I have decided to write about this because, although it is all very personal and was extremely stressful at the time, I would have found great comfort in reading such a story had I been able to find one on the web 6 years ago.

We are a family of four, husband Pete, daughter Gemma (now 18) and son Adam (now 16).

Six years ago, when Adam was 10 years old and still at primary school he began to suffer from severe (and I mean severe) school phobia. He had been diagnosed as severely dyslexic three years earlier and found acadmeic work challenging. However, he was a happy go lucky child most of the time, very funny and engaging, but with a tendency towards anxiety. There were no real warning signs of the difficulties we were about to face apart from a tendency for him to need to know where his sister was in the school at all times and he got very upset if he didn't know where I was also.

One evening Adam felt ill and ran a high temperature. I dosed him with Calpol and suggested he went to bed early , which he did. A few hours later he appeared to wake up but I now know he was just sleep walking/talking and he was saying some very bizarre things about other planets and telling us to stay away from him. I steered him back to bed and the next morning he seemed fine and could rememeber nothing of his previous evening's rantings. He had the rest of the day off school and then the next morning our problems began.

I took Adam to school the next day, just a short drive from our home. By now Gemma had gone to Secondary school so Adam was getting used to being at school without her but despite being fine in the car, when we approached the classroom he began to panic. He begged me not to make him go inside but I chivvied him in as mothers do and we spoke to his lovely class teacher Miss k. As I explained about his illness Adam started to back himself up against the wall and shout that he wasn't staying and no one could make him. I tried to calm him down but he bacame more upset so Miss K decided to pop into the next classroom and ask Mr R to come and help. As soon as Adan saw Miss K and Mr R standing by the door (his only escape route I guess) he picked up a pencil and declared he would stab himself if they didn't move out of the way. By now he was sobbing and shaking and saying he was going to die (full panic attack).

The teachers looked at me in horror and I asked them to move from the door and guided Adam out into the playground. i encoraged him to breath slowly and reassured him he didn't have to go back into the classroom right now.

Anyway I took him home and each day I tried to return with him, something similar happened so in desperation I booked him into the doctors. By now Adam was damaging stuff at home (climbing inside his wardrobe and kicking the sides out, grabbing a knife and slashing door frames, climbing onto the garage roof and threatening to jump) so I had plenty to tell the doctor.

I was beginning to feel really frightened by all this and very worried about Adam's mental health. My husband and I argued over whether we were somehow to blame, had we cared too much, not enough, said something damaging without realising it? and on and on.....

The doctor was very sympathetic and referred us to the child & Family Unit where we met a lovely Psychologist called Dr Finnan.

Although the doctor was lovely and trying her best to help, this was an extremely stressful time for us. Over a period of two years, Dr Finan tried to get to the root cause of Adam's problems (but there didn't really appear to be one - apart from his dyslexia and anxiety about being able to cope in the next school) and ended up putting him on Prozac to cut the anxiety levels.

It was a hard decision to make with regards to the medication, but by now Adam was tryig to harm himself at home, I was struggling to hold down a part-time teaching job and we couldn't bear to see him so distressed so we agreed to give it a try (afterall we couldn't go on like this and neither could he).

Initially the prozac calmed him down and he began to reveal glimpses of the old Adam again. The self harming attempts stopped but getting him into school was still a nightmare. We would go and park in the school carpark and a lovely school assistant would take him to the reception class ( he didn't feel trapped when in with that teacher and the little ones) but he had to be able to see us in the carpark the whole time he was in school or he wouldn't stay. My parents, Pete and I all did shifts in that carpark whilst trying to hold down our jobs - a nightmare time!

We somehow managed to struggle to the end of the academic year and thus marked the changeover to secondary school. Although the staff at the primary school had been good in trying to help, I think they were relieved to pass the problem on.

That summer was great, Adam was still on medication but without the danger of being made to go into school each day, the real Adam began to emerge again. We began to relax and talk very positively about the next school. Adam even excitedly came and chose his uniform.

Now we asked ourselves lots of questions at this time and beat ourselves up continually about what had happened, how could we have prevented it or handled it better? etc but the bottom line is that we were so stressed that the pressure on us was huge and we tried really hard for Adam not to see that stress but we were so fearful for him and his future.

He bagan secondary school (still on prozac) and for a whole half-term he seemed to cope well and went off with his friends (ashort walk to school) each day. Then we had half term hols and there was no way he was going back to school afterwards.

Very quickly he plummeted back down to where he had been before, self harming, damaging our home, foul language etc. The nightmare had returned so.... the Dr upped the dose of prozac.

This didn't seem to have much effect and daily I would try to get Adam into school, occasionally succeeding but more often failing, whilst still trying to do my job as a dyslexia support teacher at a local private school.

The doctor looked at all sorts of conditions, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Autism .....but she felt none of them were really a good 'fit' for Adam. He was referred to Birmingham childrens hospital, now on the highest dose of prozac he could be on for his age, and they suggested he stay on their children's mental health ward for 4 weeks for them to observe him.

We went home and discussed this and after a great deal of consternation, decided to wean him off the prozac, remove him from school completely (as the school had been suggesting) and teach him at home. I resigned and we put his hospital admission 'on hold' for now.

This was a brave step for us (Pete particularly who believed a child needed to be in school or else what would happen to him in later life?) but I joined Education Otherwise and found some local home educators to talk to. It seems Adam's story is not that unusual - particularly amongst dyslexic/ADHD/Aspergers children!

I can't say this was a magical solution and everything was suddenly fine because it wasn't. IWe had to wean Adam off the prozac very slowly as he suffered some side effects and he took a long time to believe we weren't ever going to amke him go back to school again. He didn't like being taught by me and we had many battles. He didn't enjoy mixing with the other home ed kids at social functions and we worried about 'socialisation skills'. I missed my job and we struggled for money.

But slowly, very slowly, Adam began to 'get better'. He came off prozac, started sleeping better (up until this point he had been on melatonin tablets to help him sleep) and stopped much of the negative behaviour of the previous 2 years. He was still inclined to angry outbursts, couldn't stay away from home and needed to know where I was all the time. We cancelled the hospital appointment.

Between the ages of 12 and 16 my son has emerged into an amazingly talented Boogie Woogie Pianist, a gifted mechanic and one of the most mature and well-socialised teenagers you could hope to meet. He is due to start his apprenticeship at the local Subaru garage next week (despite having no formal qualifications he beat 200 other teenagers to secure the position), has appeared on stage at the International Boogie Woogie festival and is regularly asked to perform at weddings/events and has just passed his motorbike test so has freedom!

What's more he loves the freedom! He can stay anywhere by himself now, has mature conversations with adults and peers alike, has a large group of friends (all local) and thinks of himself as an adult. In fact, he feels that he was an 'adult in waiting' all his life. He didn't like being a child. He didn't like having little control over events and he certainly didn't like having to wait so long to learn to drive!

We are just immensely relieved that our son has become such a superstar and we are very proud of him!

If I can offer any advice or support to someone going through a similar exerience I will - please just email me: nikkiuglow@hotmail.co.uk

If you found my hub interesting and/or helpful please leave a comment below.

Thank you.