It often happens that the right person comes along at the wrong time. It could be argued, however, that if they're truly the right person then it doesn't matter when they come along. As for the wrong person, the same applies in that if they're genuinely the wrong person, there's never a good time for them to appear. While I'd already experienced both kinds, and would continue to do so in equal measure throughout my life, the closing months of 1997 would represent the first time the right person came along at the wrong time. This person's name was Scott.

Aged seventeen at the time, in his last year of high school and ranked second highest in his graduating class, Scott was an extremely bright young man with an equally bright future ahead. Little wonder then that medicine became his chosen field. Scott first came to my attention courtesy of Warren, who mentioned how the soon to be high school graduate had been shadowing him at Harrisburg's Polyclinic Hospital a few afternoons each week. The opportunity to put a face to the name came one particular afternoon when I went to fetch Warren from work. As both men emerged from the hospital's revolving door in their matching knee length white coats and scrubs, I focussed my attention on this bright young man Warren had spoken of so often and with such high praise. His wavy brown hair, bookish glasses and shy smile rendered him instantly endearing. Something about those demure glances in my direction each time I fetched Warren from the hospital made me want to get to know him better and led me to wonder whether the feeling might actually be mutual.

Much to the chagrin of Warren, who now appeared to have an interest in Scott beyond their professional relationship, he and I began to spend time together. The death of his father when Scott was young led to him being raised by a nurturing yet depressive mother. Despite his humble beginnings and as something of an overachiever, Scott excelled in everything he did. While kind, gentle and wise beyond his years, the absence of any psychological baggage clearly distinguished Scott from Warren. Although it wouldn't be too long before an attachment developed between us, something didn't feel right within me, a sense that something was amiss and I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what it was.

Having never been a sound sleeper as a child and with an adolescent chip on my shoulder, I hadn't previously considered the link between them and the dysfunctional environment created by my parents. Prolonged stress does often effect sleep and following my strained relationship with Warren and the deaths of Kyle and the Princess of Wales, the gradual deterioration in the quality of my sleep would in turn affect my mood. Once again, I wouldn't consider the obvious link between recent events and my body's responses and instead I began to wonder what was wrong with me. There was something wrong with me but I didn't know what. Yet, I knew how popular culture reinforced the view that if you have a problem, there's a pill for it. Well, the pill for this kind of problem could be found in our bathroom cupboard concealed in boxes with a picture on the front reminiscent of an Edvard Munch painting.

Exactly when those oblong-shaped devils appeared in the bathroom cupboard, I couldn't say. I suspect they'd been there for a while before I'd taken sufficient notice of the intriguing image on the box to wonder what they were for. Appearing hand-drawn, the box featured a picture of a smiling figure bending to one side and stretching their arms aloft below the name of Serzone. In response to my question as to what they were for, Warren explained they were a type of anti-depressant designed to increase serotonin levels and improve mood, emotion and sleep. Furthermore, Warren revealed he'd been taking them for a while along with similar types before that. With my disclosure of the continued difficulty I'd been having with sleep and mood, I asked Warren if it would be appropriate for me to take them. He replied that as these were samples provided by pharmaceutical reps and in such ready supply, I should take some and see if they made a difference.

So, for the first time in my life I found myself taking anti-depressants. Warren advised me that I'd feel worse before I felt better and that as it'd take approximately four to six weeks for the tablets to take effect, to ensure I kept taking them. He was partially right, in so far as they did make me feel worse before I felt better and that within four weeks or so I did indeed begin to feel better. However, I didn't realise then how taking anti-depressants would turn into a perpetual game of cat and mouse as their good effects, such as they were, would be short lived and were not without their side effects. Regrettably, the one who'd end up bearing the brunt of them was a thoroughly innocent and somewhat unprepared seventeen-year-old boy.

While his mother's depression had giving him some insight into the condition, Scott hadn't been involved with her management of it to the same extent he would attempt to be with mine. He knew enough about the potential positive effects of anti-depressants to understand that they work best when used in conjunction with talking therapies. By now being far too tightly gripped by what I'd come to realise was my own depression, I felt incapable of opening up to anybody, even Scott himself, who lamented how I'd suddenly stopped expressing my love for him.

