I got a call from a college dean—my son wasn't safe (2024)

Rarely do you get any warning signs before your world tilts on its axis and the life you built for yourself comes crashing down around you. Or maybe you do get a few random signs, but you're too busy focusing on other seemingly more important things to pay attention to the few wayward omens that could mean something or nothing at all.

The words that tilted my world came from the dean at my son's college. She called and said, "You need to get here as soon as possible. We are having a problem with Dre."

As a parent, getting a call from a college dean who straight up begins with something along the lines of, "We are having a problem with your son," is something that is extremely concerning. The dean's words jolted me into action.

I called Dre's father, my ex-husband, and explained the situation to him. I told him that we needed to drive up to Maine asap. My heart was racing so fast it felt like it would fly out of my chest. As I was throwing clothes in a bag, my oldest daughter, who lived in LA, called, crying. She wanted to know if I had spoken to Dre because he posted something on social media that sounded like he was considering suicide. My God, what was happening?!

Something was very wrong. I could feel it in my soul. Was he okay? Was the dean overreacting to something? But what about Dre's suicidal post? So many questions were spinning around in my head, making me want to scream.

At that moment, his father called me, and we compared notes about where we were on the highway and our respective ETAs. We had both been trying to call Dre, and his phone kept going to voice mail. I called him again, and thank God he picked up. I merged the call with his dad, and we both talked to him to find out what was going on. The voice that answered back was Dre... but it wasn't Dre.

He was convinced that the government was listening in on our phone call, so he was practically whispering so no one could overhear. At first, I didn't recognize the extreme paranoia. I kept saying, "No, they're not. What are you talking about?"

Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted to cry. I needed to pull over and catch my breath. But all I could think about was getting to him. So, I kept driving at 105 miles an hour. I had three more hours to drive, and it felt like I'd never get there. We kept him on the phone for most of the drive and listened to his mind racing from one random thought to the next.

"They're listening to us right now! To this call! Do you understand?! They can hear everything we say! They're spying on us. It's the government. They're spying!!" he yelled hysterically.

"Why do you think zebras have stripes? Huh? Why?! Do you even know?! Leaves fall from the trees in the forest, and we don't even know how many. Do you know!? Do you know, Mom?!" My mind and body wanted to collapse, but I knew I had to stay strong. What is happening to my son? Oh my God, please give me strength.

I tried to talk to him as calmly as possible to ease his mind. I convinced him to relax and assured him that everything would be okay. Eventually, he somewhat calmed down and said, "My phone is dying."

He couldn't charge it at the time because he was sitting in his car. Eventually, the phone cut off mid-sentence. I tried to keep myself calm, reminding myself that everything was alright, that he would charge his phone, and when he called us back, he would be fine.

For that one hour without any contact, I was frantic and mentally exhausted trying to think what was happening, what he was doing, where he went, and who might be hurting him.

The silence in my car was so deafening I could almost feel it crushing me, and I had to force myself not to crumble under its weight. All the while, intrusive thoughts forced their way into my head and made me pray even harder that nothing awful had happened.

After a few days, the attending psychiatrist called a family meeting after he'd met with Dre and made his assessment. Dre was diagnosed with bipolar-schizoaffective, which means he has extreme mood swings from depression to mania, and he also has the extreme paranoia more typical of people with schizophrenia.

I was somewhat familiar with bipolar disorder because I'd done some research when I became convinced that my mother was bipolar. But Dre's symptoms were much more severe than my mother's. The schizoaffective aspect added an entirely different element. I was devastated by the news, but at that point, I was not surprised.

Later that night, when all was quiet and I had a chance to think, I thought about what it would take for Dre to get better. I was so optimistic. I knew he was capable of managing this illness; he just needed time to let the medication run through his body. According to the doctor, that usually takes about 30 days. All I could see in terms of the impact on Dre's future was the next 30 days.

I will never know what the actual trigger was because our children deal with so much that is unbeknown to us. This is only heightened for the younger generation as they have much greater opportunities through their phones and social media to be exposed to things we may have no idea about. But I still replayed almost every memory of his childhood to figure out how this could have happened.

I braced myself for a new normal: living with a son with a mental health condition.

This is an adapted excerpt from author, Medina Jett's book, Peace Be Still: Navigating My Son's Bipolar Disorder.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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