I remember my auntie saying to me, "It's OK, it's just that "he's a genius, and geniuses sometimes go mad."

Sam had often spoken about his desire to buy a house, paint it white, and doodle over it.

I think that Sam found himself caught up in a nightmare.

Whether the nightmare was a fantasy land that had gone wrong... He was lost somewhere.

Somewhere in some land that he no longer had control over.

INCOHERENT VOICES You never, ever want to think there's anything wrong with your children.

But yeah, it did cross my mind that there may be... something different about him.

BACKGROUND VOICES Can I tell you about the day Sam was born?

I'm not really sure, can I remember it?

Erm... I can't remember a lot about it, if I'm honest with you.

He was just... Just a baby.

Sam, hello.

Look at daddy.

Sam, snap out of your dream.

He wasn't a child that had loads of friends.

He's not one of the cool kids.

He didn't play football, he didn't have loads of mates.

And honestly, I don't think he cared.

He just wanted to draw.

He would draw for 15 hours, sometimes more, every single day.

From the minute that he got up to the minute he went to bed.

Sam, I think, is every art teacher's dream really, somebody who you can shape.

It was a case of just pushing him to what I felt his limits were.

And being Sam, you know, that was pretty limitless, really, because he was just so hungry.

Was I concerned about that obsession?

Um, not really.

Apart from the fact that I knew that he was drawing under his duvet covers and stuff at night.

He didn't always look like the healthiest lad, you know.

I have no idea what goes on in his head.

But I do think it's probably completely different than goes on in most people's heads.

Oi, ginger.

I don't blame myself for what happened.

Spaceman.

But, um, maybe had I seen what the future held, would I have let him carry on drawing?

I don't know.

Sorry, I don't know why my heart's like, racing, it's quite a good time... If you want to stop, it's fine.

Even if you're in the middle of a sentence, I'd rather you stopped, don't worry about us.

OK.

Just see how you get on and, um... Sorry, do you mind if I take a quick breather outside?

Of course.

Is that all right?

INCOHERENT VOICES Oh, that's good, isn't it?

I've known Sam since I was about three years old I'm one of his oldest mates.

And are you artistic?

No, not at all.

Not at all, no, I can barely draw a stick man.

Barely.

This one, this one, I call this one Big Bertha.

Hopefully we can hit it a little bit of a nice distance, but knowing me, I should probably hit the... Hit the roof.

Oh, BLEEP.

That was awful.

So I can always remember Sam being really intelligent... ..growing up.

So, like, primary school and things like that, he was always in the in the top set.

But I'm sure when we got to secondary school that he literally just had one focus.

I think he went from, you know, being able to be really good at maths, English, science and all that to then just literally focusing on one thing, which was the art.

I know Sam from when he was at university.

It was obvious from the very first moment that Sam was a little bit different from the rest of the group.

Let's say his attendance was about 100%.

Have we ever had a student that needs to be told you need to socialise a bit more?

No.

Sometimes we used to go to clubs and things and next thing you know, we'd find Sam sitting on a chair in the corner, doodling on his phone, and we'd all go, "Sam, what are you doing?

"For God's sake, stop blooming drawing."

I'm not big on these energy drinks.

He was downing them like there was no tomorrow.

It was a little bit of a worry, but we just thought, "It's Sam," you know, "Let him get on with it."

As you can see, this is a fully immersive toilet experience.

It's a kind of mad world of, uh, stream of consciousness, really, that's going through Sam's head.

I remember him saying, the thing I've got is I can draw more intensely for longer than anybody else, right?

And it's almost like a virus.

And I distinctly remember him saying that to me.

And I kind of thought, OK, well, what do you do with that, then?

What's the content?

What are you drawing around?

What is it that can manifest itself into?

There's a moment, Sam was giving a presentation about his work, and he kind of turned up into the class in his doodle suit.

And he was sat there with his fedora on and his briefcase, and he was all doodled.

And that was the moment in a way, that it really became off the wall.

# Doodle # Doodle # Doodle # Well, hello there # I'm The Doodle Man # Doodle # Got to get back to Doodle land # Listen here, I've got a doodle plan # I need to trade these drawings for something grand # Hi, there.

Hi, I'm Doodle Man and I need to get back to Doodle Land.

I need to get flights to land.

Is there any way I can get there if I give you a drawing?

I wouldn't say it was my proudest moment.

I kind of had visions of all these people looking and thinking he's just a lunatic.

Can I get a golden ring for one of these drawing things?

No?

No.

Is there no way I can tempt you?

Oh, well, thanks anyway, guys.

See you later.

He's dressing up, he's running round trying to sell drawings for a pound.

It just seemed, not attention seeking, because that isn't Sam.

It was attention seeking, but it was kind of, I guess, this other persona that was seeking the attention, not Sam.

It was like looking at another person.

He was just a completely different character.

What you saw when he was dressed up is not how he was as a child, as a teenager.

I'm the Doodle Man.

When Sam was on the course and started opening doors and he kind of, like, started to realise that he could become who he wanted to be through his artwork.

There's a lot of questions around what kind of artist he is.

Is it performance artist?

Is he an endurance artist?

But one thing's for sure is he's not Sam Cox any more.

Won't you help me?

Please help me.

VOICES: Help me, help me.

