©2008 Thomas D. Hodgins.
The World According To Fraser
Because
“Life’s not that bad”
By
Thomas D. Hodgins
For years and years I’ve have been telling people that one of these days I’m going to put together a little book about my friend Mike “Mick” Fraser. “One of these days” is the day that never comes until you decide that today is the day you actually do it. I like to think of myself as a man of my word, and I promised to put my words about Mick on paper and share them.
I met Mick Fraser in 1976 when he was fourteen years old. He lived a few blocks away from me, and rode into my social circle on a ’72 Honda SL-70 dirt bike. Compared to the hot new Suzuki two-stroke 125s my pal Jim Nelly and I were riding at the time, Mick's bike was pretty slow. To help out our new friend, we did what any backyard mechanics would do: we grabbed a hacksaw and sawed off the muffler to let that baby breath; Mick was thrilled; Mick’s mom was pissed.
For the next several years, Mick and I did almost everything together. We acted alike, dressed alike and shared the same interests. “Mick was always personable, good looking and ready to help anyone at most anytime,” recalls our mutual friend, Tom Binder. “We all hung out around together, we talked about work, and we partied together and created minor mischief together.”
My Mother and father would drive us to the motorcycle racetrack where I would compete on a dirt course full of thirty bikes going at top speed. Mick also raced from time to time, but mostly he went to support Jim and me.
When we weren’t riding bikes, we were dressing up and looking "smooth." It was our firm belief that we had to look good for the girls, and that meant wearing the best clothes money could buy. We may have been young, but we worked hard at good paying summer harvest jobs.
“When we were going to school,” confirms Mick, “we all worked for the cannery. We raised those beans you make burritos out of. The only thing we had to move our freight was combines. That’s how we packed our lunch. I cooked my chili right on the engine of my machine to make sure it was warmed up.”
The money we earned all summer went for looking good the rest of the year. Even without the sharp clothes, Mick had a way with women. He was undeniably handsome, and an accomplished “babe magnet” all through high school.
Mick and I were typical Walla Walla high school boys – we worked hard and we played hard. We “partied” just the same as our classmates, but never took things to the sort of extreme that results in damage to people or property, or earns you an arrest record.
My party days were dampened somewhat because at age seventeen I took a full time job working for the local radio station, KUJ, owned by Jim Nelly, Sr. As my job took time from the party life, Mick and I drifted apart for a few years. During that time, fun-loving Mick did enough partying for both of us while working a variety of well paying jobs.
When Mick was twenty-two, something went wrong. The first symptoms came on very rapidly; it came on really in the space of about a week. Tom Binder, a friend of ours, noticed a sudden distinct change in Mick’s communication style.
“Out of nowhere Mick would start discussing topics using the most unusual vocabulary and odd metaphors. At first, I didn’t always understand what Mick was trying to say. He started to communicate in his own language, or style. If you knew him well, you could piece it together. If you didn’t know him, well, it was difficult.”
What Binder didn’t know, and neither did anyone in our circle of associates, was that this metaphor driven and digression laden communication style is often the key indicator of schizophrenia. What passes for clever creativity in poetry and song lyrics, is just so much incomprehensible imagery when presented as basic conversation. It is one thing to be among close friends when you toss out obscure references, blurt out old song lyrics, or offer overly familiar observations, but quite another when it’s done with the wrong people or at inappropriate times. Mick moved beyond clever to incomprehensible.
Within a seven or eight day period, Mick went from seemingly fine to certifiably insane. In retrospect, Mick was amazingly brave in the face of what was truly an awful experience.
“Someone slipped me a Mickey,” says Mick, seeking an external explanation. While it is true that Mick’s personal behavior had recently included extreme episodes of intoxication that was most likely self-medication for an un-diagnosed medical condition.
At first, it seemed as if Mick has simply done too much of something, or more than enough of everything. Induced psychosis is not uncommon, even with perfectly legal medications that impact brain chemistry. In that situation, the psychosis goes away once the drug’s effects diminish. Mick’s mental imbalance, however, was not fading away, and it was scary. What would frighten people was the rage. Micks never did anything except talk strange, and yell nonsense. I don’t think he has ever made a true threatening gesture towards anyone other than hollering at him or her.
Mick was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, a biologically based brain disease that seriously impairs a person's ability to think clearly and relate to others. Schizophrenics often have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary. Although there is no known cause or cure, a majority of people with schizophrenia can lead a more "normal" life with the appropriate medication, therapy and support.
There is something about the word “Schizophrenia,” that triggers fear, and that fear is born of ignorance. The National Schizophrenia Foundation, when declaring May 22-28 to be Schizophrenia Awareness Week, issued a press release saying, “Schizophrenia is NOT hopeless. It's NOT the result of bad parenting or a weak personality. Schizophrenia is NOT the same as split personality disorder.”
“Schizophrenia is often far from what people think it is," says Eric Hufnagel, President and CEO, National Schizophrenia Foundation. "Unfortunately, the individuals with schizophrenia are the ones who suffer -- not only from this devastating disease, but just as much from the stigma that results from public misconception."
