I have been struggling since my grandma’s death in Jan. 05″, when I was 8 yrs old my moms parents (my grandparents) adopted me. So after my grandparents divorced when I was 17. I lived with my grandma because there was no way she could live by herself. We moved like 3 times around Monroe.

Now it’s 2003, and we live in a nice apt. I just got my High School Diploma, and only 2 people in my family thought it was a big deal. That was my real mom, and my grandma. So my grandma through me a party, the family was there. No one really congradulated me, I got a few cards. No money except from grandma. That was like in July.

In August, I was suicidal, and my therapist called the police on me to take me to the hospital, so I was there for 2 weeks, I got out and stopped me meds. I had never did drugs, and my friends knew that, and respected that. But I was over my friends, and they were sanding down a wall, and the guy that was living with was smoking pot out of a bong, and he asked me and I did it without thinking. So my friend turned around and said you didn’t just do what I thought you did, did you. So to prove it I did it again. So we went for our nightly 2 mile walk, and I was goofy I couldn’t stop laughing, and they laughed to, I mean I was laughing so much I almost peed my pants. So I go back the next day, and I do it again. This time it wasn’t no fun at all. I was paranoid, felt spaced out, and I became suicidal again. So I went to Ann Arbor, sat in the car awake for hrs, parked at the mall. And my therapist calls me, and begs me to go back to the hospital, so I do, while the cops are following. This time I open up more, ansd they put me on what I thought for a long time was the best med that I had ever been on. Lexapro, and it made me feel happy, more clearer, able to function, and more.

So for the longest time I had always wanted to move to Florida around the Orlando area, so I could attend a art like college, for computer animation called Full Sail. My grandma always said she would never move there, that I had to do it if I really wanted to.

A few months later, my grandma out of nowhere says to me, “If you really want to move to Florida, I will go with you.” I was so shocked, is this really true, is she playing games with me, so on. Well at the beginning of Nov. I took a trip to Florida, and a friend came with me. We did a little site seeing, went to the beach, and we looked at all kinds of Apts. I found a perfect one in Waterford Lakes area, it was near a huge shopping center, a highway, only like 2 miles from University of Central Florida College, near all kinds of resturants, low crime rate, lots of grocery stores, and the area was kind of new. I loved it instantly, so I applied, and brought what I needed back to my grandma, and she finished it, and we sent it back to Florida.

Well here comes Thanksgiving, and since all the family was going to be there, we decided to tell them our plans. My mom already knew though. So my grandma tells my Aunts. That didn’t go over to well with them, they were mad. My Aunt Sandi tried her hardest, to convice grandma not to go, but she had already made up her mind.

So we got approved after a few months for the apt. Our move in date was March 04″, so I drove down, and the huge movers truck came down to. So for 2 weeks, I had time to paint my room, unpack and move stuff around, go look around at the town, took my friend to Disney World for the day, went grocery shopping, and more. My grandma flew down like 2 weeks later, I picked her up, and we went to the apt. She loved it, and so did I. To have a dream actually come true, the sun out everyday, the most beautiful sunsets and afternoon thunderstorms (with lightning you have never seen.) rainbows daily, palm trees, warm weather, and so on. I actually felt awesome, I had a smile 24/7. The air smelled fresh, and a little like the ocean. On a clear day you could see rockets, and the shuttle take off from were we lived. I had a 2 year pass to both Universal Studios parks, for a deal of $99 dollars because of the new mummy ride, and being a Florida resident. So I got to go there any time I wanted to. It was a all new start, a place were no one knew me, and I could make changes. The only thing was I really didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t really meet any friends until my brother Jon moved down, and started working at Universal Studios. I had him, and some of his co-workers to hang out with.

