Schizophrenia Reveals Who Will Never Leave You Alone
My little brother is an example. It shows you the friends you never had and what happens when life goes on, when people are gone.
It’s my birthday tomorrow. Anyone wanna hang out?
My heart sunk, and the breath I let out suspended in the air, pausing with me for a moment of silence.
One like. Zero comments.
If there were ever a moment I’d hated Facebook, this would be it. As a last resort, my little brother was crying out into an empty blue void for a tiny red notification of attention.
Some random person off his “friends list” had the nerve to reach out to me and ask if he’d ever received any treatment. Are you asking out of genuine concern, or are you as nosy as Pinocchio? Why don’t you try talking to him instead, for fuck’s sake?
Is Facebook a place for friends to connect? Other than being part of active groups, it’s a platform for everyone to judge one another by the cover of their books — and quite evidently — no one cares to read into the one with schizophrenia.
I wish I could take you with me and trace the trail of breadcrumbs as to how it all came to this mess. Too little too late. Some of the pieces had been gobbled up in a vacuum of time and spat out, leaving me desperate, stuck, viscous in confusion with no way to connect the dots.
Let’s start from the beginning. I’ll give my little brother the name Raphael, a name of an archangel meaning “God has healed” from Hebrew origin.
Growing Up Fending For Ourselves
A single father of three barely kept a roof over our heads. We didn’t have much. We had functioning furniture, one computer, and gaming consoles our elder brother had gotten before we fell into a pothole of poverty.
A staple of our diet was soda and instant noodles after school. We could watch TV without the luxury of parental guidance to limit screen time, nor did we have a curfew. We roamed free. And while some dared say they envied us for having such a laid-back father, one word described this freedom: neglect.
Our troubled past and the clear divide between our friends and the outside world was exactly what left Raphael and I close-knit for survival. Our elder brother was rarely in the picture because of the big age gap or whatever it was he was up to at the time. We didn’t have anyone at home to love and care for us, but we always had each other, and although our childhood was tough — we toughed it out together.
Raphael was my sidekick, my partner in crime, my confidant. We weren’t afraid to say “I love you” or tell each other anything under the sun, amidst the darkness of our upbringing. He had the most exuberant laugh back then as if problems blanketing us didn’t exist. I’d give anything to hear it again.
Hidden Struggles
Raphael was the only one who failed at school. He was never the type to study, as he lacked the support, drive, self-discipline, and — most of all — self-esteem.
Pediatrician Nadine Harris Brooks in her insightful TEDMED Talk about how childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime, details a study called ACES and what constitutes as trauma:
Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Physical or emotional neglect
- Parental mental illness
- Substance dependence
- Incarceration
- Parental separation or divorce
- Domestic violence
High doses of adversity not only affect brain structure and function, they affect the developing immune system, developing hormonal systems, and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed.
Raphael lacked the entire foundation and environment to thrive growing up. At his most tender age range from birth and beyond — he was in the crosshairs of traumatic turmoil.
An Unwelcome Guest
After graduating from high school by the skin of his teeth, Raphael had a short period of happiness in his life. Then came his friend, who I shall call Bobby. While he wasn’t responsible for the unfortunate turn of events, he wasn’t a good influence and I wonder how differently things would be if he never entered our home.
The story goes: his parents kicked him out, my dad took him in, and the eldest had moved away to Calgary for work, so we had a spare bedroom that Bobby rented out. He was also a drug dealer.
Bobby’s entourage that infiltrated the house like ants got along with my little trooper of a brother. Raphael was part of the circle of friends that shared tokes and outbursts of stupefied laughter from getting high to the point they’d forget which day of the week it was.
When used recreationally and responsibly, drugs are fun. But this group was like a bunch of sour patch kids smoking the Devil’s Lettuce 24/7 mixed in with burning shots and Molly alongside for the ride because You Only Live Once.
I chalked it up to a phase then. If only I could turn back time to save my brother because you only have one life to live.
I was busy juggling studies and worked to support myself, and by this time, I had moved away. If I had been home, perhaps I would’ve been able to pinpoint precisely when his behavior became erratic, or stop him altogether.
The Onset of Symptoms
He must’ve been around 20 at the time. Cannabis was rolled into his schedule as if it was an essential meal three times a day. While sometimes he would say things that made me scratch my head, nothing ever rang bells of imminent danger, not until two defining moments.
The Bad Trip of a Lifetime
One night, Raphael told me he had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend. He was upset, agitated, hurt, and absolutely NOT in the right state of mind to mess around with psychedelics. The show went on with magic mushrooms.
No surprise, he had a bad trip as if the gates from hell broke loose. I wasn’t there to witness it — but it was enough to know he hasn’t been the same since.
Hearing Voices
The moment I knew something was wrong was when he told me he was out playing pool with Bobby and company. He said that he could hear them talking and making fun of him in their heads during the game, but their mouths were not moving.
There came another voice in his head that was incessant and always interrupting his thoughts. It would berate him, tell him he was stupid, useless, and good for nothing. It would laugh at him. Sometimes I wonder if this voice was how his inner child spoke to himself when he was young.
Paranoia
He started believing everyone was against him and out to get him, becoming suspicious and jumpy, his dull eyes darted. Paranoia left him unable to keep a job, and eventually, he and his girlfriend inevitably split up when he even turned on her. Reclusive and no longer his bubbly self, conversations with him became one-sided. Today, he is convinced he is under mind control, and it causes him to mumble incoherently at times.
