My childhood best friend was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and he committed a brutal murder.

I remained in touch with him and spoke to him on a regular basis and visited him in the mental institution.

I was shocked to find out that for a long time I was the only one who spoke to him apart from his father.

I faced a lot of criticism for staying in touch.

People couldn’t understand why I wanted to talk to him after what he had done; I became ‘the one who is friends with a murderer’.

But he was my friend for so long I couldn’t not talk to him and find out why it came to the murder.

He had suffered in silence for most of his life.

And what I had dismissed as shyness and depression was in fact voices only he could hear.

I wrote a book about it ‘Solacium’.

I initially wrote the story down as a way of self-therapy to deal with the shock and insomnia I developed as a consequence, but I now feel I owe it to my friend to make his struggle known.

I hope my book not only provides a glimpse into the tortured mind of a paranoid schizophrenic but also manages to portray him from a different angle than the one chosen by the media at the time.

Not a crazed, bloodthirsty monster but a sensitive boy who was dealt the wrong cards and battled his whole life to find a place in a society that still stigmatises mental illness.

According to recent studies, a quarter of the population in the UK is likely to develop some form of mental health problem over the course of a year.

And with the NHS continuously cutting funding into the health support sector, I believe it is important to raise awareness and foster better understanding to ultimately provide better care to those who suffer.

Here’s the link to the book.

By Sarah

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