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But Gary never finished Harvard, and the intervening 18 years have been, for Gary and his parents, a nightmare and an epic struggle with schizophrenia, Willick told participants at an annual meeting forum marking the 10th anniversary of the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression in San Diego this May.
With a supportive family, good clinical care, and the help of one of the new atypical antipsychotic drugs, said Willick, "Gary has fought his way back from the most devastating effects of his illness. Although he is still frequently delusional and symptomatic, his talent, intelligence, and the warm and engaging personality that was present before he became ill have served him well as he has begun to put together the shattered pieces of his life."
Willick recalled a dream he had years ago, sparked by a remark a friend had made to him that he had never gotten over the thrill of seeing his oldest son, Jeff, hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win a baseball game for his team.
"That night I had the following dream: I was at a baseball game, and it was again the bottom of the ninth, but the batter at the plate was Gary, not Jeff. Gary then hit a long home run to win the game. In the real game I had excitedly run down the stairs as Jeff rounded third base, shouting at the top of my lungs, 'He did it! He did it!' as I relived my boyhood fantasies.
"In my dream, as I saw Gary rounding third base, I saw that he was cured of his schizophrenia. I saw that wonderfully alive expression on his face that had been missing for so long. In the dream I ran to run down the stairs shouting 'He's cured! He's cured!' Then I woke up."
This, said Willick, "is what the new brain science means to all of us. It will make my dream, and the dreams of all the families affected by schizophrenia, come true."
The research supported by NARSAD and other organizations offers hope that new drugs will be discovered to help those for whom current medications don't work, he said. The research offers hope for better drugs that target symptoms more specifically and have fewer side effects.
The new research also means that "there is hope that our period of mourning will be shortened," Willick added. "Because of the extraordinary transformation of the personality that occurs in schizophrenia, many of us live with a mourning that never ends. We have lost a son or a brother or sister that we once knew, yet that person is very much with us."
(Psychiatric News, July 4, 1997)