Help me!

Help me.

Whenever I try and talk about what happened to me a couple of years ago, um, my heart starts just racing, and I just feel like I can't get the words out.

Um, it's just really difficult to explain it.

I can write it down and, um, you know, text it to people and stuff.

But like to actually sit down and talk through, like, the feelings I had and what I experienced.

It's just, I don't know, for some reason it's began to become harder and harder the longer it's gone on.

When I'm doodling, I just let my brain fly away.

I won't think about what's coming next, and I'll just let the hand just create things.

It's almost like I'm not in control anymore, and I'm just allowing this energy to channel through my arm and into the hand, and I'm just watching this piece create itself.

It's kind of a happy thing in a way.

I don't think it's a negative thing.

Er... Yeah.

The guy doesn't know how to... As I was saying.

Yeah, I know that fat guy.

When I was a kid, my favourite thing to do was to, like, kind of create characters.

Whether it was just drawing or through video.

You just lose yourself in that world.

Eek!

Ooh, good.

Paramedics.

Paramedic.

Are you sick?

No.

This is him singing Kylie Minogue.

I think he's really funny.

Funny, isn't it?

Because I just don't think of him as being that confident, and then you see him doing this sort of stuff.

Yeah, but you'll notice he's dressed up.

He's dressed up, yeah.

He was never confident when he wasn't dressed up.

# La-la-la, la-la-la-la-la # La-la-la, la-la-la-la-la # La-la-la, la-la-la-la-la # I just can't get you out of my head... # I think people create fantasy worlds because they are either unhappy in the world that they're living in, or for some reason, they can't control the world they're living in.

If you go to a fantasy world, you're in charge.

No one can tell you what to do or how to be.

You're free.

Do you want me to sing another song or would you like me to shut up now?

Thank you for coming to... I don't think anyone really, truly, like, deeply understood me as a child.

A lot of my friends and family would spend time, you know, watching TV and relaxing and stuff and just, you know, doing stuff that you'd expect any normal person to grow up doing.

But I just wanted to draw all the time.

Sometimes I'd look in the mirror and I'd just look at myself for maybe five or ten minutes, just looking deep into my eyes, and I'd think, like, I was just an alien and everyone around me were the real humans.

When he finished university and he came home, we said to him, "Well, you can live at home "for a year without paying any keep or anything like that.

"See if you can make art or doodling, "or whatever you want to do, see if you can make it pay."

Hi, guys.

I'm Sam, Mr Doodle.

Oh, right.

Nice to meet you.

And you.

I make drawings.

Of course, that's not exactly what we do.

So it's a question of finding artwork that fits in with what we do.

Hi there!

Celebrate your victory with a £1 drawing.

£1 drawing?

Can I interest you in a £1 drawing?

Doodle Man!

Drawings for you today.

Are these drawings here?

Yes, about 100 there.

They're all unique, original.

I am a very happy customer.

I thought Mr Doodle was a positive thing in Sam's life, because it did enable him to become a little more confident, and because it made him happy.

Therefore, it made me happy.

Hello there!

I am Mr Doodle.

Doodling forever!

There was work coming in and I started taking on commissions.

It was a good feeling getting paid to do my work.

But I wanted to do bigger projects.

I was on around 5,000 Instagram and Facebook followers.

And then one day I was drawing in a little pop-up shop in Old Street Station, and I was drawing on the floor, and this lady came in and took a video of me drawing.

I didn't think anything of it at the time.

Later that evening, I was just looking on my Instagram and Facebook and stuff, and I realised this video had started getting really popular and it had, like, 10 million views.

The views started going to sort of 20, 30, 40 million.

My Facebook and Instagram followers leaped to, like, 50,000, 60,000.

And then they got to 100,000 by the end of the week.

I had no idea what was going on, really.

It was nuts.

Oh, my goodness.

All these people are watching our son.

This is just amazing.

Look, have you seen his Instagram followers?

They're just going up and up and up.

I started to get known around the world because news channels in Taiwan were doing features on my work and stuff.

That was really the point where everything took off.

That made us think, this is ridiculous.

This is the start of something.

All these people around the world were messaging me and saying, "I'd love to buy your drawings."

And they were only sort of £10 or 20 at the time.

Me and Papa would take them down to the post office and just sending off huge amounts of stuff and holding up the queue behind us.

It was a really crazy time, and it sort of helped me elevate my work and help me doodle more, I guess.

Spread the doodle virus.

VOICES OVERLAPPING Doodle!

Doodle!

VOICES OVERLAPPING Doodle!

# I'm drawing here and I'm drawing there # I'm doodling around without a care # Because I am the doodle man # And world domination is my plan.

# Sometimes he would speak in a way that you'd think, you don't really believe that you're actually going to be able to go out and doodle the world, do you?

And I think sometimes we'd humour him because I don't think I thought he really felt that he was going to doodle the world, but somewhere in his head, it was like he was setting out this plan for the world to be doodled.

Doodle!

Doodle!

This is a painting I bought in Royal Academy summer show.

The Woman Who Does Not Revenge.

I like it, and I bought it.

That's it.

This is a Ron Arad chair.

And Ron Arad, of course, is a leading designer.

So this chair is called Void.

And you just... Very comfortable, actually.

