What Lies Beneath –
April 5, 2020 – On how the six brothers presented differently with schizophrenia — Donald, while he was really erratic and very off putting at a younger age is now very sweet and kind in his 70s, but still quite delusional. He believes he’s the offspring of an octopus. Matthew is grouchier. But with medication, he’s actually far more functional than his other brothers. Peter is a talented musician and extremely loving toward the rest of his family. And then the other three mentally ill brothers who are deceased were all different too — Joseph, saw visions in the sky like a Chinese emperor talking to him; Jim self-harmed a lot because he was so paranoid and upset, and he also was abusive, terribly abusive toward his younger siblings, particularly the girls … The most harrowing story of all is Brian, who in 1973, seemingly out of nowhere, murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself in a murder-suicide that the family tried to write off as an accident. But in reality, he had been prescribed an antipsychotic drug not long before that. So he, too, had schizophrenia as well.
