Washington Post

By , Published: May 25

A week in the life of a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia and his mother who is caring for him:

“It has been 10 years since he began thinking his classmates were whispering about him, four years since he started feeling angry all the time, and two years since he first told a doctor he was hearing imaginary voices. It has been 20 months since he was told he had a form of schizophrenia, and 15 months since he swallowed three bottles of Benadryl and laid down to die, after which he had gotten better, and worse and, for a while, better again, or so Naomi had thought until an hour ago, when they were in the therapist’s office and Spencer said that his head was feeling ‘cloudy.’

“‘Wait —’ she said, interrupting. ‘You described it as a cloudy feeling?'”