Why it took my son eight years to be diagnosed with schizophrenia

Family
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Somewhere between leaving the train station at Euston and arriving at Crewe to spend Christmas with his grandmother, something irreversible and terrifying happened to Sam Lowe’s brain.

As the 13.46 train pulled out that Christmas Eve, the genial, outgoing 20-year-old politics student was in effect leaving behind his sanity and travelling into the realms of fear and delusion. He arrived at his destination in a psychotic state, not knowing where he was or why he was there. He thought he was dead.

The festivities were overshadowed by his weirdness. “Sam was sleeping all day, eating all the Christmas food in the middle of the night and roaming around being a bit scary,” says his mother, Philippa.

Read the full story here:

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Near the end of the article, it says that her son lives on his own with, among other supports, a ‘personal assistant’. That is a great term, much friendlier to someone who might not fully recognize his illness than a ‘home health aide’, or something similar. I’m going to keep that in mind.