When I reached Loch Lomond I had coffee, lunch, went for a walk. I took up my diary once more.
“… Gathering thoughts, meaning accumulated over this past week.
That first full day in Tangy, sitting by the burn looking at the photos I’d taken of the mill, looking at all the photos I’ve taken this summer. Ez and Etta at Friar’s Crag. Jay’s wedding, Ez looking so handsome and quite the social butterfly. But something about Ez, in the sunshine on the grass on that honeyed, dreamlike day. His confidence, talkativeness. A moment looking into his eyes, his dilated pupils. That moment felt like an enormous loss, also like I’d been living under an illusion.” (From my previous post There’s a storm coming.)
Monday 29 January 2024.
Our son was at university in 2018. He’d made good friends, fallen in love with Etta and M and I loved Etta too. Ez was seeing something of the world, enjoyed gigs, music festivals, dance music and clubs. Our parenting style had been gentle, permissive, and Ez was, I think, open with us. We knew he used recreational drugs at university. But, we also knew that cocaine and ketamine had become mainstream. Student life was, of course, a different experience to that which we’d encountered years before, the trappings, the decadence. A bigger, murkier arena.
We were careful about what we told Ez. I didn’t tell him, for instance, that I’d once been interested in psychedelics as a spiritual and healing tool. Psychedelic drugs had helped me relate to people; and helped me to heal from a core wound in a way that prescribed anti-depressants or, even, talking therapy, hadn’t. Ez knew, though, that M and I had some experience, at least, of the shared, the collective euphoria, that the drug ecstasy brought about.
But that day at Jay’s wedding, I remember feeling, suddenly, worried for Ez. And separate from him. I’d held dear the unbreakable bond, connection, the family unit. That Ez was forging his own path felt bittersweet, of course, but exciting. Until that day.
To voice concerns to family and friends prompts that common response: you’ll never stop worrying about your children. I’d like to add these words: Would you like to talk about it? That’s one reason we write and read memoir, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here on Substack. To create a space for ourselves (we might write for ourselves, should always write for ourselves,) but we hope what we write and choose to share will resonate, will help.
No, we never stop worrying about our children. Yes, some of our concerns are heavier than others. In the years since Jay’s wedding, Ez has found himself in hospital because of drinking, or using coke or ketamine. M and I learned about these admissions through phone calls from Ez’s friends and girlfriends, from paramedics, nurses. On six occasions, we’ve driven the never ending miles from the countryside to the A&E in the small hours as if holding our breath.
There is line after line of distress in my diary throughout November and December last year. I wrote about Ez coming home drunk. Most recently, over Christmas, Ez went through a day of delusional parasitosis1 after a night out with friends. “Approximately eight out of ten individuals with DP have co-occurring conditions - mainly depression, followed by substance abuse and anxiety; their personal and professional lives are frequently disrupted as they are extremely distressed about their symptoms.” Days earlier, he’d put himself and us in danger; and trashed the kitchen after a night out. In both cases, we comforted him and could talk him down.
So many times we’ve believed Ez has hit rock bottom, that he’ll reach out, get the help he needs. In the past weeks, he made an appointment with his surgery, a training practice, which was cancelled because of strike action by junior doctors. He has reached out to a free NHS service offering talking therapy for “mild to moderate depression, anxiety…” but he’s cynical, hasn’t followed it up. There was a time when Ez visited his GP, who prescribed fluoxetine but did not offer any counselling. Parental intervention of an adult child is fraught with challenges, I have connected to Mind, the Mental Health charity, for support.
January 2024. Life with Ez is steadier, has been for most of the month, anyway. Ez insists he needs to take responsibility, and living here with M and I, in the countryside, isn’t helping, he says.
“I need to get my own place, Mum.”
And this past weekend, he did.
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“Delusional parasitosis (DP) is a mental disorder in which individuals have a persistent belief that they are infested with living or nonliving pathogens such as parasites, insects, or bugs, when no such infestation is present.” Online at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_parasitosis>; accessed Tuesday 30 January 2024
I read this the other day and wanted to comment because I have three sons and, as a mother, there is always a small, silent worry about them hovering in the back of my mind. But I don't know what to say - it's such a difficult situation for you and nothing I can say will change that. Sending you love, strength and hugs x
This is so complex and so difficult to navigate, Bee. My daughter is 17 and she's emerging from post viral fatigue, following Covid, and having missed the best part of the past two years she wants to go out with her friends, drinking and clubbing. I know how easily available drugs are now, and particularly ketamin, but I didn't realise that kids - my daughter's age and younger - use it when they are out as routine. It's such a difficult line between trusting our kids, knowing they will do this stuff, and knowing when it is tipping over into dangerous territory and it sounds like that's where you've been. Trips to A&E and having delusions is not good! But how do you stop him? And now he is moving out. I am so sorry you are going through this Bee and I just really hope you can find a space to continue to write this here, and your writing is powerful and heartfelt.