I was starting to see hope with Nick's video game addiction. Graduation had gone well and he had finally realized and admitted that video games were a problem.
I was hopeful, but that didn't change my hesitancy about whether or not the they'd be gone for good. We still had to get through the Christmas holidays with my family. We were spending two weeks with them before we drove out to Colorado to start the new chapter of our lives.
There were 8 of us in the house: my parents, my brother, my aunt, my grandparents, Nick, and myself. I was still fairly certain that something was going to go wrong. I had emailed my whole family before the Christmas holidays trying to tell them on what was going on with Nick. I tried to educate them as much as I could about somatic OCD. I also warned them about how his behaviour may be different than what they were used to; how he might abruptly disappear into the other room or turn down offers to do something. But I reminded them that none of it had anything to do with them.
After I did this, my aunt called me. I expected her to ask more questions, but that's not how the conversation went.
To give some context before I go on, my uncle passed away in 2013. It was hard on her. It was the first death of a close family member I had dealt with and so it was hard on me, too.
"Do you remember all of those times when your uncle was hospitalized when you were a kid?" she asked me. Of course I did. He was in-and-out of the hospital a handful of times when I was younger. He had multiple sclerosis, after all. Every time my parents told me he was sick in the hospital, I'd ask if we could go visit him. Every time they said no.
"It wasn't from the MS. It was because of his mental health," she told me.
I was dumbfounded. I had absolutely no idea that he had struggled mentally. And here we were, six years after his death, and I was just finding this out.
"I was afraid to come home for years because I was afraid of what I'd find," she went on.
I identified with the pain of this fear immediately. Any time I left the house to go to work or run an errand, my stomach would start to sink if he didn't text me back quickly enough. I would worry about what I'd find when I got home. Did he find the knives and scissors I had hidden? Did he find the medications? Did he get in his car and drive to a gun store? I worried about what I would come home to every single day. (Almost every time, though, it was because he was distracted with video games and therefore, wasn't texting back).
Initially, I was frustrated that I hadn't known this information sooner. Maybe there was something I could have done to help my uncle. Or maybe, in my own situation, I would have turned to my aunt sooner if I had known. But, I had to remember that I was a kid when this was happening. I didn't understand the concept of suicide or even depression. My family felt they were doing the right thing and protecting me.
Fast forward to Christmas 2019 and I was glad she was there if I needed someone to talk to.
But the truth was this: Christmas, much like graduation, went fine. We went to the gym, rented a boat on Christmas Eve, walked on the beach, spent time by the pool, and figured out how to get our Colorado chiropractic licenses. It was a great couple of weeks and video games played absolutely no part in it. You could still tell that Nick wasn't his old self, but relatively speaking to how the past few months had gone, it was great.
Although Christmas was going well, my aunt sat outside with me one morning while Nick was at the gym.
"You need to make sure you take care of yourself while you're going through this" she told me. "I can tell you're reaching your limit."
I was reaching my limit. I felt like I had already reached my limit when I hospitalized him. I didn't know how I could possibly deal with anything harder than that.
But Christmas was going well! Maybe it was a good sign! Maybe he was finally done with video games! Maybe he was finally on the right track!
Then the new year came around and it was 2020. Then we moved.
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