01x04 - Part Four: Reality

[bunniefuu]

[soft music playing]

Mother and Father came to me
specifically and said,
"Please, please."

There was no one else
that could've handled it.

I mean, they said, please
do not do not desert them.

And what I have seen is that
everyone else in my family,

has deserted them.

Maybe that was
too big of a chore.

No, it's absolutely not.

I never thought I would be

doing this by myself
without you guys.

I never in a million
years thought

that my siblings would not
be by my side.

[man] Where schizophrenia
is diagnosed

between age 17 and 24...

[man 2] It's a tragic story,

to be part
of the Galvin family

is to be part of a tragedy.

[woman]
This mutation was present
in every person in that family

who had schizophrenia.

[man 3] They might hear
voices, they can command them
to do things.

[woman 2]
Throwing a cat into a bonfire,

dismembered a dog
in the bathtub.

[man 4] This family gave us
hope that there might be a
chance to cure schizophrenia.

[woman 3] He shot her first,
and then he shot himself.

[man 5] Well, it started
to fall apart.

My brothers were falling ill.

They were losing their minds.

[echoing]

[John] What happened
in our family is very rare.

Six siblings out of 12 to have
schizophrenia...

Half the family.

That's rare.

You don't see that.

I mean, if you look at the
chronology, it's unbelievable.

Donald, you know, I was two
when Donald became ill.

Then Jim went to the hospital.

And then Peter
went to the hospital.

And then Matthew
went to the hospital.

And then Joseph.

In the middle of all that,

Brian committed suicide

and m*rder*d his girlfriend.

And it's only been
over the course of a lifetime
that you can

look back on it and go...

Oh, my...

Holy crap! [scoffing]

How did this happen?

Peter Eugene Galvin.

Son of Dr. D.W. Galvin.

We were all healed.

Gave something the doctors
had to heal us with.

They tell us what to do
with medications.

We take them and shut up.

I don't.

I don't need to be
looked after.

I can look after myself.

Peter was so noncompliant.

He just would not abide

by what the doctors were
asking him to do.

He just would not do it.

He was in and out
of the hospital.

I have no idea how many times.

Hundreds, I would guess.

Get stabilized, go home.

My parents would
try to get him

established in an apartment
and he would blow it

within a few months.

And this was just this
repetitive revolving door

with Peter, in and out, and in
and out, and in and out.

Stopping taking
the medications

because of the way
they make you feel.

And then we would get a call
from the police.

No, I haven't.

[Mary] Police reports indicate

that he was charged
with two counts of as*ault

in the second degree
against a police officer.

No.

On 5/18/91, a theft
of cigarettes had occurred
from a 7-Eleven store.

Someone chased Mr. Galvin down
and got the cigarettes back.

Mr. Galvin then sat
in front of the store
and refused to leave.

When the police
approached him,
he began swinging his fists

and fighting,
injuring both officers.

He punched both in the face.

During his trip
to corrections,
he was yelling and incoherent.

Nope.

I stay clean

and I'm an E.M.T

and I save lives.

I had to go get Peter's
court records and say, look,

he has a severe
mental illness.

I really had to convince
the courts that he did.

It wasn't like they were just
willing to take the piles

of hospitalizations.

I mean, we had to go
to great efforts

within the Boulder County
judicial system

to convince them that he had
severe mental illness.

[Goodwin] Peter is a very
interesting person

and he's fun to talk to.

He was so
chronically cheerful,

but he could be
a very difficult patient.

He can be violent.

He can be agitated.

He can be very manic.

He can be grandiose.

I'm Saint Peter.

The holy Saint who was
crucified on the cross.

Irish setters
right in my hands,

I died on the cross

with Jesus.

And I saved his life, too.

It's upsetting because
you love Peter

and then when he turns on you,

it feels like a betrayal.

But we eventually,
and particularly with the
support of his family,

we were able to get Peter
in a good place
and get him stabilized.

My mom said, "Oh, Mary,
don't take this on.
Do not take this on."

And I said, I have to try
or I won't know.

[Richard] Mary took Peter in
and tried to do

whatever was right for him.

She could help him

get clothes and find jobs
and whatever.

I saw real progress.

I mean, really.

Peter held down
a job in Boulder.

He lived in his own apartment,

and I don't know how many
years that went on.

Found but he was pretty
high functioning.

But he was taking medication
and going to therapy.

Combined.

His doctors talked to me.

At one point, and said
that he's extremely brittle,

unresponsive to
the medications.

And that they would
eventually stop working.

And that they felt
that it was time

for Peter to go back
to Pueblo,

where somebody
with his severity

of a brain disorder
would get better treatment.