Negative symptoms are the main reason patients with schizophrenia cannot live independently, hold jobs, establish personal relationships, and manage everyday social situations.
Eventually, Bobby moved out, their meetups became less frequent. Phone calls with friends dwindled, and you’d get the old tired ass excuse people who don’t care about you like to use: “I’m busy.”
Drugs as an Escape
I thought the path of drugs would end with Bobby gone, but it got worse.
Raphael would roam the streets of the dirty Downtown Eastside where the homeless, druggies, and prostitutes gather, buying bags of ecstasy laced with God-knows-what and down pill after pill to experience fleeting euphoria — anything to silence the noises in his head.
He would call me from time to time, high out of his mind only to confess his love for me. Hearing him like that cut me over the phone, but he was speaking from the heart. When you are high on E, you still speak the truth.
He overdosed once. My father found him limp as a noodle — he had his stomach pumped at the hospital that night.
Losing His Best Friend
Raphael is essentially a child trapped in an adult man’s body, with his growth stunted throughout a lifetime of trauma, drugs, and mental illness.
The only person who looked after him was our father. He too, was lonely as a long time divorced man, with two of his older children who had left the nest, settling in different parts of the world. But he took care of Raphael like an injured bird to the best of his ability as the sole provider and guardian.
Raphael and my father spent their days keeping each other company. They became extremely close in the past decade together and were an inseparable team.
We knew our father would one day pass before all of us and had worried what would become of Raphael, but it all came suddenly, like a natural disaster. In January of this year, Raphael found our father in his room — in bed, stiff and unresponsive. It was a cardiac arrest.
My heart shattered from the shock. Those broken pieces turned to dust when I imagined my brother being completely alone at yet another traumatizing event, and I howled into my pillow as if the feathers could absorb my pain.
At our father’s funeral, Raphael cried the most, with guttural sobs that came from the depths of his soul. The only words he could manage to let escape were,
Nooo… no no no… Why? Dad… Nooo…
We had lost our only parent — but he also lost his very best friend.
When I flew back to Vancouver to attend the funeral, it was bad timing with Covid-19 and Chinese New Year, which made the flight rates soar astronomically.
Raphael was insistent on meeting because he had something to give me. When I saw him, he took a crisp brown $100 Canadian Bill and gave it to me, cupping his hand over mine.
Hey Tracy, I heard your flights were really expensive so I just wanted you to have this. Some pocket money.
We came from nothing. We know all about nothing. Yet here he was, a broken adult who still has absolutely nothing in his life, and he was giving me what little he has — money he receives off of government assistance.
My body seized up. I could’ve dissolved into a puddle of tears, but I put on my big sister pants. I saw a twinkle in his eyes as I cradled him with my gaze and told him,
“Don’t be silly. You need to keep this for yourself, but thank you. It made me really happy. You are the best. Do you know that?”
I then hugged him tightly as if I’d never see him again.
His capacity to love, to feel, to think with his heart and not his egotistical head is otherworldly. He is still in there somewhere, but only those who take the time to connect will catch glimpses of his beautiful mind.
Here is what he had to say about love, copied and pasted from a conversation I’d had with him in 2010, approximately a year after his change, meaning he was already schizophrenic when he typed these words:
When it comes to BELIEVING people, you must choose wisely. Because love runs deep, it’s deeply rooted, and it’s always true. It’s not conditional, it doesn’t change if you don’t help out with rent. It doesn’t change with time nor distance. It always is there.
To answer Pinocchio’s question, yes he sought treatment and is on the highest doses of medications, but it’s of no help. There are awful side effects and it made him balloon to triple his size. Our elder brother has tried tirelessly to get him the help he needs with case workers and other professionals.
They say if you catch it early, there is hope, and you can manage the symptoms. But from my experience, schizophrenia is a life sentence. It is ruthless and the least forgiving of mental illnesses. Not only are you a prisoner of your own mind, but you are shunned by society. People who suffer depression, anxiety, or other disorders are often commended as brave for seeking help — they can turn their life around.
What about those with schizophrenia? People won’t leave a depressed person, but they will ditch a crazy one, as they see the outer shell of insanity but forget there is a sane person inside.
Some mental illnesses are not invisible — people just choose to turn a blind eye to them. Ignorance is bliss. Feel free to stay afloat, secure in your own bubble. My innocence was burst long before I was old enough to comprehend it.
The Bottom Line is: Life is Unfair
Sometimes you are born into it. Sometimes all odds are against you, and the world is a cruel place because some of the most genuine and kind souls are meant to be lost.
When the belittling voice in your head becomes closer than anyone you’ve ever known — at least you know, it will never leave you alone.
And mental illness is such a tragedy. Because you lose your loved ones. Long before they’re gone.
– K Tolnoe
My sweet little brother is no more. It took a third of my life for me to mourn the old him, and I’ve cried enough for a river to flow back to the past to try and bring him back. I have blamed myself for leaving his side when he was my forever sidekick. In the end, I know better than to yearn for things long gone and I’ve accepted this loss.
But every year in the late spring when birds sing, new life has sprouted and his birthday comes around, parts of my heart that have toughened with scars over the years begin to crack again — and I avoid logging into Facebook.
