The Latest Visit

This afternoon, Mary and I had our second visit with Patrick since he began his stay at a treatment facility an hour from our home. Patrick extended the invitation Monday and we were thrilled that he did.

He is in a lock-down unit. In order to enter the facility, we speak to security personnel and then sign in at a common register. When the appointment time arrived, we were greeted by Patrick’s new social worker. (He elected to replace his last one. It isn’t entirely clear why, but the impression is that he feared that she was in cahoots with us somehow.)

Once we are settled into the locked conference room, she retreated to escort Patrick in to join us. His continued disheveled appearance is a consequence of his spiritual beliefs, so he claimed when we last met. He wore the sweats that the facility provided. There is no sign of the clothes we dropped off last visit.

We greeted one another and asked how he is feeling. He appeared clear-eyed and is prepared for the conversation. He claimed that he is feeling better, attending to his therapy, and taking his medication. All good signs. We stressed how important it is that he follow the doctors’ guidance and that it would be a requirement for his eventual release. He then asked his social worker about the conditions of his release. She explained that she can only release information to us at his direction. He stressed that he does not want any medical information released, apart from that information that we would need upon his release. He still wishes to come home.

She explained that his care team has diagnosed him with schizo-affective disorder, perhaps only schizophrenia although that remains unclear, and that in order for him to be released, symptoms, like his psychoses, would need to be reduced and his critical reasoning skills would need to increase. Patrick rejected the diagnosis and claimed that it, the treatment, and the court proceedings, instead infringe on his religious beliefs. Patrick considers certain revelations that he has received are inspired through his spiritual practice of meditation and not a condition of his mental illness. This conflict will continue to be the most challenging for us all to overcome.

Patrick firmly believes that at my direction, he was chased around the country by a cabal of Masons, leading to him ultimately being “tortured” by the police the day before we retrieved him from California. Today, he also shared with us that he believed a lifelong family friend entered our home surreptitiously and conducted spiritual warfare with him before leaving just as mysteriously. Although, he was manhandled at the hospital, when he resisted being detained, and he had any number of terrible experiences on the road, there is no reason to think that the Masonic Order was involved. Moreover, to our knowledge and our security systems record, there is no evidence that we’ve had anyone on the property uninvited.

Mary and I stressed that we will to work to bring Patrick home and help him retrieve the life he wants for himself, but that doing so can only be entertained when his medical team agrees he is ready and will necessarily include continued treatment and medication. We also asked for him to support our Guardianship/Conservatorship and described how we could help eliminate his debt and work on his standing at ASU as examples of that effort. He did not seem inclined to support it.

According to what his social worker shared, there will be a hearing on extending his stay an additional 90-days sometime next week. Currently, his care team, as well as his mother and me, intend to advocate for the extended stay. It would seem that Patrick intends to fight that too.