Sunday, May 30^th 2010

Joshua came home about 6pm. As he came to the door I could see through the window he was upset. It happens a lot now – and it’s becoming very difficult to cope with. He went straight to the kitchen; I assumed he was getting a drink. I went up to the bathroom and came back down to hear him rattling round in the drawers and cupboards. I went out there to see what he was looking for, and what I saw made me numb inside. My baby was shovelling handfuls of tablets into his mouth and washing them down with toilet bleach. He was retching between swallows. He wants to end his life, and tells me so. Panic stricken, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to take the pills out of his hands, but he grabbed them straight back and shoved me away. He is so much bigger than me; I felt we were going to end up in a fist fight, slapping and snatching. He ran upstairs and shut himself in the bathroom bolting the door, crying, screaming.  I felt powerless and very scared. I could hear him drinking more bleach the other side of the door. I called Dave, who came shortly afterwards with Ethan. Dave dialled 999 and tried to coax Josh out.  

I opened the front door and waited on the step, hoping and praying that the ambulance would turn into the street. The neighbours curtains twitching, they were wondering what was going on. We are the last house in the road. They must be curious, but I felt them watching and waiting.  I turned to see Ethan stood at the foot of the stairs not saying a word, he knew what was happening. He is a 10 year old child, how do we explain this? Tears brimming in his huge eyes, then spilling out and rolling down his face, but unable to speak, his eyes said it all.  I will never forget that, it’s imprinted in my head. The sirens were getting closer and I hoped they were for us. The Police and Paramedics duly turned up.  Due to the circumstances expressed in the emergency phone call, the volatile nature, the recent history, the Police had to be present as the Paramedics do not wear stab vests or any protection. That felt harsh. They took us to the Hospital in Reading.

After a long wait we saw a doctor, they put Joshua on the Clinical Decision Unit. Some of the tablets he took can induce an irregular heartbeat, or worse still a heart attack. Among the mixture he took were ibuprofen, cold remedies, painkillers and anti depressants prescribed by the GP 6 months before. At that point he had become quite down which was unlike him, and although we felt the GP didn’t take our concerns seriously, he wrote a prescription for anti depressant pills. He took them for a day or two, but as there was no immediate effect, these things take time to get into the system; he decided that tablets were not for him and put them away.  He was wired up to machinery, and being monitored all night. We left the hospital after midnight exhausted, as he was ready for sleep, hoping, praying even, that they get him well.