But there was another thing, my grandma I thought was getting very depressed. I would have to remind her to take her meds, I had to start setting them out, I cooked sometimes for her, did wash, and so on. Then she started getting forgetful, like yelling at me because didn’t give her, her meds. When I had. She then went like 3 months with no shower, and everyone in my family knew and tried to convince her and she would say she would and then didn’t. She would tell my Aunts on the phone she hated it here, that I treated her bad, and so on. Which wasn’t true at all. So finally me and Jon take her to see a Psych. Dr., and his askes her a bunch of questions, and she said stuff that was like far off, and he decided he would call the hospital and send her to it. I went and visited, and she was so confused. Then one night me and Jon went to see her, and she said that the staff beat her up, and we ask if she had any marks or bruises, and we looked and there were none. So we talked to the staff, and they said what a hard time she was having. Then they moved her to a cancer ward but they called it something else, and I knew it was a cancer ward. I get this call one day from a social worker at the hospital, she says I need to talk to all my family and that someone needed to be a power of attorney, that something serious was wrong with her. Well instead of telling me what was wrong, I get a call from my mom, and she tells me she has some bad news that my grandma had Leukimia. So after talking to all the family my Aunt Sandy becomes my grandma’s guardian (or whatever it’s called). My Aunts fly down, and when I get to the hospital we visit grandma, go down for some lunch. We go back up, and in the hallway they tell me, “I have to tell grandma I would be okay without her”. Because they were taking her back to Michigan, to live in the same nursing home as where my Aunt worked. They said grandma didn’t want to leave me there alone, that she wanted to be with me. I was the only person whoever suck by her, through all her bi-polar episodes, sicknesses, no matter what. She told me once she never ever wanted to live in the same nursing home that my Aunt worked at because of the way she had treated her over the years, and if something happened to her, she wanted to be buried in Tazewell, Tn., next to her mother, that had already bought plots for her kids. Well I didn’t say anything to my Aunts, because they said it would be a few weeks before they would move her. So they went back home, 1 to MN. and the other back to MI. Well the next day my mom flew in, and they had moved grandma to a step down nursing ward outside of the hospital like a block from it. I talked with my mom about what they had said to me. Then we talked to the social worker, she told us grandma would never be well enough to make a plane ride back to MI. I was also told by my Aunts before they left that my grandma had 3 to 5 yrs to live, that she had Leukimia for years but it had been dormant. So my Aunt calls me while I’m with my mom and the social worker, and I tell her grandma isn’t going back to MI., she was so pissed at me. And even more that the social worker had agreed. And more mad because she thought my mom put me up to it. But I was sick of being pushed around by her anymore, and I stuck up for me and grandma. My mom stayed for about 5 days, then went back to MI. So after X-mas, I get a call from my Aunt, she tells me, that grandma had had a very bad infection, and they have tried every anti-biotic to try to get rid of it, and nothing was stopping it. That my Aunt Sandi was going to have them stop trying, and that in 7 to 10 days she was going to go septic, her body organs would start to shut down, and that she would die.