I'm in the art world for the last 20 years.

And this friend of mine said to me, "Aren't you interested in the young artist called Mr Doodle?"

And at that time, I have no knowledge about Mr Doodle until I call my gallery in Hong Kong and in China, who got very excited about Mr Doodle.

We were introduced to Pearl, the Pearl Lam Gallery in Hong Kong.

And she's got a great collector base, and all these very, very wealthy collectors who are interested in Sam's art.

My job is to create a path for him to become a great artist, to be accepted by the mainstream art world.

In Asia, whether it is East Asia or Southeast Asia, I mean, it's a different culture.

Mr Doodle, artist.

They love all these aesthetics, which is very cute, very sweet.

So Sam just fit into that.

I don't know where I fit in the world of art.

I just know that I do what I love.

It's not really for anyone in particular, and it's not about anything in particular.

It's just an organic expression of my energy, I guess.

There was really quite a big-sized piece of work called Spring that Sam had done.

It reappeared at an auction house in Tokyo and sold for $1 million.

Yeah.

It was really, really cool.

La-la-la, la-la-la!

La-la-la, la-la-la!

I suppose that artistic people, they're able to push out the mundane, boring things in life, and they allow their minds to be kind of taken over by their desire to create.

And I think sometimes that kind of almost stretches too much in their brain, and there's no room for normality.

He was spending more time as Mr Doodle than perhaps he had done before.

He was certainly making more videos.

Bad Doodle Dog!

Stop barking, Doodle Dog.

And I guess those videos were becoming slightly more manic than perhaps they had been before.

Hello there, I'm Mr Doodle and today I'm going to be doodling Billy the Broccoli Head.

This is Billy.

He's got a broccoli for his head.

We have this idea that being creative is a fun thing to be, and I'm not sure that it necessarily is.

He must constantly have things going around in his head all day, every single day.

Creating, creating, creating, creating and never stopping.

And I guess that creativity comes at a price.

Sometimes it's not just the fact I want to draw and that I love drawing, but I actually feel this really strong need to actually draw.

That feeling of kind of giving in, giving in to that need is... It feels good to allow it to take over and allow it to get what it wants.

He had to do his drawing.

It was so important that he, as an early 20s, would rather have drawn forever than had any sort of relationship.

He wasn't interested, really, in having a girlfriend.

He always said he would never get married, never have children because that would interrupt his drawing.

PRODUCER: Elena, Just start if you will tell me who you are, please.

Oh, gosh, we're starting already!

I grew up in Ukraine and always wanted to be an artist.

I was using Instagram a lot, and once I was scrolling on my feed and then saw one interesting artist and 30 minutes later, I realised I'm still watching the videos of him drawing, and there was Mr Doodle.

And I decided, well, he obviously deserves to know what I think about his art.

I don't know what it was.

I think Elena said something that just, like, caught my attention somehow.

I was very surprised, but I thought, OK, interesting.

And we just started talking.

It was quite exciting for me because, um, I've had relationships in the past.

Yeah, not that many relationships, I guess.

I've spent most of my time pretty much by myself.

I just thought she seemed like a really nice girl, and I started doing little drawings and sending them to her.

I think he liked me already, but we were talking like friends.

I think I... I didn't really want a relationship at that point.

Lots of times, I would meet not very nice behaviour towards me.

I was planning a trip to Berlin with my friend and then at the last point, my friend says, "I'm not coming."

And I was like, "What do you mean?"

And I messaged Sam angry message that, "Oh, she's not coming with me, but I'm coming by myself."

And he said, "Meet you on Friday in Berlin."

When we met, it was like a Disney movie for me because... Nobody actually knows that, but we kissed before we said hello.

I just went straight up to her and gave her a big hug and a kiss.

It felt really right and, um... It was, yeah, lovely.

Baby, I don't know what to say.

You look amazing.

We just spent several days together, and we were just walking and talking and laughing.

So he was having less time to draw.

Yeah.

It was one of the first times for a while where I wasn't drawing, and it felt like a really good experience.

When I met Sam, for me, it was an escapism from the pain that was behind me.

I feel good!

It's like being a child again.

So for me, being part of that world, it made me feel safe.

It made me feel... ..that I could do anything because you can do anything in... ..fantasyland.

For him suddenly to become a person that was prepared to put time into a relationship meant that this was a big deal.

He didn't feel the need to draw all the time because he was finding happiness somewhere else.

And that, I guess, really wasn't Mr Doodle's plan.

VOICES OVERLAPPING Hold on, Sam.

Stick to the plan!

I think it was less than 24 hours after we met, Sam told me, "Oh, you know, I have this big dream of mine."

I want to find a big white mansion and just doodle over it and, like, all over it.

Yeah, yeah.

Inside and out and all the cutlery and all the blades.

I'd had quite long conversations with him saying, you know, "I'm not really sure you're going to be able to do this."

I never thought it would happen.

At that point, I think I felt he'd grow out of it, that he would... It was something he wanted to do, but he wouldn't really do it.

I was envisaging a house in a street, like we live in, on an ordinary estate, and how the neighbours might feel about that.

And I remember trying to explain to him, "Sam, not everybody wants to live next door to "a house that's drawn all over."

"But it's my house, and why can't I draw on it?

