(Feb. 19, 2013) In a Rosedale, Maryland, neighborhood, the mailbox outside a suburban house filled with notes from reporters, the doorbell went unanswered, the phone rang without being picked up.
This is how the Washington Post described the home of Dayvon Green, a 23-year-old University of Maryland graduate student who last week killed one of his housemates, wounded a second and then killed himself (“U-Md. Student acted oddly before attack, friends say,” Feb. 14). Green reportedly had a schizophrenia diagnosis. His family said he had been taking medication.
This tragedy felt uncomfortably close to home. Just four days before it unfolded, my own 26-year-old daughter experienced a manic episode that triggered psychosis and led to a series of increasingly bizarre activities in the course of a few days. On Monday, she was making a presentation to her class as a university senior. By Saturday, she was hearing voices that commanded her to mutilate herself. In between, she engaged in behaviors that endangered herself and others.
Like the Greens have said about Dayvon, my young adult child has a mental illness diagnosis, and I believed she was taking medication, too. But I don't live with her, and it turns out she’d skipped just enough doses to unleash the mania that which in turn unleashed the psychosis that inevitably commands her to do self-destructive acts. Parents dedicated to nourishing young adults with psychiatric diseases to fulfilling lives cheer when our children are well enough to live independently, but we aren't there to know if they really are sticking to their treatment plans or to see the telltale signs that they aren't.
My daughter’s episode ended benignly compared with the Greens’: She drove her car into a ditch and miraculously hurt nobody, including herself. The crash jolted her sufficiently to realize she was at risk, and iimmediately took the necessary steps to subdue the mania and silence the commanding voices. Her car is gone, but she is already back in class. I am shaken, but I still have my daughter.
Most likely because of symptoms caused by Dayvon's mental illness, the Greens no longer have their son. Nor does the family of Stephen Rane, the 22-year-old English major Green shot and killed outside the house they shared. And the life of Neal Oa, 22, the housemate who survived the shooting, will never be the same.
Parents of young adults with severe mental illness live one day at a time. We are always holding a bit of our breath. Worry for their safety and the safety of those around for them is never far from the surface. We hope for the best - and do our best to help it happen. We know the world is full of people with severe mental illness who are living full lives and making significant contributions.
But we never stop fearing the worst. Dayvon Green’s family had reason to believe the best was still ahead. Instead, the worst happened – the life of someone else's son has ended, another is damaged, their son is gone.
I feel for the Greens and the Rane family and Neal Oa and all the unnamed millions that severe mental illness injures or steals from us. They touch us all.
DORIS A. FULLER
Executive Director
Treatment Advocacy Center
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