of the week. Things were looking good, and the recovery was going well, I thought. J was taking the kids to school, taking my youngest to the shop with him, then picking my kids up from school and doing all the things I would normally do, plus still running his business. Difficult, but he was managing well I thought. Then, in the early morning hours of the 6th day, I started getting this excruciating pain in my back that I thought was muscle spasms. I took another pain pill, but it didn’t help. When J got up at 5am I told him. He offered to take me to the ER, but I told him to wait. I took another pain pill, and started to feel better so I went back to bed. He took the kids to school, and took my youngest with him for the day. A few hours later, the pain was back and much worse and I could only breath in half-second bursts, so I called him. By the time he got back home, my lips were turning blue. He rushed me to the ER where we found I had blood clots in my lungs (Pulmonary Embolism). They had me on oxygen, IV blood thinners, Morphine, Dilaudid, Percocet, and Toradol, and I was still in such excruciating pain that that my body would spasm in a square movement with every short breath I could manage. Left, up, right, down, with every breath. I was in ICU for three days, alone, because everyone else was trying to take care of my kids. His family had not helped since the initial surgery day. My childhood best friend came to visit me, and as soon as she walked in I burst into tears. I had no one until that point, I hadn’t slept for the pain, I couldn’t even move in the bed without a nurse for fear of passing a clot. I wasn’t allowed to stand at all, not even to use the bathroom, so they put on this new form of external vacuum catheter device, but I couldn’t do it no matter how hard I tried. I tried for over 12 hours, through two shift changes. My favorite nurse came back in, and I said I tried, I really did but I can’t do it. So they cathed me, and I was finally able to pee. Over 1200cc might I add. Y’all, I was miserable. I almost died. I was scared and alone, and couldn’t see my kids.When I was finally released, J came to pick me up. I thought he was acting a bit funny, and joking around a little more than usual, but I was so happy to be going home I didn’t pay much attention. Seriously, I thought he was just happy to finally see me again. On the way home he asked if my medications were ready at the pharmacy. I told him no, the scripts were in my discharge papers. He said he’d drop me off at home and go get them. He puts me in bed, fixes me a glass of water, gives me my last pain pill left over from surgery, and leaves to get my meds, or so I think. An hour later I text him, because I need my meds. It had taken me days to get the pain under control, and I can’t get behind on them, plus I was on very high doses of blood thinners and I couldn’t miss them. He says he’s collecting eggs (we have chickens). He had never left! “What are you doing? I need my meds, I can’t miss a dose and it’s already late!” “I’m sorry, I’m leaving now.” He goes to the pharmacy to drop off the scripts, then picks up pizza, goes back to get the meds and comes home. When he gets home, his best friend and his wife arrive to check on me and bring us food. They come talk to me briefly and leave me to rest. Another hour goes by, and J still hasn’t brought me my medicine. I text him asking where he is, thinking he might still be talking to our friends. I get up and head to the kitchen hoping to find my medicine, when I hear my daughter say “Daddy, you’re scaring me.” She was on the phone with him. He was in his truck and talking to her on the phone from the driveway. I find him walking back in the house, stumbling drunk. “What are you doing? How many have you had?” “I’ve had two.” He says. (Why is it always 2?) “Where is my medicine? I need it! I can’t do this alone. What are you thinking!?!” He points towards the kitchen. “It’s not in there, J. Where is my medicine?” He stumbles back out to the truck. I tell my daughter to grab some food and take her brothers to the play room and shut the door. He stumbles back into the kitchen with my medications in hand and starts ripping the labels from the bottles. “What are you doing!?! Stop! I need those! I need to know what to take, and when. How could you do this now? I can’t take care of myself, take care of the kids on this much medication, and take care of you!” He starts going off, saying all this self-degrading stuff that I have never said to him, but is exactly the stuff he’s heard all his life from his dad. “I know, I’m just an asshole! I’m just a worthless piece of shit.” And on and on. I’m so upset, and tell him to leave because I can’t have him around my kids like this. But I realize I can’t send him out behind the wheel like this either, so I tell him to go to bed. He heads to his closet, I think to change for bed, when I hear a strange noise and commotion. I walk in to find him, gun in hand, putting the magazine in. “What are you doing!?!” “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine, go to bed.” “No J, it’s not fine! Give me the gun.” “It’s fine, just go to bed.” This goes back and forth. The playroom where my kids are is directly over our bedroom, and my kids hear this entire exchange from the vent. I didn’t find out until later but my middle son came down to see J with the gun in his hand. He runs upstairs to tell his sister, who then calls my mom, who then calls my aunt who lives 5 minutes from us. I manage to get the gun away from him and the next thing I know my daughter is putting her phone to my ear. It’s my aunt. “Baby, what’s wrong?!?” “I need help!” “We’re on our way!” The next few minute are a blur. I call his best friend to see if they had noticed anything when