"People paint their houses blue.

I want to do mine black and white."

And you kind of, you go through the motions of going, "Sam, you won't be allowed.

Sam, you can't do this," and thinking, oh, it'll be OK because he'll grow out of it.

He won't do it anyway, so I'm not going to bother having the argument with you.

HE CHUCKLES Yeah, cool.

Got to stop looking at houses because it's sucking up all my time.

He started to send me screenshots of the houses that he was looking at and asking for my advice on them.

They were a lot bigger than I thought they were going to be.

So suddenly there were these sort of dream period properties.

And then on his iPad or on his phone screen, adding little sort of hand-drawn doodles to them and sort of showing me an image, going, "I could do this to it.

I could do that to it."

And some of these properties were, you know, they were country house sort of kitchens, black and white tiled hallways with large wooden scrolling banisters leading up to galleries and chandeliers and so on.

And the illustrations that he was doing on his phone were literally just over the top.

You know, it looked like somebody had just sort of moved in and bombed the place while the elderly couple were still sort of sat in the drawing room.

It was really making me chuckle.

It was so funny that, you know, my ex-student Sam was going to go and buy a house, you know, bigger and grander than anything I could ever imagine sort of buying myself.

My original budget was 850,000.

This house was 1.35 million.

It just felt right.

This big white mansion, like in his dreams.

It's just lovely.

I loved that house from the first day we viewed it.

It was really, really nice.

You know, you look at it and you think, if you're going to draw on a house, this probably is the house to do it on.

SHE SIGHS It... He just instantly sort of thought, you know, that's a house that's crying out to be doodled on.

Well done, Sam!

You've stuck to the plan.

When you come into the space, you're going to see a doodle living room, themed around television, basically, because you can kind of come in here, sit and relax... When we met, I knew that Mr Doodle is a big part of his life, and this is all he's thinking about.

And when he got the house, I realised that everything now is going to be about the house.

It was just the only... The only thing he could think of.

Everything will be coloured white.

Fresh white.

And then I will doodle over everything.

I remember him sort of calling me and saying, like, you know, my uncle's a builder and I'm going to get him round and I'm going to have a chat with him about maybe doing this.

"What do you want me to do?"

And he said, "I want you to "basically rip out everything in the house.

"Take it back to a shell.

"I want you to paint it white, "and then I'm going to draw on everything."

It was a little bit more than I think Sam expected.

The mission of Mr Doodle is to just doodle on everything and never stop until something terrible happens.

Mr Doodle is a character who wants to doodle over the world and turn it into Doodle World.

But then by doing that, he meets the Anti-Doodle Squad and the Anti-Doodle Squad tell him to fly away.

And then they erase the entire world.

And then Mr Doodle flies to a paper galaxy and then creates Doodle Land, where all the characters come alive and they live in this world of doodles.

But his evil twin Maz comes and visits him and kicks him back down to Earth.

I think it's really hard as a mum to kind of talk about your son in a way of using the word "possessed".

Kind of indicates... It indicates something bad.

I press the button on the TV.

Big buzzes of doodles splashing out of the TV.

You just look at him sometimes and it just wasn't Sam.

Doodles start to grow by themselves, creeping over this wall.

When before, he could be Mr Doodle as and when he chose, now, he couldn't make that separation.

Sam Cox.

Mr Doodle.

He was changing.

HE SPEAKS GIBBERISH He was more animated.

The voice had changed.

That's when Mr Doodle started to become not quite the happy, jolly persona that we thought he was.

Doodle!

# I'm drawing here and I'm drawing there # I'm doodling around without a care # Because I am... # I think maybe Mr Doodle is the person who I'm kind of a little scared of, I guess, because I'm scared of where it could lead if it keeps going.

Hello there!

I'm Mr Doodle, and I'm doing a 50-hour doodle marathon.

# I'm gonna draw on that wall # And I'm gonna draw on the floor # Draw on my whole school # And then I'll draw some more... # I've been doodling now for 23 hours, which is one seventh of a week.

One day.

Halfway through Saturday.

Half past Saturday.

And no sleep?

No sleep yet.

No sleep at all.

INDISTINCT BABBLE OF VOICES I'm going to draw on the floor!

Not only was he working too hard, he was sleeping less and less and doing more extreme hours.

I think he did about 50 flights to the Far East.

# Your expectations, I will exceed # World domination and I will succeed.

# He looked quite... He looked quite tired.

The Doodle Marathon has reached its 36th hour now.

I started drawing characters with kind of, um, X's for eyes.

# The Eiffel Tower # The whole of the USA # Doodle Man, stop, won't you say?

# He was just going deeper and deeper into this weird state, getting more and more excited about the Doodle House and his dream becoming reality.

# Drawing more every day # Never gonna stop Get out of my way # Covering the walls is my whole odyssey.

# I've got such a good feeling about this.

# Way up in the sky I've done all the clouds # Drawing even where I am not allowed # Now the whole Earth is covered # An entire planet I have smothered.# He's become an internet sensation with a massive following on social media.

He's had more than four million views on YouTube.

Nearly 2.5 million people follow him on Instagram.

If I look outside of myself for a minute and look at myself and think, wow, I'm a person who's covered in doodles and I want to doodle over my whole house.

