Christmas Eve

It's Christmas, how's everyone doing? Attitudes good?

In our house Kyle has NOT been doing well. He is not working, so has no money for Christmas. He has no transportation to get anywhere, and I doubt his girlfriend will take him to sell plasma for gifts (it's rumored he's done this before). And he is SUCH a generous person it really hurts him when he can't give the way he'd like to give. No matter how many times we tell him it really does not matter to us, that we just want HIM there with us, it doesn't help. He still gets angry and manic. That's not pleasant when that happens.

2 evenings ago, he went over the edge. This doesn't happen often anymore, but when it does it's awful. He was banging things, slamming doors, yelling obscenities, screaming, and so forth. He finally went outside and started screaming the "F" word at the top of his lungs.

When Kyle gets this way, I'm better off just walking away. If I try to confront him, he turns on me and either verbally hammers me, or gets in my face. This has been the source of the few physical confrontations we've had in the past. But when he's outside screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs, there was nothing else I could do.

I went outside and told him to keep quiet. He went off on me.
"Oh, right. Good talk. Good weekly talk with me. Give me more wisdom. Good talk."
I said "Kyle, the neighborbors don't want to hear this."
He said "No YOU don't want the neighbors to hear this!"
I told him "Nobody wants to hear this."

Then showing significant restraint, I turned and walked back inside. Pre-medication I would not have been able to walk away from this. He did shut up after that, thank goodness.

This is not a unusual exchange, it happens every month or so. But this time was unusual in that Kyle came up to me and apologized a few hours later. He has NEVER done that of his own accord. I think my wife may have had something to do with this, but it doesn't matter. He never does this.

Even given this, he STILL refuses to stay on his meds. We're not going to be able to tolerate this forever.

But given all this, it will be a wonderful Christmas if Kyle is there and in a good mood. He adds SO much to our family. I'm looking forward to our Christmas Eve celebration.