Oh g-d

I have a friend, his first initial is P. He lives in Nottingham, UK. We became friends when he resided in NYC for a spell about 10 years ago. About three and a half years ago, at the age of 37, he began to experience the first symptoms of what he now knows is schizophrenia. And he suffers from paranoid delusions.

I've not heard from him in many months. Last time he vanished I thought he'd died.

I'm chatting with him online now and he's telling me about his delusions and multiple suicide attempts. And it's horrible. I'm sitting here crying. This was a good person, a loving, funny, intelligent person whose life has been taken away from him and no treatment is working. I've never heard in such intimate detail before what it's like "from the inside" for someone with paranoid schizophrenia. And it's breaking my heart.

Please send some good thoughts for P. I fear he will try to take his life again soon, and from what he's told me I can't really blame him for wanting to. How do you convince someone their life is worth living when every waking moment is filled with screaming voices in their head and no medications are helping?