I can't really say it's a very normal thing to do, but um, hopefully, I can hold on to my mind for as long as I need to complete the project and then see what happens after, really.

But, yeah, I think, in a way, I have lost my mind to want to do this.

And go.

Oh, hi, I'm Mr Doodle, and today is the 25th of February 2020.

It's a Tuesday.

And look what's going on, the construction... No, sorry.

OK?

Yeah.

February 25th.

It's Tuesday.

February 25th.

25th of February, Tuesday.

Maybe it's because I'm ill.

He wasn't quite there.

His mind was just like having lots of noise and he couldn't understand what's going on.

Because that's a waste of time, isn't it?

Mm-hm.

It's there, ready for a smooth resin to be poured over.

Look at these rooms.

They're completely stripped down.

I mean, they're going to be repainted.

The radiator... MAKES GURGLING SOUND SHE LAUGHS DOOR CLOSES Sam told me that he felt really quite unwell, that his head didn't seem to quite work properly.

INDISTINCT BABBLE OF VOICES I managed to make him go to sleep because, at that point, he wasn't sleeping for 24 hours.

Two hours later, he woke up and it wasn't Sam any more.

It's like you look at the person, but it's not him any more.

You can see that just like that person is gone somewhere, and something else is just driving this body right now.

INDISTINCT BABBLE OF VOICES Alena called to say Sam's really, really not very well and he's asking to go to hospital.

He just felt really strange and there was something wrong in his head and he needed someone to see him.

Sam then started to get very agitated and he'd be like, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I need to get up.

"I need to do this.

You can't keep me a prisoner."

I said, "Sam, we're not keeping you prisoner."

"You are!"

And he started shouting out the windows.

And, at that point, you think, OK, something's really not right here.

I took him into A&E and Sam was running down the corridors, grabbing anybody in a uniform.

He was shouting, "I'm Mr Doodle, I'm Mr Doodle "and somebody needs to help me."

Not "I'm Sam Cox".

I remember going in and seeing Sam wired up to a heart monitor.

"Mum, Mum, Mum!

Come here, come here."

"What's the matter?"

"You see that?

"They've got my brain in there.

MACHINE BEEPS "You need to make sure they don't turn that off, because they're "trying to make me go to sleep."

I said, "Sam, it's fine.

You can go to sleep."

"No, I can't."

BEEPING GOES INTO SOUND DISTORTION MAN'S VOICE: Doodle Man, stop.

Please listen.

He's pouring cups of tea over himself, being abusive to people.

Neill came in and he went, "I love you, "but you're trying to kill me."

MACHINE BEEPS LIQUID SPLASHES We then saw psychologists who said, "I'm afraid the only option we've got left now is to section him."

So they locked him into a room.

That, for me, was heartbreaking - to think that he was that ill, that they'd had to lock him in the room on his own.

DOODLE MAN'S VOICE: Well, I've run out of room to draw, anyway.

Earth is, ideally, where I would like to stay, but I want somewhere else to cover.

Perhaps a new place, a world uninhabited, a brand-new clean space.

MAN'S VOICE: Well, this can be arranged.

What if we give you a rocket ship?

You could fly out into space.

With pens, you'd equip.

If you head towards the paper galaxy where it is all clean, you'll have plenty of space to draw.

It's a dream.

During the first night that I spent in the hospital... ..I was laying in a bed and, suddenly, had this feeling like... It just felt like everything had just flipped on its head and I was in a totally different world.

It was as if I'd died and gone to a whole new reality.

Everything was just a video game.

Everything was like a, um, Matrix-type computer world.

And I just believed all sorts of things that just weren't real.

Sam lost himself in the world that he'd created in his head.

Became different.

MAN'S VOICE: It's a dream.

I thought that all the food that they were giving me was laced with poison.

I thought everyone was trying to kill me and stuff.

So, yeah, kind of went for days without eating properly or drinking properly.

MAN'S VOICE: It's a dream.

And I wasn't taking the medication that the doctors were giving me.

I was pretending to take a pill and hiding it under my tongue and then throwing it away.

MAN'S VOICE: Build your own world and leave ours alone.

And if you ever miss us, you could always phone.

INDISTINCT BABBLE OF VOICES All the loved ones that you have around you - I was scared of them, I was really angry with them.

I thought they were trying to hurt me.

And everything had gone wild in my imagination.

It's almost like I reacted in an opposite way to how I normally would be to people who loved me.

I didn't know how to be any different, because I thought they were trying to hurt me.

VOICEOVER: That sounds like a deal.

I will leave right now.

This rocket ship is amazing.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

Goodbye, Earth.

Maybe, one day, See you again.

As a mother, I think the worst fear you have is losing a child.

And whilst there wasn't really the fear that I would lose Sam - physically lose Sam - losing him mentally was just as scary.

I'm sure, for him, it was frightening as anything.

Because he wouldn't have known what was going on, really.

Because then when he didn't take his tablets, he had six - or five or six hefty blokes sit on him to inject him.

You know, it's physically intimidating and scary.

Then, they lock you in to your padded cell or whatever it is.

That's... That's pretty lonely, isn't it?

And he ended up doodling on the wall with tomato soup, because they don't want to give him a pen.

I remember going in one day, in the hospital, and, um... Um, he just looked at us and said, "Sam Cox is dead "and I'm Mr Doodle now.

