'It is nice to give hope' - Mum's book on son's teen depression
Kay Reeve from Fakenham with her son Matthew. - Credit: Kay Reeve
A woman is hoping her new book detailing how she has dealt with her son's teen depression will be a ‘triumph out of trauma’.
Kay Reeve from Fakenham has released her book ‘brain unchained’ hoping to help parents with teen depression and raising emotional awareness in teenagers and young adults.
The 53-year-old said her journey to the book started 26 years ago with the birth of her son Matthew.
She said that when he was 10-weeks-old they struggled to bond and she suspected that he was autistic. Matthew was later diagnosed with Asperger’s when he was eight.
As he grew up, he faced many challenges, struggling with school and making friends. When he was five he started telling her that he did not want to be alive.
Kay Reeve from Fakenham has released her book ‘brain unchained’ - Credit: Kay Reeve
His problems worsened when he was a teenager, and got so bad they had to move him out of the home and into a hostel when he was 18. Worried about her son, she wanted to work through his emotions and help him.
“We went to the start and wrote down the four core emotions he felt,” she said.
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“I had always seen his moods as colours and got him to talk about the moods he felt, using these colours to help him.
“We gradually built this conversation up and a matter of weeks later we were sitting in Fakenham and his friend said 'being friends with Matt has made me a better person'.
"I thought if I can make a difference to someone, not even directly, I needed to do something with it.”
Kay Reeve from Fakenham has released her book ‘brain unchained’. - Credit: Kay Reeve
From here, she decided to leave her job and started looking to see if someone has written about the emotion cycle the way she had seen it and found nothing like it.
Over the next three years, she wrote the book and took classes in public speaking while continuing to develop her system.
Now that Matthew is 26, engaged and has a little girl, she is hoping that her experience will help parents.
“It feels like I can give hope to other people. It is nice to give hope,” she said.
“Our journey has a sort of purpose, a triumph out of trauma and it is nice to have the ability to pay it forward."
