It was a Friday night in October of 2012. While our three kids were in high school, Friday nights in the fall meant that my husband and I were in the football stands. We enjoyed the games, but we were really there to see the marching band perform at halftime.
But this night was different. My husband and seventeen year old son had arrived directly from the hospital. Our son, S., had received a CT scan to see if his paranoid delusions were caused by a brain tumor.
When it came time to march, he performed perfectly, hitting all the notes on his trumpet and keeping up with the beat.
Yet outside of those fifteen minutes, he was barely functioning. He was deeply suspicious of everyone around him. He moved in slow motion, and couldn’t read or really concentrate. He looked terrible.
After marching, he couldn’t find his trumpet case. His best friend’s dad went on the field, found it, and held it open for him. That image is burned in my memory.
S. saw a psychiatrist nine days after he first showed signs of psychosis. One of his delusions was that I was evil. He refused to look at me. The doctor prescribed Abilify, and within a half hour of taking it, he looked me in the eye and smiled.
The psychiatrist wanted him to stay home from school. But my husband and I campaigned to have him attend his first hour class, which was band. My husband sat in the back of the class. S. couldn’t lift his head to take in the room. But once again, he could play his trumpet.
After he successfully marched in a competition, I asked him how he managed. “Muscle memory,” was his explanation.
He attended classes in the computer lab for the second half of the year. He went to prom with his best friend, riding in a limo with a bunch of kids. At his senior supper, there was a mock Academy Awards ceremony. His classmates voted him Best Music.
The other winners swaggered and mugged through their speeches, as kids will do. But S. said, “Thanks, everyone. I’ll miss you.” The simplicity of those words touched people.
Over one hundred people came to his graduation Open House- the same number as his older brother. Somehow, his illness didn’t alienate anyone. He even grew closer to his best friend.
The psychiatrist balked at his college plan, which was to live in an off campus apartment with his brother and two friends. But once again, my husband and I believed that he would be ok. He was accepted into the college’s marching band, and joined a music fraternity.
The life that had been shattered a year previously was mending. S. was thriving. His psychiatrist called him one of his biggest success stories.
Today, he is thirty years old, but in some ways still stuck in adolescence. He is self-absorbed, constantly trying to sort out his identity. He doesn’t make enough money to live on his own, and he’s never had a serious relationship.
But his life could be so much worse. I’ve talked with him about the role that music has played in his recovery. I’ve researched it, but I haven’t found a specific study about its effect on schizophrenia. I really believe it’s healed his brain.
S. also plays keyboard and has tried guitar. He’s taken voice lessons, and joined a community choir and a community band. He was a writing major, and he’s dabbled in short stories. Lately, he’s been serious about macro photography. He likes to draw and has tried painting.
I had an epiphany yesterday. The positive symptoms of schizophrenia- delusions, halluciations, hearing voices- are often resolved by medication. But negative symptoms like a lack of motivation, depression, and a flat affect are much harder to treat.
My realization was this: I think S. has an instinct to avoid passive ways of spending his free time. He dislikes watching TV, and he often wants to create music instead of listening to it. He may know somehow that he needs to have active engagement in things so he won’t lose function.
So maybe music has saved my son. I don’t know for sure. But a cool thing is that his best friend has a tattoo of a trumpet behind her ear to honor him. He really does play the best music I’ve ever heard.
#Bipolar #Depression #GAD #OCD #PTSD
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