By the time my younger son Christian was a teenager I had already been to the GP twice about his behaviour. My husband put it down to him being a rebellious teenager, saying he took after him. My son's thoughts were all over the place and he could not follow a reasoned argument. The GP told me he would grow out of it and that I "worry too much". At first I put it down to raging hormones. Christian would disappear for days without letting us know where he was or who he was with. When he was at home he was hostile; he wasn't sleeping much yet I couldn't get him up in the morning.
I vividly remember the moment I knew something was terribly wrong. It was pouring with rain, that relentless rain that hits the ground violently and then bounces back up again, and Christian stood in the middle of the lawn, his head hung down, his long dark hair stuck hard to his face. He didn't know what to do or where to go. The following morning I broke down at work, a friend of mine - whose brother had schizophrenia - made an emergency appointment with the GP.
She explained to the GP I'd tried everything to get my son to go to the doctors but Christian's reaction was that there was nothing wrong with him. The doctor kept saying he could not do anything unless Christian was a danger to himself or somebody else. At this point, I found the courage to tell the doctor Christian walked out in front of cars and we had to pull him back to the kerb.
I also told him a few weeks previously Christian had bought a trials bike having never had a driving lesson. Every night he'd go out on it and we were unable to stop him. One night he said "Don't stop me Mum, riding the bike blows my thoughts away for a while".
Then I told the doctor about when Christian had an accident on his motorbike. In hospital they put 16 stitches in his ankle but he was oblivious to how worried we were.
Yet again the GP repeated "unless he's a danger to himself or somebody else..." and my friend immediately interrupted him. She asked if he believed Christian was having a mental breakdown and to my amazement the doctor replied "I've no doubts at all that he is".
Raising her voice she asked how he could expect Christian to make a rational decision. Her approach worked as a few days later two social workers informed me, after 20 minutes alone with Christian, that he was very poorly and within a couple of weeks he would have been sectioned. He is six feet two inches and weighed eight stone two pounds. I could have screamed when one of the social workers said "He is very thin Mrs Wakefield, surely you noticed this?"
The next step was about to be taken - we had to make an appointment with a consultant psychiatrist. Looking back now, some 16 years on, we did not know this was only the beginning.
Georgina Wakefield is a carer for her son who has schizophrenia.
