My 11-year-old son hadn't been his usual happy self for months. He'd been a lot more irritable and kept sequestering himself in his bedroom for hours on end. At first, I put it down to hormones starting to do their usual thing. He'd also had a hard time with his last school due to excessive workload (about three hours worth of homework every day) and had changed schools. So, for the first couple of months, I put it down to adjustment pains. New school, new classmates, new rules, but Christmas came and went, and he was still trying hard to turn himself into a hermit.

I had already started smelling something wasn't quite right at school, so I asked him if everything was okay. He just clammed up and refused to say a word other than 'I'm fine, mum!'

Two more months went by with nothing changing, and then, a month shy of the end of the school year, my boy broke down. 'I wish I was dead! The world would be happier if I were dead. I'm useless!!!' Turns out he was being bullied terribly at school.

We spent the whole night talking and crying. In the end, I convinced him to finish off the year and his exams, and he convinced me not to go on a violent rampage. We also made a pact. I would try to get him into another school as soon as was humanly possible, and he would refrain from turning his suicidal thoughts into action and talk to a psychiatrist.

Fast forwarding a bit, he passed his exams, and he's in a different school. He seems to be a lot happier now than this time last year, but I am still keeping an eagle eye on him, and he's still talking it out with a psychiatrist.