As I listen, I can’t believe he has been dealing with this for so long, alone. At 6pm, after an 8 hour wait the psychiatrist comes. Joshua wants me to go in with him. She seems very young, apologises for keeping us waiting, then asks what happened.  He tells her everything while I sit, watch, listen and hold his hand. All the details come out.

Two voices, either side of his head. They chat amongst themselves, and also to him. They speak in rhyme, or rap, and it’s fast. When they talk to him it’s all rather derogatory, putting him down, and making him feel worthless, useless. He likened it to a conversation overheard in the next room. The door is closed but he can hear them albeit a bit muffled. The two voices are scared of the third ‘being’.

Number three is the important one, he lives in the middle of his head, between the other two, pretty much on the crown of his head as he pointed out. He is the one that completely takes over. He can control Joshua's body movements, actions. He can see himself drinking and stuffing tablets, but he has no control, as if he is removed from his own body, it sounded like a so called out of body experience. So we are told about Number three, or as Joshua now calls him Mr Questionmark. He says that as he feels himself getting more and more anxious and paranoid when the two voices are getting louder and clearer. They take over his head, and invade his thoughts. As this progresses they are not so much behind a door, it’s as if they are behind a sheet of glass. He knows as they get louder, the pane of glass is getting thinner day by day, hour by hour, until it gets paper thin and about to shatter -  then he knows they are about to release Mr Questionmark.

He said it’s like the two voices either side are like zoo keepers. Mr Questionmark is the caged wild animal. The zoo keepers hold the key to open the cage, and when they do, and he is set free, his aim is to hurt and ultimately destroy Joshua, and anyone else in his path who tries to stop him.

 I’m a mixture of being stunned, but also proud that he said this to a complete stranger. The psychiatrist is taking it all in, making notes, and asking many questions. She asks if we have been to our GP. So I tell her that yes we did, some months ago, but was fobbed off with anti depressants. She asks if we have heard of CAMHS. Its the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, and we should have been referred there by the GP.  She starts to put things in place, makes a few calls and assured us we will get help. We should get a call tomorrow. He is shattered and needs to sleep. We went home. This is all very hard to comprehend.

Monday 14^th June

We are all exhausted today. Not so much the physical aspect, but mental I think. Brain is constantly whirring away, thinking about the conversations yesterday. I do feel we turned a corner though, and I’m hoping this is the start of getting things heading in the right direction. I’m sat on my phone all day waiting for CAMHS to call. This is who we should have been referred to several months ago by the GP when Joshua was feeling very down. It’s frustrating to think that much of this may not of happened, or even gone this far if there had been intervention some months ago. I don’t understand why we were not listened to, taken seriously. I think of the very few times that the children have been to the doctors over the years there has always been a valid reason. The hours slowly passed and we heard nothing from CAMHS so Dave started chasing them in the afternoon. Joshua got irritable as the day went on he felt that he laid his feelings bare yesterday which was really a big step, and now they have forgotten him. To be honest I feel the same too. It transpires there has been a paperwork mix up, so everything could be held up. Finally, late in the day we had a call to say that an appointment has been made to see a Dr Steve Forrest the Psychiatrist tomorrow at 3:30pm. Joshua continues to be up and down, he is strained and losing weight, he looks exhausted by it all.

No major upset or episodes of anger today, but I know he is very fragile. I'm scared.