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I had a good friend from high school who was brilliant. We were academic rivals, but he definitely outworked everyone in the entire school. He got into Duke and graduated with a double major in engineering and economics. He got his law degree, and then his Master's in Law, and passed the bar exam in New York and I think CA. He was working in patent law in NYC for a few years, and then abruptly quit and moved back home. He said he had some ideas on businesses, and it seemed rational. He started venturing into religion, not for the sake of religion, but to explore the concept of morality. He didn't have a Jewish background, but he became very interested in Judaism because of it's views on morality, and I even bought a book on the Talmud at his insistence, so that we could talk about it. We would have pretty elaborate discussions on morality, etc, over email. He was engaged to get married to a lovely girl, and things looked fine. Then, just before they got married, they abruptly cancelled their wedding. I emailed him, and I asked him "How are things going? Enquiring minds want to know!" His only response was "Who are these enquiring minds that you are asking on behalf of?" We exchanged a few emails after that, he accused me of being immoral, and then I never heard from him again. I contacted his fiancee, and apparently he was exhibiting signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He had become increasingly paranoid over the last few years, and become more and more disassociated with reality. After that, he basically disappeared. He was always a bit paranoid about leaving his mark on the Internet, and had multiple fake email addresses, so trying to track him down was basically impossible. Last year, after many years of no contact, I got a phone call from him, presumably from a number that wasn't his, because he had recently realized that in one of his discussions on his business over 10 years ago, he may have gotten me to agree to terms that would have been personally unfavorable, and he wanted to release me from all obligations from this agreement. I didn't know what he was talking about, but we never did anything more than talk about things, and his "businesses" never amounted to anything except talking. But I agreed to be absolved from those obligations. Then asked how things were with him, and he was extremely vagued, and then hung up on me. It's very sad, because he was very brilliant, but it's clear he is mentally ill. And there's nothing I can do about it. He has no siblings, and both his parents are dead, so there's no one I can even contact. It sounds similar to the case of Garzik in that I don't know if the concept of "take care of yourself" is relevant. He probably didn't realize he was mentally ill, if what the original emailer said was true about him being paranoid. It probably would have been something the family would need to pursue, but getting someone evaluated, etc, is hard, and as the emailer said, it would only increase the negative feedback loop for Garzik, since he would suspect everyone was out to get him, so it's a really tough problem to solve. |
I feel so sad when I read stories like yours of friends and loved ones who need help but don't get it :(