My 21-year-old son was diagnosed with severe mental health issues in early 2016. After 32 weeks in hospital over 12 months, plus several misdiagnoses and incorrect treatments that nearly killed him, we finally received a diagnosis that seemed to fit: a severe and unusual form of OCD exacerbated by pre-verbal trauma from the effects of extreme prematurity.

So the past few years have been difficult. Yet, on top of the huge stress of having a child in hospital for months with few answers, we noticed that many friends dropped away.

Jennie Hill and her son.

A group of women I’d been close to since our kids were in kindergarten disappeared. Some local friends I’d thought were solid went AWOL. And although a few people were kind to us and kept in contact, these tended to be those who’d had similar experiences rather than ones I’d have expected to show up. So many people were terrified of talking to or about our son, as if what he had was catching.

And then came Christmas. We spent the day at a relative’s home, and it almost defeated us. Only one person asked us (or him) how he was. He sat alone or talked to his brother and sister, and in the car on the way home a dejected voice from the back seat said, “Didn’t they know I was in hospital?” I don’t remember my reply – some platitude, probably – but I was heartbroken. Especially as there’d been deep discussions over lunch about someone else’s knee reconstruction, and other people’s health issues.