Maybe note that this article is from 2012?<p>Since then, Bodhi (the brother) has been diagnosed autistic and they suspect he is also a paranoid schizophrenic, but he just doesn't verbalize like Jani does. Michael (the dad) had an affair and the parents are now divorced.<p>It is a truly tragic story. There is a well-written post from Michael which I can't seem to find where he gives advice to other parents raising children with mental problems.<p>(I found the quote, but not the whole piece)<p>> All I can tell you now is you have to decide what is more important to you In this life, with mentally ill children, something is going to have to go. You have decide what that is. It our case, it was our marriage. May Jani and Bodhi forgive me. I couldn’t do it all.
It's stories like this that make me wish as hard as I do for better pre-birth screening for mental disorders, including autism, and continued support of abortion. It's an unbearable burden - to the parents, society, but most of all to the children themselves, who are utterly blameless and must suffer the rest of their lives as a result. I try to debate rationally and understand that other people have their own opinions but I feel sick arguing with people about this. My family has had it easier than many, certainly nowhere as bad as the family in this story, and I love my brother, but if we could choose between him existing and him not existing the latter is clearly better for all involved, including him.
There's a song that was made with the intent to bring this kind of issue closer to people, and it's approved by her parents:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q4ZR_Bye_4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q4ZR_Bye_4</a>
Title needs (2012), I'd love to read a more recent followup if anyone knows about one. My brother didn't show signs of his schizophrenia until his teens (it may have been triggered/hastened by drug use, I haven't kept up with the literature around that theory), it took over 10 years for him to get to a stable place with my mom's great efforts. The end of the article is encouraging, modern medications and ratios <i>have</i> gotten better and it really helps when the person is a minor. Keep the love and support going, and don't discount her not being a good sister in the end.<p>"There is no cure for schizophrenia." Yet.
If I read the article right, it sounds like Jani started immediately improving once people began talking and interacting with her.<p>I wonder how things might have been different if that treatment would have been tried much earlier on.
Oh god I recall this article.<p>I have three small kids. I am blessed that they are 100% healthy.<p>I can't imagine how some people handle certain challenges.
It's uncanny to me that Jani hallucinates cats and rats... Toxoplasa Gondii evolved in cats and rats, and is linked to early-onset schizophrenia (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16920078" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16920078</a>). Makes me wonder...<p>T. Gondii is known to cause infected rats to become attracted to the smell of cat urine.
What interests me most about this is that even now we are so lacking in our understanding of the function and dysfunction of the human mind that there are not even good words, robust descriptions, or any scientific metrics or diagnostics for what is going on. Words like engagement and violence get thrown around without quantification and a parade of categories are fitted and later abandoned much like Jani's imaginary friends. It is important for us to understand what the mind is and how it is evoked from brain function, but now we are mostly helpless.