Of course, he was right, and the reason being that I'd gradually lost the ability to feel anything, be it happiness, love, hunger, a desire for sex, the ability to see the world in colour instead of black and white, or simply the feeling of being alive. Like a house plunged into darkness except for that one light which flickered feebly in its attempt to remain alight, my brain felt as though it were shutting down. My choice by then appeared to be between one of two states, a synthetic existence courtesy of Serzone and its ilk, or discontinuing their use and sinking into the depths of absolute despair with no way of knowing how to bring myself back to the surface. Staying on them meant a period of fragile stability which eventually waned with each increase in dosage. Coming off them meant consigning myself to a state of perpetual numbness characterised by a lack of motivation and self imposed isolation. Either way meant a sense of disconnection from myself to say nothing of those around me.

While the right people come along at the wrong time, the same could be said for opportunities. Although the syllabi at HACC was not particularly exacting, I hadn't been in formal education for eleven years. Therefore, I didn't expect to attain the kind of grades during my year there which enabled me to secure a full scholarship to one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the region. While my move to Dickinson College in Carlisle in August, 1998, meant leaving Warren and Dee Dee for good, I'd not be alone following Scott's decision to join me there. During the first semester of our freshman year we shared a dorm together. What seemed like a good idea at the time soon proved disastrous as we appeared to incubate the effects of my depression on our relationship and left ourselves with no safe space in which to find relief.

Compounding the tension building between us, prior to our arrival at Dickinson I switched to one particular anti-depressant following which I'd experience the worst side effects of any I'd taken so far. As usual, Scott had to bear the brunt, which ran the gamut from reaching out to him one minute to pushing him away the next. Among the most trying moments for him must've been my angry outbursts for the most trivial of reasons and without any wrongdoing on his part. With her own experience of deep depression and as a secretary at a doctor's surgery, Scott enlisted the support of his mum, Dolores, in a last ditch attempt to reach me. An exceptionally kind hearted and deeply religious woman, Dolores would overlook her own struggles with depression to support me with mine, unaware of the fact that her son and I were in a relationship, albeit one entering its death throes.

In order to create necessary space between us, I moved into a dorm in the college's French House at the beginning of our second semester. With my departure signalling to him that all appeared lost, and in order to ensure his own protection, Scott began keeping his distance from me. While he did the right thing by seeing a college counsellor, I continued to save face by pretending in public that I had it all together whereas in private I wanted to die; or at least wanted the feeling of wanting to die to end, which is easily confused with actually wanting to die. Maintaining the facade had begun to take a toll as did the energy it required to maintain my grades. My position at Dickinson had started to become precarious although the alternative of returning to the UK at that time filled me with dread. Yet, in those rare moments when I could feel again, I realised how much I'd missed Scott.

His response to my declaration at the end of our freshman year that I still loved him demonstrated Scott's wisdom and his strength of character. Despite the reassurance that his feelings for me remained the same, Scott explained that the need to protect himself from further hurt was the stronger emotion. Although it hurt to hear it, of course he was absolutely right. Deep down, I knew the rejection I felt then was nothing compared to what I'd put him through during the past year. However, the pain I'd inflict upon him wouldn't stop there. A few months later during a particularly severe depressive episode in the company of Dolores, I lamented the recent loss of a romantic relationship to which she instinctively asked me if the other person was Scott. In a foolishly unguarded moment while sobbing in her arms, I could do little more than nod my head in affirmation following which she too began to bawl.

As the first semester of my sophomore year drew to a close and the millennium approached, I finally began to tank, unsure of how much longer I could carry on at Dickinson. Dropping out meant having to leave the US, as there was no other way to remain there under the terms of my current visa. Unexpected news from the UK around this time also forced my hand. Yet, events were to take a sudden turn. Although I wouldn't know it then, a potential solution to one of my problems presented itself the night Ron introduced me to a long-term friend of his, an outwardly bubbly yet similarly tormented character, who I shall refer to simply as 'Jenny'.

Troubled souls seem to have a way of finding each other, although Jenny didn't strike me as particularly so when I met her at a sorority party in November, 1999. Like me, her personal struggles weren't evident to everybody, either. While her shoulder length strawberry blonde hair framed her pretty face, Jenny's most noticeable characteristic was her ample bosom. Despite her bubbly personality, Jenny hailed from a family beset by strained relations between various members and had been bullied mercilessly throughout school. Her story, once again, roused my protective instincts as a result of which she and I instantly bonded. Trusting to a fault, Jenny also possessed a fragility which made her particularly vulnerable to emotional injury. For now, conscious of each others internal struggles, we became good friends and she, Ron and I saw the new millennium in together.

