AIO to my nephew’s girlfriends response about his mental health crisis?
UPDATE: My nephew made it home, safe sound and in one piece. My husband called me to tell me he’s home, and yes. There is something wrong. He hasn’t gone into detail, and we don’t want to push. I want him to tell me on his terms, but have stressed we are worried about him, and love him very much. Right now I am just thankful and relieved he is home and safe. Thank you for your words and your encouragement that I was NOR. I feel a lot better now, and less panicked with him out just running around. Thank you all again.
(TW: mentions of blood and self harm, as well as potential mental health crisis)
This literally just happened less than an hour ago, and I’m at a doctors appointment worrying myself sick and asking if I’m the asshole or if I’m over reacting here.
My husbands nephew lives with us in our house. He has a history of mental issues ( suicidal, lack of serotonin, struggles with identity, etc.) so while we give him his space to be and live his own life, we do check in with him to make sure all is good.
Earlier in the week we were discussing how he had a job interview, and possibly starting new said job within that week. Prospects seemed good, and lately he’s had a rough go of it with his mom going off the rails. They used to be close, but she emotionally manipulates him to get what she wants. She also doesn’t respect his decisions or life choices, and constantly misgenders his girlfriend (who is trans). Without telling him to cut ties with her, we’ve expressed boundaries might be healthy.
Anyway, the past few weeks I’ve been frustrated with the lack of initiative to do his chores around the house. I’ve expressed this to my husband, who had a gentle chat with him on Wednesday night. While he was quiet, like he normally is, my husband asked if there was anything going on that might be affecting his clarity or his abilities to do his chores. All he said was he was “going through something” and wouldn’t go any further.
Jump forward to today, I had come home early from work for said doctors appointment. Today is his day to do dishes, and I noticed they weren’t touched. I just went ahead and did them myself, and started to vacuum our rugs in the kitchen. As I was doing this, I heard sounds coming from his room upstairs. It sounded like someone breaking down things and hitting/banging them against the walls, his bed, anything he could. I thought he maybe dropped something or was rearranging his room, and didn’t think much of it. Not even 5 minutes later, I hear loud intense sobbing, followed by what sounded like him hyperventilating. It was definitely odd, so I went to the base of the stairs to listen. It progressively turned into angry grunting; like, trying to control yourself from doing something physical or something. I don’t know how to describe it, but it just sounded distressing to me. It sounded like he was in pain or having a breakdown of some kind.
I was in the middle of texting my husband about this, when I heard the sound of glass shattering, and it scared me. My dog was upstairs laying on the carpet and it spooked her too. I’m frantically typing to him now, explaining everything up to this point when our nephew opens his door and comes downstairs. I asked him what was wrong, he said “nothing”. It was clearly not nothing, and I said as much. I told him that I heard all the banging and the glass shattering, and if something is wrong, he really needs to tell me. But while I’m expressing this, he’s almost catatonic. Staring straight ahead, as if I’m background noise and not even acknowledging I’m speaking to him. As he grabbed the broom and turned around, I noticed there was blood all over the side of his face and neck, starting at his hairline.
I panicked and basically said, “seriously what the fuck is wrong?? Your face is covered in blood.” I should have been more gentle, but the amount of blood just pouring down the side of his face was alarming to me. He acted like it was nothing, like I’m overreacting. I got upset and as he walked back up to his room, I called my husband to explain everything. He tells me he’ll call and talk to him. I’m talking to my grandfather about it, as my husband is talking to him on the phone, when I hear the back door swing open. I ran out to the porch to find him hopping the fence. I asked what he was doing, and he just said, “going for a walk”. Like it was normal.
I went to his room to look for signs of anything that might be a clue (literally just opened the door and glanced in) and saw nothing but a half empty bottle of Hennessy, which isn’t like him to have. He drinks on occasion, but doesn’t hoard liquor and down it. I also don’t know if he consumed any of that today or what, so I can’t assume.
At this point, I’m really panicking and I feel helpless. I don’t want to upset him, but I feel uncomfortable with him leaving in the state he’s in. I also cannot just stop him, he’s 22. As a last resort, I texted his girlfriend, clearly distressed and explained everything that had just happened. She only responded with,
“i talked to him and he seemed actually in a decent mood, i think there might have been a series of misunderstandings but i told him to talk to you”
Kindly… are you fucking kidding me?
Now I feel like I’m crazy and I’ve overreacted to something so minimal by the response, but he literally was covered in blood and smashed something that was glass in his room. I watched him clean it up and throw it away. I know the sounds I heard. And now, he’s just out and nobody knows where he went or where he’s going. I’m not going to lie, her response to the entire text I sent just pissed me off and makes me feel like I’m making a big deal out of nothing or that I’m crazy and didn’t see and hear what I did.
How could any of that been a misunderstanding? Am I reading too much into it? Am I overreacting to this entire situation? Because now I feel guilty he just left and I can’t locate him or anything. My husband texted me and said he’s worried too, but I’m seriously just at a loss and don’t know if Ive overreacted to this or her response is abnormal?
Thanks in advance for any advice and thoughts.