My Neighbor's Misdiagnosis

This is a very sad story about my neighbor I used to have back home.  He was a single man living in the same apartment building I did.  He was friendly if you spoke to him, but he didn't approach people.  I noticed every day he went to the store and came back with a brown paper bag.  He did this several times a day.  I decided to befriend him, as no one hardly ever came to his place, except his mother, who would clean and take him grocery shopping.  It turns out he was on disability for Schizophrenia (now they call it Bipolar).  I found this odd..this guy was not crazy, and he was very intelligent, well spoken.  I could tell he had gotten a good education and paid attention in school.  The more I got to know him, the more I wanted to know how he ended up in his situation.  He was only about early 30s when I met him.  His dad was a retired Eye Dr. and they had money.  He had 4 or 5 brothers and sisters and a few of them didn't turn out so good, either.  He would act a little weird at times, but it was when they changed medications, generally. 

Sadly, he was on Risperdal and Haldol and meds like that.  They are psychotropic drugs (hardcore).  These drugs had turned him into a paranoid recluse.  He could not leave his house much and we did go a few places, but he would stay out in the car or go back to it quickly and he told me that he cannot go into buildings well.  He did manage to paint with his brother sometimes for extra money and to help his brother who had a painting business.  Both are alcoholics and drink all day on the job.  But, mainly he would walk to the store several times a day to buy beer and that was his life.  He smoked cigarettes and occasionally people would drop by and sell him methamphetamine.  One time he was not happy because he thought they sold him Kool-Aid instead of real drugs.  He didn't like to talk about his past, but I eventually got all the details out of him.

His story is:  When he was a teenager, about 16 or 17, he experimented with LSD like some of the other teens were doing.  His parents noticed and thought something was seriously wrong with him.  He didn't want to tell them it was LSD.  His parents were well off, so they took him immediately  to a Psychiatrist.  He did not tell the Dr. that he took LSD, either.  He said the doctor also thought there was something seriously wrong with him.  They asked him if he heard voices and all kinds of things.  He said yes to most of it, because while on the drug, he would experience all that weird stuff.  He was on it in the Psychiatrist's office and remembers staring into space.  They ended up diagnosing him with Schizophrenia and gave him the psychotropic drugs.  So, he ended up trading the illegal ones for legal drugs.  He thought that was pretty cool.  And it was all passed off as legitimate because the doctor said he needed the drugs and was mentally ill.  From that point, he became a victim of the system forever.  Those drugs are addictive and most never get off them once they start.  They have never been proven to actually work for mental illness, either. 

Now, this guy may have had a bad childhood and been neglected and all, but he wasn't mentally ill.  He needed to get in a drug treatment program or perhaps he would have just grown out of it as most kids did.  If you met this guy, you would see what a waste it was to take an intelligent kid with his whole life ahead of him and put him on some of the most toxic, powerful and controversial drugs on the planet.  It made me sick to hear what happened to him.  He doesn't seem bothered with it.  He went with the flow.  I think it was a way of gaining the attention he didn't get growing up.  If this happened to him, think how many other kids can have their lives destroyed through misdiagnosis and harsh drugs.