Chapter 4
Out Of The Dark
One afternoon, out of the blue, Arron told me to get all his money out of the bank, which I did. It was £1400. He got dressed, put his sunglasses, personal stereo, his coat and hood, money in his wallet and walked ot the door, saying that he was going back home to Warrington. I went to the station and watched him as he get on the train. He did keep in touch by phone this time. He came back 10 days later and was high as a kite. Arron and his Dad had another major row and everyone's nerves were shattered. My G.P. told me that if I didn't get a break I was heading for a breakdown. He said to let Arron stand on his own two feet. Let him sink or swim and the services were all in place should he sink. The atmosphere between Arron and his Dad was getting worse by the day, until finally, my Husband left to stay with friends in Warrington. I stayed behind to clear out the flat and had intentions of following later. I tried to explain to Arron that we had to break this cycle but he was out of his mind, out and about and mixing with others of a like mind. The truth is, that people fail to understand how vulnerable people are when they have problems, which are then compounded by the ignorance of Professional Services, i.e., Let him sink or swim, leave him, ignore him, make sure he takes all his medication. His new-found friends were using him as a meal ticket and his head was in the clouds.
On February, 22nd., 1996, I left to join my husband in Warrington. I felt like my heart was being torn out as we travelled up the motorway and cried all the way. After a month of phone calls, night and day, posting money for food, I went back to Eastbourne to visit, only to find Arron living in a dirty hovel and he had acquired a new friend, Heroin, for company. His door had been kicked in and all his valuables were gone. The only contact with the services was via a G.P., who had got him back on medication, which, mixed with booze and Heroin, put his head in terrible confusion.
Whatever happened to the safety net that was supposed to be in place?
Somewhere in his confusion, he must have had a brainstorm after my visit because in April, he phoned from Warrington Railway Station and asked if we would pick him up. Pick him up, we did but after the trauma of Eastbourne, we could not have him living under our roof. The only place that would help was the Salvation Army Hostel and so this became his temporary home. I visited every day with food, clean clothes and cigarettes. He was in denial at first about the Heroin but we knew! As time went on, he got arrested for shoplifting but was let off with a caution as he'd never been in trouble before. This was around the same time as he came clean and asked for help to escape the Heroin. We managed to get him on a Methadone programme, which was not an easy thing to do. He took his new medication with great caution, measuring it carefully. The relationship between us was repairing and as he had caught a bad dose of flu we let him stay with us until he got better. All credit to him, he stayed away from Heroin but Methadone has it's own agenda and is really no swap. one morning when his prescription needed collecting, he decided he wasn't going for it. It was not going to control his life anymore. He stopped taking it and, although brave, left him with mental and physical side-effects. He was sick, in a lot of pain and couldn't eat or sleep. I phoned his G.P., who said he would get a Doctor to come out and see him. The Doctor turned out to be a Psychiatrist from Winwick Hospital. He asked Arron if hew wanted to go into Hospital for a while, as a voluntary patient. Arron agreed. He was given, yet more, anti-psychotics and an appetite enhancer which made him eat everything in sight. He was putting on lots of weight. The Council gave him a flat near us, so we could be there quickly to give support when he came out of Hospital, support I had been giving him 24 hours of every day, since the day he was born!
Life had it’s ups and downs but little by little things were improving. Social Services had become involved and allocated 2 Outreach workers to help him reinvent himself and lead some kind of stabilised existence. They introduced him to a new and better social circle and encouraged him to get his life back. A dual diagnosis CPN, (Community Psychiatric Nurse), was put on his case. She visited him twice a week and helped him to face the future with a fresh outlook. Things were going reasonably well, except for his medication, which a really stupid and arrogant G.P. was doling out to him like toffees! Of course we still had the problem with alcohol. He was now on Lithium, a mood stabilizer given to people with manic depression, this was the diagnosis at the time...how they love their labels!
He changed to this particular G.P. in May, 1998 and from then on, we had problems with sleeping pills. The previous G.P. had refused point blank to give Arron sleeping pills, this one asked him if there was anything else he wanted, when they met! Problems with the neighbours were escalating with Arron staggering round on sleeping pills and brandy. He'd take a couple of Zopiclone, then some brandy, forget he'd taken them and take some more, until a month's prescription was gone in 1 night! By the time I took his dinner to him, late at night, he would be collapsed and we would need an Ambulance. Other nights, I would catch him earlier and sit with him until 5 or 6 in the morning, talking to keep him awake because I was frightened that if he went to sleep in this state, he wouldn't wake up. The neighbours complained to the Council, they in turn to the social worker, who deemed it necessary to put him on a Vulnerable Person's Register and call, multi-disciplinary meetings about him. They included, Social Services, CPN, Police Liaison Officer, Local Housing, Family Support Worker and me, his Mum. Here is some very salient information that shows the guilt of Doctor David Parkinson, now retired. This Doctor was fully aware that Arron was on a Vulnerable Person's Register!
I phoned Doctor Parkinson on more than one occasion to explain what was happening and ask him not to prescribe these tablets to Arron. He told me that Arron was a man and it really wasn't anything to do with me! After one of these overdoses, the Social Worker wrote to Doctor Parkinson and to Arron's Psychiatrist, asking that the sleeping pills be stopped. Zopliclone are short-duration sleeping pills and clear out of the system after a few hours. I phoned Doctor Parkinson one night to come out and see what a terrible state Arron was in. He refused! I was at my wits end and called the Social Services emergency-out-of-hours-number. They told me they would contact the Doctor. Doctor Parkinson then phoned me back and said he would go to Arron's at midnight but only if I met him there. I agreed. He arrived, walked in, spoke to Arron for two minutes then left, mumbling that he was fine. After he left, I phoned an Ambulance and spent the rest of the night in A & E, with Arron on a monitor! Eventually, the requests from one direction or another got through to this arrogant and stupid Doctor. The sleeping pills stopped for a while. Worse was to come! Doctor Parkinson decided to prescribe Valium for Arron, much stronger than the previous pills! The more tablets prescribed by this man, the more problems everyone else involved had to deal with. (He must have made a fortune doling out pills!).
On the other hand, the rest of the team were moving forward and the Local Authority decided they would re-house Arron again, nearer to us. Social Services had referred him to a Democratic Therapeutic Centre, which, hopefully, was a course that would help him rebuild his life and end up drug free. Arron was looking forward for the first time in years. He was now telling people, 'They're going to fix me this time. They're not going to put a plaster on it anymore.' He moved into his new flat, which he was very proud of. It was just round the corner from us and had central heating and enough space. It was the first time that he had shown any interest in where he lived. He was cleaning, hoovering and buying posters, mopping his kitchen and tidying up for himself. After all that had happened, this was so good to see...