So basically the doctors
were telling me to give up

on my attempt to save him.

Yeah.

I didn't like it.

I was the main patient
at the hospital.

And I did what they said to.

[Goodwin] Pete was,
he was very unstable.

He was in and out
of the hospital.

We would get him out.

He would destabilize.

He would come back in,
and I don't know

how many admissions we had,
where he came back in.

And then it was like,
well, "Okay, let's do
the shock therapy now."

The state of Colorado
requires Peter to have ECT.

Because when he
doesn't have it,

he is a danger to himself
and perhaps others.

[Goodwin] There's always
been something
to electroshock therapy.

And it's been scary
and it has a bad reputation.

[ominous music playing]

The way we do it now
is much more judicious.

We use anesthesia.

I think if you can come up
with a treatment,

and it is
electroshock therapy,

and that's what works,

then that's what
you stick with.

I get...

shock treatments
right in the temples.

They get--
They knocked me out.

With their beds

on the shock-treatment tables.

[interviewer speaking]

I feel much better.

Like a brand-new man
that takes care
of his doctors.

I sing them songs,

and I do everything
that I can think of for them

because they're fine doctors.

In Peter's case,
it really helped significantly

with his, um, manic,
manic type of symptoms
that he had.

The biggest issues
that I have dealt with

with electroshock therapy
is memory.

And when you talk to Peter...

Uh, I always describe
Peter's talking in a loop.

He will--
He'll have a story.

He'll have a loop
that he'll talk to you about.

Maybe someday
we'll understand better

exactly how
electroshock therapy
actually works,

and we can use something
that's much less of invasive

and doesn't require
the same drawbacks.

There-- There needs
to be some progress

in the way they treat
the mentally ill.

I keep hearing from Peter.

And one of
the most painful things

is the fact
that they do these
shock treatments on him.

[exhales deeply]

I'm just thinking about
what he's been through

and the pain
he's been through.

I can't even imagine.

[playing flute]

So much tragedy
in some ways

has been brought to the family
because of this disease.

And to me,
losing my brothers

closest to me in age
to this disease

has had a big impact
on my life.

[John] It's-- It's painful.

What my family
has gone through,
it's horrific.

But there is hope.

[Lynn DeLisi] Okay.

-Hi.
-[interviewer]
How are you doing?

Okay.

And when we did our
our first main study,

uh, I had about 350 families,
something like that.

And the Galvin's
was the largest.

At that first visit,
there were at least

four of them
that were there.

And what I remember
is them marching around

through the kitchen
saying things that
didn't make sense.

They were
essentially a gold mine

because the larger the family

and the more the number
of affected people
in the family,

the more likely
we can find something

that's significantly
related to the illness.

Bob Freedman
was a colleague of mine.

He was doing genetic research
that was related.

So I introduced him
to the Galvin family.

[Robert]
There were a lot of Galvins.

Mimi, from the start,
was a very impressive woman.

Don Jr. and all his brothers
were sitting on a bench

for myself
and my research team
to begin to interview,

to draw blood
for genetic sampling.

Better research
on mental illness
was Mimi's hope.

The family had clearly been
devastated by schizophrenia.

[John] They wanted to do some
genetic testing on the family.

I was ready to help.

I never thought
of the overall big picture

until the testing came along.

[Mark] I remember
giving the blood sample.

Advances are being made
in genetic treatments
all the time.

Maybe someday
they'll find a cure

for these
mental health issues.

And maybe that could
help my brothers as well.

[interviewer speaking]

That whole
schizophrenia thing

was my mother's
idea of notion

that I'm mentally ill.

I might have been
a little schizophrenic

because I was
with a lot of people
who were schizophrenic,

but it doesn't
make me a schizophrenic.

[man] Every human being
has a genetic blueprint
called DNA.

Researchers hope
to map the genes found
on the chromosomes.

It could be
a fundamental advance
towards a cure

for genetically-linked
illnesses

such as schizophrenia,
cancer and heart disease.

[Freedman]
In the early 1990s,

scientists all over the world

hit on the idea
that you could make a map

of the entire genome
in human beings.

There was a great sense
of competitiveness.

Each of us wanted to be
the first to find the gene
that causes schizophrenia.

Once we knew
what "the gene" was,

we would be able
to target a medication
towards that gene.

The magic b*llet.

So we went gene hunting
and identified a gene.

And the name of the gene
was CHRNA7.

[DeLisi] So we sequenced
the whole genome
in the Galvin family.

They had one mutation
that really stood out,

that was present
in all affected siblings.

