Fathers of sons

No one who has not experienced something similar to what our family has experienced, will understand everything I am trying to say. 

I am married and have three children. My son Andreas was very well-behaved and quiet as a child, perhaps a little too quiet and unemotional in retrospect. But with puberty everything changed abruptly. His school performance got worse and worse, if he even got up to go to school at all. He became loud, aggressive and often didn't come home for days. At first my wife and I thought he was on drugs or involved in crime. 

The situation escalated and he became violent. He beat up my wife and his siblings. After an argument with me, he hit me so hard that I ended up with fractures in my face. So I threw him out of our apartment and told him to go and live with my father, his grandfather. Then the unthinkable happened: he beat up my father so badly that he had to be taken to hospital. The neighbours called the police and he was taken to a secure psychiatric ward. He was 18 at the time.

On the psychiatric ward he was calm, dressed in black as always, with a hoodie. The doctors didn't know what to do with him and considered discharging him. However, my father's injuries were too severe and he was reported.

In the end, he was admitted to forensic psychiatry, and that was his best luck. There, a psychiatrist spent a lot of time with him and eventually diagnosed him with severe juvenile schizophrenia. It turned out that he not only heard imperative voices, but also had visual hallucinations.

When the psychiatrist explained the illness to me, I cried for hours. I was sad that my son had this condition, but also ashamed and hurt that we hadn't noticed it for so long. 

He was given the right medication, and received psychotherapy and psychoeducation. He has greeted us with a smile for years now! My wife and I were so relieved. He spent a year and a half in the forensic ward, then in various rehabilitation centres, and still lives in a shared flat. As part of a programme, he was able to complete a professional training as a gardener, which he really enjoys because it allows him to be in nature. He still finds it difficult to interact with people, but we, his family, understand and support him wherever we can.

I am very proud of Andreas and happy that we have made it through the hardest time, which was before he received the diagnosis in the forensic unit. I don't know what the future holds. I hope that there will be many happy moments, that the family will be strong and that other mentally ill people will also find such great psychiatrists.