I want to share this personal story of my friend Earl. He became ill at the age of 22-years-old with schizophrenia. None of us knew, at the time, that he had schizophrenia nor did we even know schizophrenia existed.
Earl came home from work one day and told his pregnant wife Renee that he’d quit his job. He had cashed his last check and given their money away. He started reading the Bible obsessively, but would change the meanings of each verse to how he perceived it. He started writing his own bible. His young wife was desperate for help, and turned to county mental health services. She was scheduled for a C-section, and it had been arranged for a local psychiatrist to be at the hospital during that time to observe Earl. The psychiatrist never showed up.
When their new daughter was only a few weeks old, Renee was getting ready to go to her mother’s house and was taking the baby with her. Earl tried to persuade her to leave the baby with him. She refused (because she did not feel it was a good idea) and left with the baby. Thank God she took her because the baby would have lost her life along with her Daddy.
Shortly after Renee left, a man who worked in a shop behind Earl’s and Renee’s house, noticed flames coming out the back door, flames that were shooting high above the house. The fire department was called thinking the house was on fire, but it wasn’t the house. It was Earl. He’d stripped down to his underwear, doused himself in gasoline, and lit a match.
On the way to the burn center in San Luis Obispo, an attendant asked Earl, “Why did you light yourself on fire?” Earl said, “God appeared and told me it wouldn't hurt. He told me I wouldn’t burn and I’d prove to everyone that I am God-like.”
Earl had third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body. His abdomen was burned so badly that his internal organs were exposed. He lived for three more days.
Fast forward years later… Earl’s daughter developed severe bipolar disorder and my son became psychotic, due to paranoid schizophrenia, at about the same age that Earl had become sick. Earl’s wife Renee eventually remarried but divorced years later. Now, she works full-time to support her daughter Janeen and Janeen’s son who also has bipolar disorder. Renee lives in Santa Maria, California and can’t get her daughter help. She struggles with caregiver burnout and worries about what will happen to her daughter and grandson when she’s gone.
Earl lost his life in 1976. In my opinion, since then not much has changed as far as early care and diagnosis of serious mental illness is concerned. We still have to wait until our loved ones are an imminent danger to themselves or others before someone might try to help us.
Why?