I prayed that maybe this is a joke, she will get better they will see, she will fight like she always does. We always think that the most important people in our lives will always be there, but that’s not true. So I just went on with my life, and then my Aunt Sandi flies down, and my brother and I go to se her. To this day the image of her, the way she looked, haunts my dreams, and I have flashbacks. She was swollen like 3 times her size, she was in a coma but opening her eyes, but i don’t know if she knew we were there. My Aunt says that tomorrow we are going to look at long term nursing homes in the area. So we were going to leave and go to dinner. My brother, and my Aunt went out of the room, I told them I need a second alone. I whisper in her ear and told her, “I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you know I am here. I love you, and I will be ok without you, I promise.” That night or morning at 3am, my Aunt Sandy had tried to call me, so my other Aunt called me and I finally woke up. She said, “Grandma had died”. And that Sandy was at the hospital with her, that she wanted me to come and see her, I told my Aunt I couldn’t do it. She said Sandy said,”She looked like she was at peace.” That still didn’t help me. I woke my brother up, and told him. He called work, and told them he wasn’t going in. My Aunt Sandy came over, and decided she wanted to go through the drawers, and the closet. Which I had the will, and everything belonged to me. But I didn’t want to fight with her. So she took what she wanted, and I said nothing. She comes over the next day, and decides that she is going to take my brother to Cocoa Beach, and not me, I was never asked. She said something to him. Because when he came back he was distant, and didn’t want to talk to me. so a few days later my brother and I drive back to MI, in grandma’s car. My Aunts made all the decsions, never ask me or my mom. They decided they were buring her in Mi., and no way was she going to TN. like she want to. When my Aunt was down she wanted to take grandma’s bible, and I said I wanted it. I had a plan for it, but my Aunts had told me they didn’t want to do it. So without them knowing, my mom talked to the funeral people, and after the funeral they put the bible in with my grandma. She loved her bible, it meant a lot to her. So I did what I thought she would have wanted. The funeral was so hard on me, I seemed like the only one who cried, during it. A few of my friends came in support. I didn’t set with my family during the funeral. I sat in the back, with my best friend Veronica. As she held me and I cried. I was so happy she was there for me. I went up, and said good-bye quickly to her. I never got to talk to her, or kiss her, I was afraid because she didn’t look like my grandma, she looked fake. During the whole thing my Aunt got up there and spoke, she was so full of it. Then my Uncle Don got up there, and he said something that made us laugh, and somethings we would really miss about her. We went to the cemetary, went inside the moseliem, we were there for only 10mins. My Aunts didn’t even show us were she was going to be buried. It was a sad day, and it rained very hard, to me god was weeping.

8 days later, in a hotel, I get the drunkest I ever have been, slit my wrists the deepest I had ever done. Walked drunk in the freezing cold, to see my therapist. were she instantly smelled alcohol on me and took me to the psych. ER and U of M, not knowing I had already slit my wrists, but she knew I was suicidal. When we get to the psych. ER, she finds out what I had done, and the send me to the medical ER. They have a student stitch up my left arm, which was 28 stitches. Then because I fought with him on my right, the resident Dr. came in with Security Guards tied my arms down, and she quickly removed the bandage which my arm bleed really bad, it took her what seemed like forever to get it to stop, then quickly she sewed up my right wrist with 7 stitches. Then they took me back to the Psych. ER. I was there till the next day, when around 9am they tranferred me, all the way to Havenwyck, in Aurburn Hills. For like 3 days I had no idea where I was, they had me on precautions, no groups, they were afraid of me and didn’t know what I would do. So then they let me go to the other side where everyone else is, I got to go to groups, eat meals on the unit (no choice of what you wanted), had to stand in line forever to get meds, the Doctor was a prick, and the social worker was. Some of the staff that ran the groups were ok, and I met some people that made it fun, and looked out for me. I finally got them to let me be transferred to Monroe. So they let me go with my mom, and step-dad and I had to be at Mercy Memorial in 3 hrs or the cops would be called.

So they took me to Monroe, and they admitted me. I took the meds, but was out of control. I sneaked in a razor and in the middle of the night slit my wrist, they found out, and I got stitches and put on a 1 to 1. I scratch myself raw, all up and down my arms, and when it started to heal I pulled the scaps and made it bleed. They had to put me in restraints 3 times, and give me a shot like 5 times. Then finally I stelled down, went to groups, and they let me go.

But to this day, I have the reminder on my wrists of what I did because I wanted to be with my grandma. I still luv her, miss her, cry about her. She was my mom, grandma, friend, and was always there for me no matter what I did, or said. And I did the same for her. So I was her daughter, granddaughter, her care taker, her friend, and more.

I had my family make me move back to Mi. So I moved in with my mom, and step-dad. My brother had changed, didn’t want to go back to Florida. That he had only moved there out of guilt from me. So I lost my grandma, and my dream in 3 months time.

So that will lead into Part 2 of my story…..