Edge of the Abyss (2012)

Edge of the Abyss (2012)(smh.com.au)

144 points by atondwal 10 years ago | 32 comments

Maybe note that this article is from 2012?

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.

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.

(I found the quote, but not the whole piece)

> 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.

fatlasp 10 years ago | |

I stumbled across a post ending in your quote. Looks like somebody started a foundation which turned up on a search of Michael Schofield's name; you might be thinking of this post: http://janifoundation.org/blog/

cfcef 10 years ago | | |

http://janifoundation.org/the-fallen/

jd3 10 years ago | |

I remember reading this article a few years ago. I never thought the story could get worse. Tragic.

Ygg2 10 years ago | | |

Stuff are never that bad they can't get any worse.

ryan-allen 10 years ago | |

I saw a documentary on her (can't remember which), and the family rented two apartments in a complex, because she was violent with her younger brother.

user9982 10 years ago | | |

That's in the article

kough 10 years ago |

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.

abortoTheClown 10 years ago | |

But if we aborted every deviation from the norm, we'd probably slip into monoculture as a species, and risk falling prey to a mass extinction event, beyond our understanding.

Somehow, the cold statistics of DNA mutation would leave us behind, and we'd become creatures with no means of adapting, until one vast catastrophe forces the issue.

What might feel practical in the moment, for one, might be terrible for the collective.

gherkin0 10 years ago | | |

> But if we aborted every deviation from the norm, we'd probably slip into monoculture as a species, and risk falling prey to a mass extinction event, beyond our understanding.

But he wasn't talking about that. A lot (most?) people with serious disorders will not have children, and from an evolutionary perspective that's practically the same as if they died young. There's already selection against those traits.

beparanoid 10 years ago | | |

That's not how genetics works in a sexually reproducing species. Most selection is via modifying allele frequencies.

user9982 10 years ago | |

You can't pre birth screen for schizophrenia. Child onset schizophrenia is incredibly rare, normally manifesting between 16-25 in males and 25-30 in females and there is no consensus on the causes of schizophrenia.

beparanoid 10 years ago | | |

Child onset is likely due to a variant of large effect. Adult is not. The glass is half empty, half full. Some schizophrenia is probably screenable most is not.

jsprogrammer 10 years ago | |

According to other sources, the parents of these children have shaken, beaten, and overdosed at least Jani. The father also apparently admitted to molesting Jani as a baby as well.

Things might have turned out much differently for these children had they been treated differently while growing up.

Mithaldu 10 years ago |

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q4ZR_Bye_4

whitegrape 10 years ago |

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 have 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.

"There is no cure for schizophrenia." Yet.

ImTalking 10 years ago | |

I know nothing of your circumstances, but many schizophrenics gravitate to drugs to alleviate their symptoms. I very much like your sentence. "Keep the love and support going, and don't discount her not being a good sister in the end."

jsprogrammer 10 years ago |

If I read the article right, it sounds like Jani started immediately improving once people began talking and interacting with her.

I wonder how things might have been different if that treatment would have been tried much earlier on.

samstave 10 years ago |

Oh god I recall this article.

I have three small kids. I am blessed that they are 100% healthy.

I can't imagine how some people handle certain challenges.

blurbleblurble 10 years ago |

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 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16920078). Makes me wonder...

T. Gondii is known to cause infected rats to become attracted to the smell of cat urine.

lintiness 10 years ago |

i have a 3 yo daughter and a 1.5 yo son. this story is terrifying.

pmarsh 10 years ago | |

I find it amazing at the untold strength in parents like these. Just ordinary folks who somehow find a way to keep on trying and pushing and doing their best when faced with unimaginable challenges.

They fall and get up and keep going.

Makes so many other problems many of us have to face really seem more like "problems".

EC1 10 years ago | | |

This perspective is romanticizing their hardships. The reality is probably that they have no way out and they are stuck in a cycle.

Ygg2 10 years ago | | |

Sadly, story doesn't end here. Now the brother is autistic, possibly schizophrenic and the parents are divorced.

grahamburger 10 years ago | |

I have a 5 yo son and an almost 1 yo son and a family history of Schizophrenia. You ain't kidding! That's some heavy stuff in there.

m0llusk 10 years ago |

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.