This is what you should call me now.

"That's what I am."

# What a lovely doodle plan!

# What a lovely doodle plan.

# What a lovely doodle... # VOICE DISTORTS # A lovely doodle plan!

What a lovely doodle plan.

# Sam had almost shrunk so small that he just evaporated.

And, er, all that was left was Mr Doodle.

And that feeling of like being in this world that I'd actually created myself was really strange, because that environment that I was in, I thought I was in Doodle Land.

There were parts where it was like the best, most fantastic dream ever.

But then there were times where it was like a complete nightmare.

I didn't think I needed my family or friends.

I was trying to destroy everything about Sam that ever was.

Sam's never unkind, ever.

But he was really horrible to Alena.

He rejected her.

He told her he didn't love her.

He came out with all sorts of things, as though he was doing everything he possibly could to push her away.

He was saying that he doesn't love me and he loves someone else, and naming this person.

And the most horrible thing that he would look in my eyes - straight, like this - and would tell to see my reaction.

It's like he was torturing me.

He would just be vile to her.

There were times when I was embarrassed of my own son for the way that he was talking to this poor girl.

And she would just go out of the room, be in floods of tears.

I remember just crying all the time, through those days, and crying and sleeping and crying.

In my past relationships that I had before Sam, sometimes, people were not very nice to me.

Abusive - mental abuse - and, one time, physically abusive.

And, um, the last thing I wanted is an unsafe relationship where I've been already.

She had a flight booked and I remember saying to her, "Look, why don't you just go home?"

I felt so lost.

Nobody knew when it's going to end, and will it end?

And how to help him to become better.

It can take six days or six years or never for someone to recover from that.

It could be... It could be permanent.

They just don't know.

You just have to wait.

So, you know, that's what we had to do - just sit and wait.

At that point, I found myself very much blaming myself for what had happened to him.

It's your fault.

You should have seen this coming.

I think that Sam found himself caught up in a nightmare.

Whether the nightmare was a fantasy land that had gone wrong... ..he was lost somewhere.

Somewhere in some land that he no longer had control over.

I remember Neill coming in at one point.

He said to me - he said, "We need to discuss this."

"I don't know whether Sam's going to recover.

"He's not on this planet."

He said to me, "I think, just finish off - finish off painting everywhere.

Just create that white canvas "and, um... And we'll sell.

We'll sell the house.

"We'll put it on the market."

You can't hate a person that is your son.

You know he - Mr Doodle - is Sam.

Sam is Mr Doodle.

But I hated that character that he'd created.

I just wanted him to go away.

ANSWERPHONE: Hello, everyone.

Sam here.

I'd just like to say I love you all and I miss you loads.

And I'll speak to you later.

Bye!

We picked him up, I guess, six weeks after he first went in, and it was lovely.

But it became clear quite quickly that he still wasn't quite right.

I don't think he was quite ready to come out of hospital.

They've sent him home.

So why isn't he better?

Hi, I'm Sam Cox.

ALENA: How are you doing?

I just couldn't control my brain properly.

Like, I thought I'd become friends with Banksy, really close with Kanye West.

Donald Trump was asking me to doodle on his wall between USA and Mexican border.

We were going to doodle the world together.

I remember him looking at me and going, "Why are you pretending to be my mum?"

I said, "But I am your mum, "Sam."

And he went, "No, you're not, you're Nigel Farage."

I went, "Sam, please.

If you're going to call me someone, "please don't call me Nigel Farage!"

But, gradually and very slowly, he got better.

He was, like, on ten different medications during the day.

And I had to have this little notebook with when I would write the name of the medication and the timing, so I didn't miss anything.

OK.

We're getting somewhere.

This Sam's coming back.

Hello.

I remember him saying to me that I don't want to be Mr Doodle any more.

I just want to have a little house and to have a dog and just go on walks and live just a standard life.

He didn't even express a desire to draw, which I think we were probably kind of slightly relieved about, because we felt that being Mr Doodle was what had made him so unwell.

So if he stopped being Mr Doodle, then he would never be unwell again.

That didn't last too long.

I remember picking up this pen.

And how it felt kind of cold against my hand.

That feeling of the ink coming out of the pen.

And seeing it bleed and seep into the paper.

I felt, like, so amazed watching it.

And I was so happy to be able to do it again.

When I first saw the house, after coming out of hospital, we were only allowed to visit it for a few hours a day, because my parents didn't want us to spend too much time here.

But those hours were like so joyful and precious.

You don't need this any more, Sam.

Either just live in it as it is, or sell it and just go and...just go and live an ordinary life.

This house project, it's like my dream - ultimate lifelong ambition.

Something so close to my heart and something I've always wanted to do.

I wasn't at all sure that he should carry on doodling the whole house.

When your son's been in a psychiatric intensive care unit, that seems, er, somewhat dangerous.

Is going back to drawing and being obsessive about his artwork, you know, um, a recipe for disaster?

It's such an easy equation to make.

Mr Doodle equals trouble - don't have Mr Doodle.

He can't leave without drawing.

He just can't survive.

It's like you need air, Sam needs doodling.

At that point, I felt like it's never going to end.

I feel like I was born to draw.

So it just feels wrong to even question it, really.

