\n Patrick Skelton, 60, has described being in a “living hell” that can last weeks as his complex mental health conditions make sleep “impossible”, his wife Jillian said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Jillian said the episodes suffered by her husband “can be terrifying, not only for Patrick but also for those who love him”.\n<\/p>\n
\n When Patrick, who works from home in Welburn near Castle Howard as a programmer and artist, does eventually fall asleep from exhaustion, Jillian said he is “jolted back awake repeatedly”. “It’s like a kind of torture and goes on for days, even weeks.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The result of the lack of sleep is that Patrick, a father of six and grandfather of 14, “becomes a shell”, Jillian said, “and yet despite all of this, he tries so desperately hard to live a normal life that many who know him don’t even know he has anything wrong”.\n<\/p>\n
\n “He fought so hard daily to live a normal life that he earned a degree in computer science at the University of York, won the Spektra Tek Prize for Best Final Year Project and began a promising career as a video game programmer for York-based Revolution Software,” Jillian said.\n<\/p>\n
\n ‘He tries so desperately hard to live a normal life’ … Patrick Skelton (Image: Family)\n<\/p>\n
\n She said Patrick has suffered from mental health difficulties all his life including panic attacks, anxiety and depression.\n<\/p>\n
\n But she said his health condition has no one name, which makes finding treatment difficult.\n<\/p>\n
\n ‘He fought so hard daily to live a normal life’ (Image: Family)\n<\/p>\n
\n She said Patrick’s symptoms “cross medical boundaries – part neurological, part cardiology, part psychological”.\n<\/p>\n
\n Patrick has pursued “every medical avenue open to him” including brain tests, prescribed tablets and psychological help, Jillian said, but his “symptoms have steadily worsened over the years”.\n<\/p>\n
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\n Jillian said her husband has been told by his GP the NHS “simply does not offer the type of highly specialised, cross-departmental testing that he requires”.\n<\/p>\n
\n “This illness now has become unbearable for him,” Jillian said. “He describes each day as a game of Russian Roulette: something as normal as gardening may trigger a bad panic attack. This causes an irregular and dangerous heart rhythm that can lead to a stroke.”\n<\/p>\n
Specialist treatment ‘could save his life’<\/p>\n