California law professor Elyn Saks recently published a personal account of her lifelong struggle with schizophrenia, but Saks said she did it to show that people with severe mental illness can succeed with proper medication and psychiatric treatment.
The common belief has always been that Mick somehow “fried his brain" with recreational drugs. Drug use doesn’t cause schizophrenia. It is a medical condition that, like many others, is often due to genetics. In other words, it runs in the family. It occurs in 1 percent of the general population but is seen in 10 percent of people with a parent, brother, or sister with the disorder.
People who have second-aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins with the disease also develop schizophrenia more often than the general population. The identical twin of a person with schizophrenia is most at risk, with a 40 to 65 percent chance of developing the disorder.
While Mick's parents don't have it, his father's aunt was similarly afflicted. Mick's intense partying didn't cause his disease whatsoever. It would have showed up even if he were the stone cold sober poster child.
Although there is a genetic risk for schizophrenia, that link isn't strong enough for anyone to predict who will have it and who won't. It takes a combination of genetics and exposure to viruses or malnutrition before birth, problems during birth, and/or extreme stress added to some of the above.
Maybe a simple way of characterizing what Mick has going on between his ears is this: he has a medical condition that causes an imbalance in the complex interrelated chemical reactions in the brain. When you look back at Mick's first major mental health crises, you see that he was a textbook case.
This illness manifests itself in late adolescence or young adulthood. The reason for that, many doctors believe, is that the condition lies dormant in the brain until puberty when the brain undergoes sudden changes, including chemistry. It is then that the “hidden problem” shows up.
Once Mick had his first major mental crises, and his diagnosis was discerned, it was clear that Mick’s life path was forever altered. Mick, however, was my dear friend. He still is, and always will be, no matter what.
Those “whats” were difficult for all of us, especially his parents and his brother. Having a beloved son or sibling suddenly transform into a schizophrenic is a tremendous challenge.
“It was a shock,” confirms his mother, Nancy. “And I sure went through the whole `what did I do wrong?’ thing. I had a minor in psychology, so I had some dealings with textbook experiences with mental illness, and I knew that his father’s half sister had schizophrenia, but this was my first time being up close and personal with anybody with mental health issues.”
Mick’s father, according to Nancy, had severe difficulty adjusting to his son’s difficulty. “The boy’s dad behaved so badly. He lived in California, and Mike would go down to visit. His father would actually be on the borderline of being hysterical most of the time when Mike was down there, and then he would get drunk and call and scream and say `what happened to my beautiful boy?’
It was, she recalls, terrible for Mike. His mom may have not behaved that same objectionable way, but internally she was going through her own roller-coaster of emotions.
“I didn’t want to believe Mike’s condition was permanent. So, what does a mother do in that situation? You read everything you possibly can, you talk to people, you join the alliance for the mentally ill, you get the county board to make sure they get the funding their chunk, all the stuff you have to do for advocacy. And without meaning to, we went through so many mental health providers in the I don’t know we had one group, they’d be in and they would lose their contract and they’d hire somebody else in and it didn’t get better for a long time.”
For several years, Mick would go until he had a complete mental meltdown, and then be carted off to Medical Lake, Washington, a facility for psychiatric patients.
“That medical lake was a bad place,” said Mick, “they just drop you off there because nobody loves them. I drove by once going to Missoula in a Rider van. I breathed hard and caught my breath and thanked God I am not in Medical Lake anymore.”
Finding the right medication for Mick proved difficult. Some of the required medications simply hadn’t been invented or discovered yet. Through trial and error, over five years, doctors finally devised a pharmacological regimen that does the trick.
“I take my medication on schedule,” says Mick. “I take Risperdal, lithium, and Synthroid. I’m not some lunatic. I’m not foaming at the mouth. I’m not big on guns. Sure, I got mixed up in some things I shouldn’t have, but I had a big brother who would call me on it. I still don’t have all my coconuts where I want them. I’ve never even been to Hawaii.”
Schizophrenia can be controlled quite well with medication taken as prescribed. In fact, some improve so well that a physician who doesn’t know them wouldn’t be able to diagnose them as schizophrenic. This is called “remission” when it lasts longer than six months.
Long-acting medication, which many patients use, ensures continuous relief of psychotic symptoms – those that cause the most trouble and the greatest fear for both the individual and those around him.
Medication alone is not a treatment, but it helps. Many schizophrenics find it difficult to find or hold a job. There are treatments programs especially dedicated to improving social functioning. Mick functions socially very well with people who are willing to make some social adaptations of their own
“There are too many crazy people in this world,
and I don’t want to be one of them”.
There is a little club house in town, the Rising Sun, especially for the mentally ill. It has pool tables, card tables, and other things any mutual interest club house would have. The folks who run it will even take the club house gang out to mow lawns to generate some little jobs for income. Mick refuses to go to there. He wants nothing to do with the place. You could not drag him down there; he wants to associate with people who don’t have mental issues. The more he associates with the balanced and healthy, the more it validates his own sense of balance and health.