While they were telling us it was a psychotic episode... ..what they couldn't tell us is if it's a one-off, because you will only know if it happens again.

Hi.

I'm going to draw... Oh, hi.

I'm going to draw on every single tile in this bathroom.

So there's going to be like hundreds of little characters.

Goodbye.

Then you're kind of overanalysing everything he does or says - are you OK?

Do you feel all right?

Did you take your tablets?

Have you got enough tablets?

Do you have to draw ALL day?

You get lost in this empty space.

Crazy.

We spent time trying to explain to Sam that it was OK to be Sam.

That it was safe to be Sam - you didn't have to be Mr Doodle.

He seemed to struggle with that concept.

Hello.

It's September 30th, and I'm doodling in the bathroom.

Ah, hello.

This is the 5th of December and this is the cloud room.

I was always trying to distract his brain from his thoughts.

I was trying to bring his attention to the real, material world - just to have that empty space in his mind from the thoughts.

He still had these episodes.

I could see him changing again and the episode comes and he thinks he needs to escape somewhere.

That's my biggest fear - to ever see that face again, which is not Sam.

For me, if I will ever see that look... ..I will make sure that... I'm sorry.

I never even told him that I'm scared of this.

SHE EXHALES HEAVILY Just want him to be happy.

Hello!

It's the 7th of March and welcome to the upstairs landing, where I've drawn lots of different themes.

There were times when he would walk round and he wouldn't be Sam.

He'd say "I am Mr Doodle.

I am, that's who I am".

And then we'd be., "No, Sam, you're not.

You're Sam."

"No, I'm Mr Doodle."

Hi there.

Hi there.

Hi, there.

We had to keep saying to him, "Sam, we love you, not Mr Doodle."

Agh!

I'm in the memories room.

This is me as a child, drawing lots of doodles.

This is me with Mrs Doodle.

True love.

And there you go.

Hope you're enjoying it.

Agh!

I want to get upstairs to film... Hello!

Hi!

It's the 21st of February.

Hello!

Hello there.

Oh, hi.

Didn't see you there.

I'm doodling downstairs.

Doodling away.

HIS WORDS OVERLAP Ring, ring!

Ring, ring.

Hello.

# What a lovely doodle day!

# Oh, Doodle Land!

Cool.

HIS WORDS OVERLAP # Doodle Man, stop!

Won't you say?

OVERLAPPING SPEECH CONTINUES VOICEOVER: Hello!

I didn't know who I was any more.

The character had taken over so much of me that I got to the point where I thought the only way out was to kill Mr Doodle completely.

Please, Mr Doodle, Can't you see?

I've really had enough.

I can't live like this any more.

I'm finding it really tough.

AS MR DOODLE: Sam, oh, Sam, oh, Sam, don't be so absurd!

Close your little doodly mouth.

Not another word.

AS SAM: But you drove me crazy.

I lost my mind.

I truly went insane.

Before things get hazy, I've got to get you out my goddamn brain.

OVERLAPPING VOICES AS MR DOODLE: But we doodled the house - a dream come true.

Now let's do a whole town.

Don't look so sad, come on, you, now don't you frown.

AS SAM: Not another episode of psychosis, please!

You've hurt me and my family, so it's time to leave.

Mr Doodle, it's time to say goodbye.

I'm afraid the only way is for you to die.

AS MR DOODLE: But I bought you the house and your wife.

I'm responsible for the joy in your life.

Come on, Sam, stick to the plan.

Together, we can doodle this whole land.

Isn't it fun being me all the time?

Doodling every hour of the day isn't a crime.

So what if you go crazy and lose your mind?

You only need your hand, leave your brain behind.

AS SAM: Enough is enough.

I'm not going to praise you.

Now, hold still, Doodle Man, while I erase you.

Let me live in peace with my family now.

Having you take over my life, I can't allow.

AS MR DOODLE: Hold on, Sam, you can't just erase me.

In that moment, I realised that I need Mr Doodle as part of my life.

I want him to be part of my life.

Mr Doodle was the way that I met Alena and how I got my house.

And, you know, one of the best things I've ever created and I love Mr Doodle.

I didn't want to just kill him and move on from him.

But, you know, I'm a human being, and to have a story and a life outside of Mr Doodle, as well.

My whole life, I've been creating characters and living in fantasy worlds - I guess because I wasn't confident enough to be myself.

Maybe I'd neglected Sam for too long.

Telling the world that he had been unwell, it's really quite raw and really honest and, you know, it's a it's a big moment for him to show a vulnerable side.

He wasn't being Mr Doodle, he was being himself.

Since that moment, everything started to become better.

If he was going to go back to finish doodling the house, we needed to make changes and he needed to have a decent support network around him that could cope with him and his world.

So there was a lot of talk about the family gathering around to protect him and help him out.

Sam needed a bit more of a support system around him.

We know what happened and we kind of, like, pretty much know why it had happened.

And I think he needed a small number of people he could trust and people that could add something to what he was doing and to where he wanted to go.

Kind of spacey.

SAM: Yeah, that could be cool, yeah.

MUM: Drink your tea.

I could do the next one.

Um, I'd rather you didn't, if that's OK.

SAM VOICEOVER: I think the worst part about it is how I treated Alena.

