Karen's story
My story spans around 2 years although it feels longer, so details of events are still fresh in my mind.
My son Zak has always been a quiet, kind, placid person who managed at school and was a good skier and swimmer. At the time I did not think there was anything wrong, but looking back, he had problems socially from adolescence.
Things went obviously wrong in 2nd year at college, when he was about 18. We put it down to a late rebellion. The kind of changes we noticed were poor attendance at school, inability to focus and mood swings. He barely managed to complete high school. Then there was a car accident that we could never get to the bottom of, when he walked home at night 4 miles in the freezing cold and bare foot. This seemed to trigger other changes. There were a series of kitchen jobs, each only lasting a few weeks at the most. He said that he was “being poisoned” by fumes from the dishwasher or chemicals he was using.
In those early months I felt deep down that I was "heading for a storm", something was wrong but I didn’t know what.
We thought that he perhaps needed a break and supported him on a backpack trip with friends to Central America. A week later on the trip he had a major breakdown and for a while became officially a missing person. That night became one of many "worst nights of my life". With the help of the High Commission he was tracked coming back the 4000 miles to the UK. He was obviously ill and referred by an insightful GP to care of mental health services.
Over the next 6 weeks he became increasingly withdrawn and hostile towards us. Sometimes he would live in the garden summerhouse, was very distressed, and in a world of his own. He was using cannabis and never touched TV, computer or music - things he used to love doing.
The brand new Early Intervention team visited Zak but he wasn’t very interested. Basically he refused input and eventually he was sectioned for 28 days. That was the start of a long, painful uphill climb for all of us.
