My son is 17 and was held at gunpoint in our driveway. I’m a psychologist. My family is spiraling. My family is spiraling and spiraling and SPIRALING.

I’m a psychologist in my 30’s. My 17 year old son came out of his bedroom on to the driveway at 6am, to ride his new mountain bike. It’s the second week of June, and the darkness has barely broken. As he came around the corner, 45 feet from our front door, he was confronted with two men. One was standing against the side of the house and the other in the driveway. One held a silver pistol. The other held a large black semi-automatic. My son dropped his bike, and started to walk backwards up our driveway. I heard everything they said. One said, ‘What are you doing out here so early.’ The other asked, ‘You’re not a police officer are you.’ One then said, ‘If you are a police officer, you’re dead.’ They then asked where he went to school. My son told them straight out he was on his way to school. Then they asked where our daughter went to school. He told them again at the local comprehensive. They then said, ‘We’ve been watching you, we know where your parents work.’ One then said to the other, ‘Should I do it.’ The other said, ‘I thought you didn’t like doing that.’ The first said he didn’t but they had no choice. They then laughed. The first then said, ‘You done?’ The other replied, ‘Yeah, I’m done.’ Then they just stood there. They weren’t looking at each other, they weren’t looking at my son, they were just standing there. My son then said, ‘Do you want me to tape this? I bet it’ll get a lot of views on YouTube.’ The men then ran. Down our driveway, towards the fields. My son ran into the house, and told us what had happened. My wife and I went outside. I think they may have still been in the fields adjacent, but I couldn’t see. It was still dark. My son was shaking, my wife was crying. I was frozen. The sun was due to rise in 20 minutes. I was in such a daze, I think I forgot more than once over the next hour and a half that I should have called the police straight away. Instead, I kept saying we should call the police, but my wife kept saying, ‘Should we, they might just be kids.’ And I kept saying, ‘What if they aren’t.’ But, my wife kept saying, ‘What if we call, and they’re just kids, what will we say, oh sorry kids, we wasted police time.’ So, I said, ‘I’ll check the garden, and then we’ll call.’ The garden checked, I came back, and my wife said, ‘If you really think they weren’t kids, we have to protect our children.’ To which I replied, ‘They weren’t kids.’ At that point my daughter came downstairs. I told her what had happened. She too started crying. My wife cried harder. Then, I cried. At this point, I still hadn’t called the police. I then said, ‘I’m going upstairs to be alone.’ My wife said, ‘Maybe I’ll just ring our neighbourhood watch.’ To which I replied, ‘No, no, no, no, no. I’ll ring the police. I’ll ring the police.’ I then picked up the phone and said, ‘I can’t ring the police.’ And put the phone down. I then picked it up again and said, ‘No, I will ring the police.’ I then picked up the phone again, and got to, ‘101 the police non-emergency number.’ And then deleted the call. I’d reached that state. Where I just couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t call the police. I couldn’t comfort my family. I was so paralysed by fear and emotion I couldn’t do anything. My wife then said she’d do it. And she did. They came. And then they didn’t find anything. Nothing on our property, nothing on our CCTV. Nothing on our neighbour’s properties. Nothing on their CCTV. No description of suspects recovered from local shops or businesses. Nothing. The police then told us to keep our children at home, and to keep the doors and windows locked. Then they did nothing else. So we did nothing else either. My children didn’t go to school or college for three whole weeks. My wife didn’t want the doors open for the window cleaners, the conservatory cleaners or the lad that cuts the grass. Three whole weeks. By the time my son felt comfortable enough to ride his mountain bike again, the leaves on the trees had turned, and the morning dew was starting to freeze. My wife hadn’t hung the Christmas decorations. The Christmas decorations are still boxged up in the attic with the Halloween decorations. I can’t sleep. I can’t drive. I can’t work. I’m barely out of bed. And in good times I’m a get up and go sort of guy. I’m due back at work in three days, and I can’t imagine how I’ll function. Our daughter seems to be coping best out of all of us. I’m so proud of her. But I’m not proud of myself. I feel like a complete failure as a father. As a husband. As a son. As a friend. As a human being. Three weeks. It’s taken three whole weeks for me to hit the rock bottom I should have hit on that morning when my son was held at gunpoint in our driveway. And here I am. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get my life back on track. All I know is I can’t keep spiraling. But, I don’t know how to stop the spiraling. And I don’t know how to put my life back together. *Edit - Typos. And Just to address an obvious question - I don’t know why they said they were watching us or that they didn’t want to do it. I really don’t know. I have no idea who these two men were, what they wanted, why they said what they did or why they ran off. I was too dumbfounded and frozen in fear and emotion to ask these questions at the time. And I’ve just been too paralysed and defeated since to analyse it all properly.*

My son is 17 and was held at gunpoint in our driveway. I’m a psychologist. My family is spiraling. My family is spiraling and spiraling and SPIRALING.

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