Dan admits his recent decision and there follows soul searching deliberation as well as heated arguments about what to do for the best. To access previous chapters, visit Jane Read’s Author Page.

 

Chapter 31

JANE.

 

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”  

Albert Einstein

I am busy in the kitchen preparing tea when I phone Dan to check on how the rehearsals are going, celebrating the fact that his feedback is much more positive these days. He is telling me that he’s been getting his confidence back and gets into conversation more easily now. The difference from the long stretches of time of feeling flat and lifeless is both noticeable and at the same time, slightly alarming.

“I want to be honest with you guys. I came off my meds on Wednesday.”

I stop breathing momentarily. A few seconds earlier, I’d been congratulating him on regaining his drive and finally clinching those difficult scenes in the play. I now feel paralysed by this announcement. Could three days of ceased medication really bring about such a marked change?  Had removing that antipsychotic dam released an instant surge of dopamine? I am relieved that he’s being honest and telling me what he’s done, but I’m equally petrified of what this might mean.

I know Graham is going to be so angry. For a fleeting moment I consider not telling him. The last thing I want to do is to deprive him of the calm that he is only just starting to enjoy again.  Then I think better of it. Not sharing this bombshell could lead to much bigger issues for us all, especially if it does turn out to be the start of another episode.  I find myself persuading Dan to resume his tablet-taking, maybe could he even consider taking his meds every other day from now on. He consents saying,

‘Just to reassure you Mum I am taking one now, while we’re still talking on the phone.’

‘Thankyou. I think that’s the most sensible thing to do.’ I say, realising he is doing this for me.

Part of me understands his reasons for stopping. I identify with everything he wants, the freedom and the confidence he’d enjoyed before, as well as the sharp-minded thinking and the ability to generate the vast range of emotions required of him in acting. But I also know he has just taken a big risk, and I am shocked that he has taken it, especially after everything we’ve been through. I turn cold at the thought that even now it might be too late, and he could be heading towards a relapse.

I deliver the bad news and Graham turns pale then rapidly angry, pacing around, re-iterating what he said before, that he had done everything possible to support Dan, but if he is willing to throw his future away on some impulse, he is not prepared to do it all over again. He takes the phone off me to remonstrate with Dan and to warn him of the possible consequences. He then sends an urgent email to both consultants who have been involved with Dan’s treatment over the past few months. We are fortunate to receive replies at all, but they both come back to us saying the same thing; ‘It is too early to stop!’

During the phone call, with raised voices and heightened stress levels, I go through to find Em who is sitting in the lounge. I want to explain to her what all the fuss is about, but she just looks down and says, ‘I don’t want to know’. Who can blame her?  So, we sit together and talk for a while about other things, more relevant to her life.

Tom spends a good hour on the phone to his younger brother, going over and over the medical facts, giving him a more serious talking to. But it becomes apparent that the more that people try to argue with him, the more Dan digs his heels in and fights back, saying that it is his body and his life and it has to be his decision at the end of the day, (which is true.) He is after all, twenty-one now, officially an adult, and needs to be trusted. But we also know that any negative outcome of his reckless decision will affect our lives, as seriously as his.

Graham looks defeated as he rings off. I offer to leave my job again and go to stay with Dan. Maybe I’ll be more successful in persuading him back onto the meds. Graham says that although we can’t force him to resume tablet taking, maybe with close monitoring we might be able to spot any early warning signs and act very quickly to intervene which would prevent a full-blown relapse. He is convinced that if Dan looks after his health, eats properly and avoids late nights, and alcohol as well as too much stress, he might continue to stay well. I am equally confident that because we have been so close to him throughout his illness, we will certainly see, straight away, if anything is changing and maybe we can step in to forestall another crisis. He has after all, been on his meds for a full eleven months now. Perhaps everything will be ok.

