Today I asked for the torment to stop.

You see – I have bad days too. You read the posts on this site and you might think – she’s cracked it. She doesn’t have to deal with this crap any more.

No. It’s still happening.

Yes – I’ve got all these wonderful strategies and they help me keep going. But this is all a process. And I get difficult days and waves of emotion. I’m still very human and my situation remains challenging.

Perhaps the defining thing about my situation is that my beautiful son is dual-diagnosis. He has a mental illness as well as drug addiction. He has been in and out of NHS psychiatric wards since January 2011, when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

I will write more posts in future, filling in the gaps about all the past history of our situation. There’s a lot. It’s complicated. And it’s going to take time to fill in those gaps.

So last night I was achingly tired after the meeting the previous day with the forensic psychiatrist and his team. My emotions came right up to the surface and I cried for my son, incarcerated on a forensic ward with a 30-foot high wire fence round it. It has been 11 months since he came back from rehab in the US (against the professionals’ advice), and throughout that time, we have had to practise Tough Love and not see him.

The Psych told us our son was distressed at our not visiting him and that our Tough Love approach was not going to change his mind about returning to the US for treatment. So since that meeting yesterday, I’ve pictured him feeling alone and deserted, despairing, in anguish.

He has of course had choices. He could have rung our counsellor or his sober companion friend.

But he has been lonely for so long. No friends – all gone. One very kind school friend reached out but my son pushed him away.

And tonight I feel so bereft, I miss my son desperately.

What wouldn’t I give to be released from this? Today was another ward, another meeting with a psychiatrist and team (albeit a forensic one, which was new to us). I felt like an exhibit with so many eyes on me and under the scrutiny of their gaze. Although I know they are doing their level best to help my son.

I’ve been to so many ward meetings with psychiatrists. But today, for whatever reason, I feel a tiredness that sleep will not dissolve. It’s a tiredness in my soul.

And I just want the torment to stop.