they were here, and tell them what’s happening. At this point I was thinking he must have done some type of drug, as this is BAD and completely out of character. They say they are coming back.The next thing I know, my Aunt and her boyfriend ‘R’ rush in. Aunt takes the kids and barricades them in the bedroom. My mom rushes in, and mom and R are trying to talk J down. He’s crying, mom is crying, he goes to his truck but she’s not worried because they have his truck blocked in so he can’t leave. But, he grabs another gun from the truck and barricades himself in the shed. R gets on the phone with him, and I can tell from the one sided conversation that J is going to kill himself. Mom asks if she should call 911 and I say yes. She’s still on the phone with 911 when I hear the gunshot. I scream and run to the shed, fearing the worst. R grabs me, pushes me back telling me ‘no’. He kicks the door in, looks in, and runs back to me screaming to get back. I think J is dead, until R picks the phone back up, and says “Why did you do that?!?” R thinks J shot himself in the stomach, and I tell my mom to tell dispatch. The next thing I know, the squad cars start showing up, sirens and lights off as not to disturb the situation. The Police Captain is the third to arrive and takes the phone from R to talk to J. With every officer that arrives, I plead to them “Please don’t hurt him. He’s a firefighter/paramedic for ‘Big City’. This isn’t him. Something’s wrong. Please don’t kill him.” Over and over again with every new officer that arrives. There were over 20 squad cars lined down my street, and three snipers in my yard and my neighbor’s yard.His best friend (also a firefighter) and his wife show up, and are trying their best to help. Then an officer comes to me and says he’s asking for his dad, and to call him. This is bad. I know what this means. He wants his dad here because he wants to do it in front of him. I tell the officer so, but he’s insistent that we should call him. My phone is still inside, so my mom calls J’s parents. They are at church, about 45 minutes away, but say they’re coming. Now I’m reiterating to every officer I can “He hates his dad. If he’s asking for him it’s not for anything good. I need you to know that.” I’m so scared of what will happen if they show up. J’s best friend knows this too, and is telling the captain and any officer he can. Finally, after several more minutes, the officers tell us he’s coming out, and for us to go to the other side of the house out of the line of fire. He comes out with his hands up, and the Captain takes the gun from him. They make us all go inside the house while they talk to him. Several minutes later the Captain finds me. He says he’s ok. He’s voluntarily going to the hospital, and the Captain is going to personally drive him. He’s been here himself, and he understands what J’s going through and he’s going to get him help, and that J was asking for me. I walk out to him. We cry and hug, he apologizes and says he’s going to get help. I tell him I love him and we can fix this. He gets in the Captain’s car and the Captain goes to leave just as J’s parents pull up. The Captain stops, and I can tell he asks J if he wants to speak to them. Then they immediately pull away. JNMIL gets out and grabs me and J’s best friend’s wife for a group hug. I tell her I’m sorry, but I’m in a lot of pain and she’s squeezing my chest too hard. She let’s go. Then JNFIL yells “MIL, let’s go!” They leave and follow the squad car to the hospital.Once the police tell us everything we need to do and finally leave, my family and friends and I start scouring the house, truck, and shed for every weapon and drop of alcohol we can find. Best friends load it all in their car to take it to their house. By the time everyone leaves, it’s after midnight. My aunt takes the kids to her house. My other aunt arrives to stay with me and help me with my medicine. (It’s too much for me to keep up with on my own, and we actually had to keep a log book to keep track of it all. There were so many pain medications and I can now easily understand how some people accidentally overdose. I would forget having taken a medication immediately after taking it.) It’s been hours, and once the adrenaline wears off I go into shock and the spasms start again. I still hadn’t been able to take my medicine, and it’s now been about 8 hours since he brought me home. I’m in pain again like that morning when it all started. I can’t sleep. I can’t go to the hospital to see him because I’m in too much pain, and the only people there for him are these god awful people who do nothing but bring him misery. I’m texting J’s mom, but she’s barely responding. She said he was asleep, and he has no idea what happened. I text her the entire story in detail, and she asks “Did you guys get in a fight or something?” She says “well I just don’t understand. None of this makes sense. The doctor will be here soon and hopefully he will be able to come home in a couple of hours.” I say “No! He needs treatment. He tried to kill himself. I can’t help him with this. He needs treatment.” “Well, we’ll just wait and see what the doctor says.” Any further information I received I had to pry out of her. I tried repeatedly to have her get me the number to his shop foreman. I was sure there were guns and alcohol there too, and I needed him to check for me. She never would give me the number even though I asked her three separate times. I asked her not to leave JNFIL alone with him, but she did anyway and went home to feed the dogs and let them out. She said he was three times the legal limit. Drug screen came back clean. I text “Well, something is up. He went from 0 to 60 in less than an hour. One minute he’s fine, and the next I’m prying a gun from his hand.” No