It was a gene that was
expressed in the brain

in what's called
the SHANK2 gene,

and was important
for brain development

so that we knew
we were on the right track.

[Freedman] SHANK2
is a very important gene.

It's not
a complete determinant
of schizophrenia.

But multiple
discoveries like that

changed our view
of what we were looking at

in schizophrenia in general.

For example,
having an a*usive childhood,

where you've had
a lot of trauma,

that trauma
is doing something

to the genetic material
in the brain,

and maybe causing genes
to be expressed
in a different way.

Church officials have
reportedly sent the names
of 49 additional priests

accused of child sexual abuse
to prosecutors,

bringing the total number
of priests

named by the archdiocese
so far to 87.

NBC's Monica Novotny
has the story.

[Mary] When the story
about the Catholic Church

and the priests
abusing young boys
broke across the world,

my mother was watching
television with Donald.

Priests during the 1980s
or even before were knowingly
assigned to active ministry

after there had been
credible allegations
of child abuse.

And he told my mother

that he had been
sexually abused
by Father Freudenstein.

[interviewer speaking]

[Donald speaking]

[interviewer speaking]

-Hm?
-[interviewer speaking]

[Mary] My mother,
of course, believed him

because he was lucid
and on his medicine.

And just because
they have schizophrenia

doesn't mean they just
make stuff like that up.

That would
not be something, um,

Don would hallucinate
or make up.

[Richard] The priests?
Well, there are a lot of them.

A lot of priests
over the years.

Most of them
like smoking cigars,
as I recall, [chuckles]

that stunk up the house.

Um, but they
would come over a lot.

There was one...
One priest.

His name was Freudenstein.

They called him
Father Freudenstein.

I was not particularly
fond of him. [chuckles]

Something
about his personality,

the way he carried himself.
Maybe it was his demeanor.

And I kind of distanced
myself from him.

[Richard] Don, Jim,
and Brian, all would go
on these excursions.

I remember, Father
Freudenstein was picking
him up in a station wagon,

saying goodbye to him,

and then, they'd
come home three days later.

We didn't think
any of these priests

would be doing
anything illicit or wrong.

[John] What I heard
from my mother
and my brothers

is that he became
sexually a*usive towards
my oldest brother, Don.

And then, suddenly,
it was like...
[makes clicking sounds]

"Well, that must have
happened to Jim, too."

Because what else
would have caused him

to sexually abuse me?

So,

we came to that conclusion
without firsthand knowledge.

But it just fits.

It just fits, you know.

It makes
everything make sense.

[Mark] There are those
in psychiatry who say that
a traumatic experience

can trigger mental illness,
schizophrenia.

While, maybe it's genetic,

perhaps it's a traumatic event
that triggers it.

[Daniel Weinberger]
One of the things we know
about schizophrenia

is that just having the genes
by themselves is not enough.

There have to be
other factors.

How much is nature?
How much is nurture?

How much is the way
you were treated in your life

versus how much did you
come into life with

as a biological background?

Of course,
most human diseases,

including cancer,
are nature and nurture.

Donald played football,
and wrestled
and was very athletic.

So, the chances
of him having head injury
were pretty big.

He was sexually abused.

And so, there
was trauma there.

And then, Jim,

he played sports, too.

I think he was probably
sexually abused as well.

For Brian,

maybe psychedelic drugs.

Yeah, maybe LSD,

and flashbacks
might have been
a trigger for him.

For Joe, he was in Chicago
at the time that
it happened. So...

Maybe just working
long hours at the airlines,

just being
exhausted, physically
and emotionally, and alone...

Maybe loneliness
could be a trigger.

Matt, perhaps his crash
into the hockey goal...

Been a lot of hospitalization
from trauma happening
to my physical body.

I was lucky to live through it
after being in

a hematoma,
blood clot hemorrhage
brain operation.

[Mark] For Peter, witnessing
my father's first stroke

could have been that kind
of traumatic event

that might have triggered
the schizophrenia.

[voices
whispering indistinctly]

[Mark] He once stated to me,
"You know, I had
a pretty good life

until this mental illness
came along and ruined it."

[singsong] Christ, Christ...

Christ...

I was trying so hard
to normalize mental illness
around my children,

and didn't...

understand the consequences
of exposing them to so much
mental illness.

Our intention was, um...

to try to expose the kids
to the ill boys

so that they would
get to know them.

[Kate] I think it's really
important to normalize
mental illness. Um...

But I also think
there is a lot...

that I wish
I hadn't known until
I was a little bit older.

If you're
not mentally equipped
to handle this information,

you're not normalizing it,
you're inflicting more trauma,

whether you mean to or not.