In early 2000, I received a telephone call from my younger sister, Sas. With my older sister Dee having long since moved away from Maidstone, only Sas remained living in the town in which we spent part of our childhood. With joy in her voice, Sas announced that she and her partner intended to marry in July and asked whether I could make it to over to give her away. Bringing her good humour to a halt, I explained to Sas how the restrictions surrounding my student visa prevented me from leaving the US. Despite my initial refusal, her request created a sense of obligation within me, reaching a point where I considered leaving and taking my chances with the US embassy in London, where I'd been issued my original visitor's visa three-and-a-half years before.

At a loss to know what to do, I confided in Ron and Jenny. Regardless of his steady nature, Ron could be prone to moments of frivolity so when he suggested that Jenny and I marry I found myself dismissing the suggestion as a joke. However, Jenny's lack of a similar dismissal didn't escape my notice and when a delayed rejection of the idea was not forthcoming, I nervously asked whether such a suggestion was out of the question. Declaring that she didn't see what harm it could do and much to my surprise, Jenny said she'd consider it. Although she did indeed say yes, Ron would have a complete change of heart and within a few weeks expressed his staunch opposition to the idea. In an attempt to resolve our differences, Ron, Jenny and I met one evening during which Ron revealed that he'd discussed the matter with a counsellor he'd been seeing who advised him to have no part in a sham marriage.

Despite having now lost Ron's support and, ultimately, his friendship, following our marriage a few months later, Jenny and I headed to the UK that summer for Sas' wedding to her partner, Paul. Despite the pleasure of seeing her marry, a stop-off in London to visit Auntie Jackie, my dad's younger sister, would end up overshadowing our trip. During our visit to London, Auntie Jackie asked us to accompany her to Lewisham Hospital to visit her aunt, my great Auntie Grace. By now aged eighty-two, Auntie Grace was stricken with debilitating Parkinson's disease. On the way to the hospital, Auntie Jackie revealed that Auntie Grace hadn't opened her eyes for weeks. Nonetheless, having crouched down beside the little bird-like lady quivering in her bedside chair and placing my hand on her knee, I called her name. No sooner had I done so than she raised her head and revealed those piercing bluey-grey eyes that had struck so much fear into me as a child. After staring at me for a brief moment she then closed her eyes and bowed her head once more. So cruelly ravaged by Parkinson's, the stout and formidable character I'd known as a child had been reduced to a tremoring wreck.

By virtue of the cat and mouse game my body continued to play with my medication, the news a month later that Auntie Grace had succumbed to Parkinson's coincided with another sudden dip in my mood. Despite the knowledge that her suffering was now over, news of Auntie Grace's death only hastened this latest descent as a result of which I began confining myself to my room in the apartment Jenny and I now shared. Curled up on a single mattress on the floor, I sobbed and slept my way through the next few days, only leaving my room to go to the toilet. It was then, amid the grief and the storm raging in my head, that I took the first of two sudden and rash decisions. While the first decision, not to return to Dickinson at the end of the week for my junior year, only had consequences for me, the other would have devastating consequences for poor, unsuspecting and utterly blameless Jenny, but not before she had suffered a devastating loss of her own.

Following the death of Auntie Grace, a few months later Jenny would mourn the passing of her beloved grandfather, who she affectionately referred to as pop-pop. Despite his advanced years, pop-pop's death had crushed Jenny in the same way as the loss of Auntie Grace had affected me. Therefore, empathy should have come easily, but it did not. Not even the sight of Jenny's pitiful expressions of grief were enough to compel me to put my arm around her, to console her, to be there for her. Someone so sweet and kind and in obvious pain was breaking down before my very eyes and there I was, powerless to stop it. I felt nothing except my own numbness, the sense of being there in body only, completely disconnected from myself and the world around me.

With the same sense of disconnection, I'd go about the two jobs I took on throughout the next ten months to make good my contribution to our bills. The time I spent when not at work alone in my room ensured a continued drift away from Jenny. Right there and then I knew I'd reached the end. No longer could I cope with merely existing over actually living. To live is to feel and to feel is to live. Indeed, the only thing I'd felt for the past three and a half years was a seemingly endless cycle of crippling numbness interrupted by brief periods of fragile stability followed by eventual descent back into the abyss. I'd lost count of the number of times I'd gone to sleep in the vain hope of feeling better when I woke up. Something was about to give. Little did I know and little did I care whether the decision I was about to make would see me jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. What I did know, somehow, was that whatever decision I made, I must avoid the path someone once warned me about, the path that can be regarded as a permanent solution to a temporary problem.