response. The next morning I’m a wreck. His mom is completely nonsensical, and I can’t be there to talk to the doctor. I text MIL again “This is my husband husband, the father of my children, I need to know what’s happening.” “We’re waiting on the doctor.” I don’t trust them now to do what’s best for him, so my aunt offers to go on my behalf.So my aunt is in the hospital room with J, JNILs, and the doctor, and the ILs are not happy about it. The doctor is discussing treatment options (honestly, at this point he had his decision made, I think he was just humoring everyone) and asks for everyone’s opinions. JNFIL doesn’t think he needs treatment. Jesus saved him from alcoholism and Jesus will do the same for J. JNMIL thinks he just needs marriage counseling. Then my aunt asks for permission to speak. She tells J that I love him, and I will do everything I can to support him, but that he can’t come back home until he seeks treatment. I have to protect my kids and right now he is a danger to them. J agrees, the doctor agrees, the ILs are pissed. The doctor orders him to a treatment facility for 5 days. My aunt comes home and tells me everything that was said. Now I’m even more mad, and so are his parents because they didn’t get their way.They finally gave J his phone back and he called me. There was a lot of crying from both of us. He remembered nothing, except walking out and seeing three red dots on his chest. He didn’t even know he had tried to kill himself for the longest and his parents had told him it was all a big misunderstanding. He told me he had skipped his anti-depressants because he hadn’t had a chance to get them filled, and he had been drinking all day but he didn’t know how it all went so bad. He said his dad had brought their preacher to the hospital room to pray over J, and then the man spent the next hour telling J how wonderful and good of Christian man his dad was. This, the man who physically and mentally abused him his entire life. The man who once tried to kill him as a child. The man who spent his entire adult life degrading his son, is the most amazing Christian. J couldn’t speak. He was so hung over, and physically and mentally disgusted he couldn’t speak. He gave me his shop foreman’s number and permission to tell him everything that was going on. We got off the phone, and I waited to hear more news of when he would leave for treatment.Hours later J calls and asks to pack him some clothes, he will be leaving soon and his parents will swing by to pick it up. I get a text from JNMIL. “The car is here to take him to treatment. We need his phone charger and his CPAP machine.” “Are you sure they will let him have that? They won’t even let them have shoe strings.” “CPAP yes. Charger no” was my only response. Thirty minutes later they show up. My mom, my Dad, and Stepmom are here as support because I know things are about to be bad. FIL walks in, ignores anyone who speaks to him, grabs the luggage and walks out. JNMIL comes to me in the bed (I can still barely move or breath from the pain). She’s crying. I ask her why they are mad at me. “We’re not mad at you” she says. Then FIL comes back in and yells “MIL! LETS GO!” I say “See!” She tries again to say they’re not mad, but he stands outside my bedroom door and yells “I just want to know why y’all didn’t call me first instead of the police!” My mom lost it! She’s crying and telling him we just saved his sons life! How dare he! He has no idea what we all just went through! “Y’all should have called me!” As if WE are the reason everything went so bad. I yell “Not everything is about you, FIL! You want to know why I didn’t call you first?!? Because as soon as the Captain said J was asking for you, my immediate thought was that he wanted you here so he could kill himself in front of you! And I was right! That was his plan! THAT’s why I didn’t call you, FIL! You are the last person on earth I would ever call in that situation.” He turned so red! He was livid. He yelled “I guess I’m just the asshole then!” I yelled back “That! That is the same crap your son does when he’s drunk! Wonder where he gets that from!” He yells “Fine! I’m dead to you! You’ll never lay eyes on me again! MIL! LETS GO!” They leave, and I’m shaking. I’m shaking now even writing it. Everyone else is in shock that he finally showed his true colors in front of them. They had heard stories but had never seen it in person. Not one word from them about me or how I was doing. Not one question about their grandchildren who had just had their lives upended. Only why HE wasn’t called to save the day. This is about 5:30pm and I hear nothing else from anyone that night. All I know is the name of the facility he went to.The next morning, I call the facility to try to talk to him, and am told I need a patient number in order to speak with him, and that without it I’m out of luck. They won’t even tell me whether or not he’s there. I am devastated, and sobbing hysterically. My aunt calls MIL to get the number and she was rude to her, but eventually texts me with it. They weren’t going to tell me. It was 14 hours later. They had plenty of time to give me that info but they kept it from me. I finally get to speak to him. I tell him some bad things are happening with his parents, but don’t go into detail because I don’t want to upset him anymore than he already is. He tells me when they brought him his bag, they asked him what they had done so wrong. He told them this wasn’t the time, so his dad gave him the same “dead to you” lines he gave me, and they left. He also told me that his dad had instructed the hospital staff to let NO ONE in the room once they left that night. They didn’t know how bad off I was at home, so they were just trying to make sure I couldn’t see him.He goes through his five