Initially, Graham goes by himself to London to stay with Dan to try and persuade him to reconsider. But it is a fraught and difficult visit, filled with rows and heartache. Graham ends up storming off in frustration after one of their arguments. Dan ends up phoning me to complain about his dad. Excited by his newfound social confidence, Dan has become more reckless than ever, staying out with friends until three in the morning. It seems that being able to enjoy life with his peers again is the most potent and addictive drug, one he wants to stay in possession of after the long, lonely months of feeling scared or feeling nothing. I am starting to doubt that going back to London so soon had been the right step for him after all. We are completely helpless. Persuading someone back onto medication once they are feeling on top of the world is a much more difficult task than continuing a regular maintenance dose.

School agree to give me three more weeks’ compassionate leave, but I know I can’t keep asking for more time off. I feel terrible about letting the kids down too.

The initial chattiness and pressured speech that Dan described to me seems to dissipate quite quickly and he behaves much more placidly when I next meet up with him, He appears stable, but still not particularly thrilled with himself, or his performances and complains again about his inability to socialise. This serves to reassure us for now, that these early changes have not escalated. Maybe he’ll be ok.

I go along with him to his next appointment with the London psychiatrist. We sit together, Dan and I, drinking plastic cups of chilled water from the blue machine in reception, while silently reading the pieces of advice on the noticeboard about drug misuse. When we are called in, Dr James ignores me completely and addresses Dan in his characteristic, business-like manner, first asking why he stopped taking his tablets then reminding him that the advice had been to sustain the dose for one to two years. I chip in to ask Dr James,

“But what does one to two years mean exactly? Because it is a bit ambiguous, don’t you think? Does it mean eighteen months perhaps?”

He continues to ignore me and looks at his laptop screen for a minute or two more and then at Dan, repeating his original question.

‘They make me tired and they make me numb.’ Dan explains. I can’t act when I’m on them and that is what I’m in training to be, an actor.’

Dr James suggested aripiprazole, a less sedating form of antipsychotic

‘To act as a ‘prophylaxis’ he says.

I am feeling irritated with him by now, partly for ignoring me, but also for using such pompous, medical jargon which does nothing to make the choices any clearer for Dan. What the hell is a ‘prophylaxis anyway?

Dan says, ‘I’m not ill. I’m feeling good, really well, much freer to be the person I want to be now that I’m not crippled by sadness and negative feelings all the time.’

Of course, the last thing I want to do is to ruin Dan’s long-awaited relief. I am just as keen for him to reach his full potential at drama school, unhindered by anything. But I also want to help him stay well, longer term, if I can. I wonder if it might be an idea for him to go ahead with the ‘Revenger’s Tragedy’ (the Jacobean play, in which he has a main part and a more complex role) then perhaps resuming his anti-psychotics after that. But again, I am merely guessing at what might work best for Dan. We have no idea what to expect. Everyone keeps stressing that it has to be his choice.

He talks about his flow of thoughts and his ability to make clear-cut decisions. He seems more ‘connected up’ somehow, as though his brain is at last ‘firing on all four cylinders’.  He finds he can enter into conversations, more easily than he has for months, he laughs more readily, but I also notice that he continues to eat well and he sleeps soundly too. Everyone tells us repeatedly, that poor sleep is one of the most important early warning signs, but by staying in his flat with him, I have first-hand evidence that he is sleeping through the night.

I return home but keep in close touch. Sometimes Rob visits Dan when he is meeting with clients in the city. One night he phones us after a particularly animated conversation with his brother.

‘I don’t want to alarm you, but I haven’t heard Dan talk this fast or this positively, since his illness last year. I realise I haven’t seen as much of Dan as you two have but I thought it was best to mention it’.

So, we find ourselves in London again for yet another long weekend with Dan, only to be reassured that he is both eating and sleeping well and remains relaxed and rational. The only question I have, if anything, is why all of his phone calls are exclusively good news. There appear to be no bad days at all anymore.  Is this realistic I wonder? My optimism leads me to think me that it might just be the contrast to the long depressive months of recovery. Worry can drive us all insane in the end and I am always reluctant to interpret things in a negative light.

But I should have listened to Rob.