What's it like to be married to a schizophrenic? Is it a flirtation with danger? Just when tireless efforts of the mental health advocacy movement seemed to be educating the public that chronic illness does not equate with menace—a hairpin turn. Michael Laudor's transformation last month from Yale Law graduate to murderer of his fianc饬 Caroline Costello, defied conventional reason. After all, Laudor was never before violent; not a substance abuser, was well educated and psychologically savvy, and above all he was used to having to ignore his hallucinations. He was one of the few with a great support system (including psychiatric care and religious counseling) and one of the rare to find honor from his illness (in a movie deal about his life story). All this going for him, and suddenly, sweet Caroline was being buried while he sat in jail.
Fine research not withstanding, it only takes one incident such as the Costello murder to indelibly influence people's thinking. Certainly the public can't feel much safer about chronic mental illness when hearing of a blood-soaked confused Laudor running off in Caroline's car. Judges considering the release of insanity acquittees (perhaps Laudor will one day be one) will increasingly wonder how fast and how far a person can deteriorate and reoffend even with no current sign of illness. Psychopharmacologists have to wonder, given the loss of effectiveness of the antipsychotics Laudor was taking (which preceded his noncompliance) whether the new age of miracle antipsychotic drugs has produced a class of treatments which work well for a while—and then don't. Advocates for the mentally ill have to wonder whether their movement expected too much of Laudor. The very illness for which he drew attention renders one less able to manage stress and demands. But behind the upset and upheaval, it is Laudor himself who will feel the most devastating impact of this tragedy.
They read the books. They know the score. The disease is incurable. They will never be everything they dreamed. Schizophrenia means having to adjust your expectations, as in the case of other disabling illnesses. Sometimes that's not so bad—if you're planning to move to Montana, live in solitude and raise horses, for example. But for many the oddness of the condition and the peculiarity with which it alienates one the rest of the world dooms the schizophrenic to isolation. This means few friends—or a romantic match often only with other mentally ill in a perversely forced inbreeding.
Even more ironic is the way schizophrenics, so presumably ill-equipped to deal with life challenges, can respond especially well to the emotional need of a mentally ill loved one. Who better understands the power of hallucinations than he who hallucinates? Clubhouses and other social arms of treatment facilities have spawned many a successful relationship.
Love cures many life wounds. It keeps more than a few people out of psychotherapy, and far more out of prison. Love undoubtedly caressed the scholastically gifted Laudor as he confronted, daily, fading ideas of an unfulfilled bright future. How tragic, therefore, for schizophrenics, still tentatively acknowledging their illness, to wonder whether their significant others need fear them. How disappointing that with the refreshed stigma, the schizophrenic will feel a renewed sense of unworthiness in securing and maintaining deep and emotionally rich relationships.
Nobody should ever have to suffer the burning question, "Who will love me as I am?" But those with schizophrenia who've shared their thoughts in my office since the Costello murder, even those never violent, talk of these deep insecurities. Laudor's unforeseen meltdown has even prompted some to wonder what their schizophrenia can make them do. These thoughts are the demons that feed the denial of illness that thwarts compliance with treatment that brings out the worst in the mentally afflicted.
Caroline Costello stood by Michael Laudor in sickness. She never bailed out; she loved him. And for years, she was rewarded in kind. For eccentricity and hallucinations do not rob the schizophrenic of the ability to feel or to love. And the sacrifice of loving a disabled person should never be equated with the selfless idiocy of continuing in an abusive or battery relationship. Caroline Costello found something special within someone who could have been abandoned as inscrutable. In death, she emerges as the role model here.