days of treatment. Gets his meds regulated, and is released with extensive follow up therapy sessions and psychiatrist appointments. Once he gets home, and we start piecing things together from everyone, we hear what the ILs have been up to these last few days. I still hadn’t told him everything that happened between myself and the ILs because I didn’t even know how to at that point. We find out they lied to his brothers. They said it was all a misunderstanding, that J had legal matters to take care of and had gone to live with his best friend for a while. They called his shop foreman with this same story, and said they were going to come run the shop in his absence. Shop Foreman knew better. He knew J would never allow his father’s hands in his business, and he held them at bay. He had hinted at this to me when I had spoken to him, but said he was taking care of things and not to worry, and to take care of myself and my kids. They tried to come to see him on the one visitor day at the treatment facility, but I was there already and J turned them away. They left some things for him including shaving cream and a razor. A razor y’all! It was locked away.Not only were they trying to come between our marriage, but they were trying to take over his business. They never once tried to check on me or the kids who had been with relatives since this happened. My step mom and step sister were keeping them and taking them to therapy for me. We held them out of school for several days until their therapist said it was ok for them to return. My entire family stepped up in the biggest way, and I am forever grateful. His family used this to turn against me, try to break up our marriage, take over his business, and when that didn’t work, they cut me out of the family. I haven’t spoken to them in a year and a half. J still speaks to his mom about once a month, although I can’t understand why. She acts as if nothing ever happened. She even asked once why I was upset with them, even though he had told them repeatedly how hurt I was by everything they did. He told her “You need to call her and talk to her. She is so hurt by everything that happened and you need to talk to her and apologize.” She said “I didn’t do anything. I’ll talk to God about it.” I have never heard from her.We still deal with the aftermath of all of this. After months of med changes and setbacks I finally convinced him to do genetic/medicine interaction testing, and we discovered that the medications he had been on were absolutely incompatible with him. His psychiatrist got him off of those and on others that were safe according to the genetic test. My kids are still in therapy. His business has suffered, especially since the pandemic and we are struggling financially which is an added stress he doesn’t need. He still fights the internal demons of his father and of everything he’s seen in his line of work, and although he still sees therapy as a weakness he has recently agreed to go back to therapy again. I need him to work through his family with his therapist so badly. If he doesn’t, his dad will always have control of his mind. He was always taught emotions were weakness, and was beaten for showing them as child. He has learned to hide them so well, until it all comes crashing down. I’m scared still. Scared that every interaction he allows will be detrimental to his progress. Six months later I sent a detailed email explaining everything they had done and why I was so hurt by it all. They answered back “OK”, then the next day texted J to say “We are sorry for the hurt we caused, tell her we love her and the kids”. It was very half-assed, and I don’t accept it. I have blocked the ILs in every way possible, and they have no contact with me or my children. They have yet to truly apologize or even acknowledge any wrongdoing. I am still in contact with his older brother and SIL, because they were supportive during the entire process. The younger brother helped his parents tell all the lies and never apologized, so I am NC with him also, although J still is. Several months later they blamed my aunt for all of this saying she “brought the devil into that hospital room, and drove a wedge in this family”. She was only there to act as my voice, and didn’t say anything I didn’t want her to. So I guess the real devil is me, although they never came out and said it. They also in the same conversation said that older BIL is “demon possessed”, because he no longer puts up with their bullshit.While he is much better now, he still has setbacks, especially if he forgets to take his medication. He took several months off from the fire department while seeking therapy, and adopted another dog from a local shelter who we sent through very extensive training as an emotional support animal (I’ll call him Good Boy). When he returned to the fire dept, he took Good Boy with him for several weeks until the bigwigs told him ‘no’. In the year since then, there have been 5 deaths by suicide on the fire dept and these are only the ones we know of for sure because they were his friends. Another one was recently murdered. The dept has since received grants to train emotional support animals for the Fire Dept, as suicide is quickly becoming the leading cause of death among off-duty firefighters. Administration has since contacted J about bringing Good Boy back as an official service dog for the department. IF this happens, he would receive even more training through the department’s grant, and become an official ’Big City’ firefighter with his own special vest and everything. I hope this happens, as I think it will not only be good for J, but for any others he and Good Boy would be able to help. via /r/Justnofil https://ift.tt/3346Pby
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