[Jack] I mean,
no one's family is normal,

but not many people have
six schizophrenic uncles.

Well, it has been a minute.

The day I wake up,
on my 26th birthday

will be
a very happy day for me.

Because that's, like,
when scientists think

the male brain
finishes developing.

I will feel like
I've... gotten past it,

and then, I have
no percent chance now.

Zero percent chance
of developing schizophrenia.

I mean, none.

I think the fear
started to set in
once I was 12, 13, 14,

um, because,
you know, that the...

I was not doing things
that other kids did,
like I didn't play football.

I didn't play hockey because,
you know, fear of head injury

eventually turning
into schizophrenia.

When I hear
a sound in the house,

I immediately look to see
and figure out what it is.

I have that moment
of, like, anxiety,

of like,
"Did I just hear that?"

Like, "Was that me
or was that actually
happening around me?"

And you know, for
someone who fears that way,

you run a very fine line.

Because I think
you can convince yourself

that you're hearing things
that you're not,

that you can tell yourself
that you're hearing stuff,

and eventually,
you will.

I think my brother
was really affected

by the idea of possibly
becoming schizophrenic.

He started to smoke
weed for the first time.

And he...

would tell me
what was going on,

um, for the most part,

-[camera clicks]
-and be like,
"Oh, I'm here,"

or "This happened."

-I started to get worried
and telling my parents,
-[camera clicks]

you know, what was going on.

And then,
he stopped telling me things.

And that was when I was...

got really nervous
about what was happening.

[Mary] We were
struggling that summer.

We can't find him,

He's MIA.
Won't answer his phone,
won't answer his texts.

Um...

-Yeah. That was
a tough summer.
-Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we were
struggling with what to do.

[Jack] I was
self-destructive,

to the point where
it was going to affect
my life in a serious way.

I started abusing drugs
with my prescribed
ADHD medication.

I was abusing that.

My mind was that,
if he keeps going
down this path,

he is going to potentially
develop major mental illness

-by his drug use.
-Yeah, that's true.

His behaviors reminded me
of things

that I suspected
Peter had been up to
when he was young.

-The two of them just
reminded me of each other.
-Oh, yeah.

We had been researching,
uh, programs,

what we might do,
where we might take him,

who might be able to help us,

But Jack just...

wouldn't fully engage
in the process.

[Kate] My parents
really did not want
to send him away.

Once that was decided, um...

my parents, like, made a plan.

They were gonna
take him and his friend
to the skate park,

and then, they were
gonna ask him
to stay in the car

so they could
talk to him for a minute.

And instead of that,
they were just
gonna drive away.

And before they left, I put
the child locks on the doors

so that, once they
started driving away,

he couldn't
get out of the car.

He tried to, like,
kick out the windows and
open the doors on the highway.

And I feel bad now
because, like, how traumatic
was that for him, you know?

I can't imagine just, like,
being sent away like that.

[Rick] At the start,

this was perhaps the worst
experience of my life,

having to take him down there
and leave him there,

turn him over
to someone else.

It was horrible.

It was horribly
traumatic and awful.

Absolutely, I think.

But, then, by the time
we got to graduation,
it was the exact opposite.

[camera clicking]

What we met In Jack
when he was done,

was... It was
unbelievable.

[Mary] I did think,
at the time,

maybe there's
a preventative component
to an early intervention.

But I thought that,
"Boy, what if Peter had
had this opportunity?"

Would he have ended up
as bad as he is now?

♪ Our father who art
in heaven,♪

[inhales sharply]
♪ Hallowed be Thy name...♪

[Jack] Growing up
in this type of situation,

it felt like things
were always happening.

You know, it was...
This is going on
with this brother.

And, you know, my mom
being the person
that takes care of them,

it's not like we were
just hearing about it.

You know, we were there.

Madness has defined my life.

I've lived too many days
worried about it.

♪ But they'll never
ask for me ♪

[Jack] I've done
all the therapy.

But I'm still
[bleep] afraid
of schizophrenia.

[Mark] Since she passed,

the family's kind of
broken apart in
more ways than one.

You know, John's so far away.

He's been kind of
separate from the family
for a long time.

You know, Michael
and I just never shared
a common bond of any sort

to spend time together.

And for me, you know,

I've got my own three children
and my three grandchildren.

And that's my life now.

[John] My mother was...
She was the center.

And when she passed away,

the family has
kind of fragmented...

more.

We're not together so much,

especially my sister,
Margaret.

She's still hurting...

from everything
that's gone on in the family,

and she wants to...

just get away from it.

And...

that's her way
of dealing with it.

[Donald] I ran away from it
in my own way.

I'm just not a professional
mental health caregiver.