She just showed me so much love and care and understanding and stuff.

I had a lot of time to reflect upon what life would be like without Alena and how much I really wanted her in my life.

I don't care if he comes to me tomorrow and he says, I'm not going to be Mr Doodle any more.

It's not really about that.

It's about this wonderful person whom I found and I can't believe I found him in this big planet, and how our lives just tangled into each other's and I would never change it.

Just wanted to let you know that, uh, we're engaged.

Woohoo!

Yay!

ALENA CHUCKLES SAM'S MUM: I think maybe for Sam... ..perhaps recovering from an illness... ..gave him a confidence... ..and a belief that it was OK to be himself.

I feel honestly like Mr Doodle doesn't actually really exist any more.

This is the final photograph of the time lapse - me standing outside the finished, completed Doodle House.

And it's a very significant time, really, because this is the end of a project that I started two years ago, and it's finally complete, and I'm just so excited to share it with the world.

CAMERA CLICKS REPEATEDLY SOFT PIANO ARPEGGIOS LILT # It's easy to feel you don't have a place... # CAMERA CONTINUES CLICKING # When you're alien and different and you're falling from space... # PIANO ARPEGGIOS AND CHORDS BUILD # Struggle to fit with anyone else # Like everyone else # But you will find a place... # PIANO ARPEGGIOS CONTINUE SAM: I've been waiting two years for this moment.

It's the first time that people all around the world would have ever seen the Doodle House.

STRIDENT PIANO CHORDS PLAY # So many different ways you can say # And finding your own is your only way... # Now to get out my doodle plan.

# You struggle to fit... # "Instructions for how to get back home."

"Find a way to get back home.

Get back home."

CAMERA CLICKS RAPIDLY It's quite busy, that's all.

I just... Sunglasses?

Yeah.

Busy is one way to describe this.

It is a living room unlike any other.

Now, it is the work of this man here, Sam, otherwise known as Mr Doodle.

THEY LAUGH CHEERING SCATTERED APPLAUSE Um, Earth here - obviously, where we are.

This is where I am.

And of course, DoodleLand up in the sky.

You can't actually see it at the moment because it's blue.

The time lapse is getting a lot of views.

Yeah, it's all very exciting.

A very exciting day.

Why would you doodle a 12-bedroom house worth over £1 million?

Well, why not, really?

ENGINE COUGHS, SPLUTTERS Got to get in the sky.

Or at least try.

ENGINE IGNITION CAMERA CLICKS REPORTER: Sam, a self-described "obsessive compulsive doodler," will paint anything on anything, CHATTERING LAUGHTER Wow.

And I mean everything.

CONTROL ON RADIO: Mission sequence start, six, five, four, three, two, one... ENGINE COUGHS, SPLUTTERS ENGINE IGNITION, WHOOSHING ..zero.

WHOOSHING CONTINUES ENGINE PUTTERS OVERLAPPING CHATTERING OVERLAPPING CHATTERING CONTINUES SAM: Goodbye.

Bye, goodbye... PIANO CHORDS PLAY Bye, goodbye... Goodbye, my friends.

Bye, goodbye... Goodbye to you, see you soon.

Bye, bye, bye... I said see you soon.

Bye, goodbye... Oh, no, don't cry For why?

Goodbye, goodbye... Doodle man is gone tonight.

Doodle man's gone tonight.

Bye, goodbye, bye, goodbye... Oh-oh... Goodbye.

PIANO CHORDS SLOW, STOP ED PERKINS: He's not really going to live in that house, is he?

Uh, he really IS going to live in it.

The Doodle House is going to become Sam and Alena's real house, the house that they live in day in, day out.

SAM'S MUM: I don't think I could live in it as it is, with, it's a little intense for me, but I think he's done an amazing job.

I think it looks fantastic.

ED PERKINS: A LITTLE intense?

SHE LAUGHS I'm trying to be nice.

If you were asking me this question two years ago, I'd have probably said, "I really don't think it's a good idea "that someone who's just had psychosis would go and live "in a house like that," but now I'm fairly confident that it will be OK.

I hope.

THEY CHATTER THEY CHUCKLE Touch wood.

He's been fine ever since.

Yeah.

That's Sam's story.

But hey, I think we were lucky, really.

You know, some people really suffer continuously, don't they?

And we're lucky enough to get Sam back.

RAPID TICKING SWEEPING STRINGS BUILD CYMBALS CRASH TRIUMPHANT BRASS PLAYS DRUMS BOOM TIMER PINGS BABY GIGGLES MUSIC FADES OVERLAPPING CHATTERING EERIE SCREECHING OVERLAPPING CHATTERING CONTINUES RAPID CLICKING MUSIC: Can't Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, your loving is all I think about # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, it's more than I dare to think about # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, your loving is all I think about # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, it's more than I dare to think about # Every night # Every day # Just to be there in your arms # Won't you stay?

# Won't you lay?

# Stay forever and ever # And ever and ever # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # La, la, la # La, la, la-la, la # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, your loving is all I think about # I just can't get you out of my head # Boy, it's more than I dare to think about # There's a dark secret in me # Don't leave me locked in your heart # Set me free # Feel the need in me # Set me free # Stay forever and ever and ever and ever... # Subtitles by Red Bee Media