Addiction and Schizophrenia in an American Family, Part 8 of 9

 ADDICTION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA IN AN AMERICAN FAMILY, Part 8 of 9

            (Adapted from “A NEW AMERICAN FAMILY: A Love Story,”      

             Published by University of Arizona Press, 2011.)                

 Part 8   

     In the late spring of 2002 John reported that the psychiatrist he was then seeing had agreed to reduce his medication dosage, which gave us pause.  It was not long before Pat’s eagle eye detected changes in John’s behavior.  He was sliding out of control again.

     On July 19, 2002, John died in his bed, his system taxed beyond capacity by an unpredictably lethal mixture of prescription medicine and street drugs.  He was thirty-three years old.

     It is impossible to describe the grief of a parent confronting the death of a child of any age, except to others who have faced that loss.  It seems contrary to the laws of nature, and therefore unreal.  Pat and I needed to see his still body, drained of all the energy that had created around him a special aura.  We had to touch his once-powerful hands and kiss his cold forehead before his death was real to us.

     At his memorial service, Pat and I both spoke about our son, singing his praises and lamenting the tragedy of his fall from a life of such vitality and promise.  We asked for greater understanding of mental illness, whether it had a medical name like schizophrenia or a common name like drug addiction.  We expressed the hope and the belief that collaborative research by physicians and neuroscientists will someday deepen our understanding of the malfunctions of the brain and lead to improved treatment of many forms of mental illness.  Until that day comes, we prayed for compassion for our son.

(To be continued in a subsequent blog.)