I don't think it's my calling.
[chuckles]

[Mary] My parents
were very clear
in expressing to all of us.

Not just me,
but to my other
siblings as well.

"Please don't desert them."

That was very clearly
my parents' message,

to all of us, not just me.

"Please don't desert them."

I can't find anything positive
and being mentally ill
the way they are.

And it's such a loss
of what could have been.

I'm sure that they have
different perspectives
on that.

Try the 14th corner.

[John] Peter and Matthew
seem like they have
some joy in their lives.

[indistinct chatter]

I used to love
to play the pool,
and I'll win it again.

[John] They're not--
They're not totally... I can
still communicate with them.

[indistinct chatter]

I don't call Donald...

just because I don't think
there's a communication
between us.

I don't think that he would
have anything to say

that I could understand.

Mary seems to think
that we should try

to have a relationship
with my brothers,

you know, and try
to be there for them, and...

I haven't been
able to do that.

[Peter] Hi, Mary.

-God, you look great.
-[laughs, smooches]

-Hi, Pete. Oh, you...
-[Mark] I just don't
enjoy seeing them.

I mean...
There's not much point to it.

I'm just trying to look
and see what you need.
Yeah, there's more garbage.

Oh, they think
I'm being my mother.
I'm a martyr.

I mean, we always called
my mother a martyr.

-You're doing what
your mom did, though.
-Mm-hmm.

I mean, in terms of
making sure that
they're taken care of.

Yeah. Just let me follow you.

I personally believe that
only through helping others

do you really
find true joy in life.

-[Peter] Kind of wearing off.
-[Mary] Have you seen Michael?

And I think you're missing out
by not helping those closest
to you when they need it,

and they need it.

Yeah.

I didn't envision our family

having become
divided the way it has
in the last five years.

I thought we all had enough
love and care for each other

that everybody would
step up and participate.

I obviously have
a lot of anger around us.

Still, I'm trying...

I'm really trying
to understand
their perspective.

Mother and father
came to me specifically,
and said,

"Please, please..."
[sobbing]

[John] There was no one else
that could have handled it.

I mean, they said,
"Please do not...
do not desert them,"

and what I've seen

is that everyone else
in my family

has deserted them.

Maybe that was too big
of a chore for 'em.

No, it's absolutely not.

I never thought I would be

doing this by myself
without you guys.

I never, in a million years,

thought that my siblings

would not be
by my side through this.

You cannot demean.
You cannot put down.

You cannot admonish
your brothers and sisters
for that.

-This is not your place.
You're not the judge.
-[Mary] I can be angry.

You can be angry,
but don't be angry
at your brothers and sisters.

I am angry at
my brother and sisters.

[Donald] Because you think
everybody can do what you can.
That's wrong.

We're not professionally
equipped to handle it.

-She is the only one who...
When I'm looking at her,
-I don't see it.

[John] She's the only one
in this family...

Because I'm willing
to be vulnerable.

-Vulnerability is power.
-[John] She has done it.

She has done it.

I mean, she's taking care
of what's needed
to be taken care of,

and she will
continue to do that.

She looks after the kids.

She looks after Don.
She looks after...

-[man] Matthew.
-...Matt, Peter.

I couldn't do that.

I wish I could have
helped Mary more. But...

as far as me
making arrangements
for my brothers

and seeing to it
that they have what they need,

what those boys need,
she does it.

She does it.

[interviewer]
Do you think Mary's
taken on too much?

Uh, only she can answer that.

I hope that she knows
she can always call me
and lean on my shoulder.

From a distance,
I can talk and visit.

Um, and support her
the best I can.

The survivor guilt
is unbelievable.

Like, why am I not just
bringing them into my home?

You know,
like my mother chose to. Um...

I don't know how she did it.

I think the pain,
the emotional pain

that somebody suffers,
from having schizophrenia,

is maybe worse
than the disease itself.

Didn't I get
into a lot of trouble
in Boulder?

[Mary] So, it's
really debilitating,

not only to the person...

There's a picture.
There it is.
There's a picture.

...but to the family, too.

[indistinct chatter]

We can work on a puzzle.
I like puzzles.

[sighs] Hi, handsome.

-You're cold.
-Yeah, I know.

-Yeah.
-Cold hands. Warm heart.

[Mary chuckles]

[Mary] Just because
they are schizophrenic

doesn't mean they don't
have their own mind.

I mean, their mind's
a little broken,

but when
they're lucid, they're lucid.

And they want
so badly to be normalized.

They don't want
their condition to be scarier.

You know, to me,
schizophrenia is...

really tragic.

And it's not their fault.