Nobody related to a schizophrenic should ever be surprised to learn of a tragic...and sometimes violent...death.
Back in the early 80's, one of my childhood best friend's brother was diagnosed as schizophrenic. He was a Vietnam vet then a University of Michigan graduate and a successful executive recruiter here in S.E. Michigan.
At the time he had lost everything, his business, his house and his wife and was back living in northern Michigan under the watchful eye of a social worker.
I live in S.E. Michigan and his brother lived down here too. On a Thursday I got a call at work from Skip telling me he was coming down to Detroit for a business meeting with the French Embassy in downtown Detroit to discuss their potential investment in expanding a railroad line from Detroit into northern Michigan and he needed a place to stay the night and if he could stay with me.
I knew immediately he was off his medication.
So I told him sure, he could stay at my apartment. As soon as I got off the phone, I called up his brother Jack and told him what Skip was planning and Jack agreed to come over to my place that evening.
Sure enough, that evening Skip showed up at my apartment and his brother Jack came over and kept us company.
Well, Skip stayed the night, I left for work in the morning and sometime after that Skip left my apartment......Where he went, I really don't know. Probably back home to northern Michigan during a lucid moment....
Schizophrenia is a horrible disease, not only for the individual suffering from it but for the entire family and those who have to ultimately care for them.
My friend Jack tried repeatedly to get the District Court Judge, who was a close friend of his family, to get Skip committed to a hospital. The judge couldn't do anything until Skip proved to be a threat to others or himself.
At the time, Skip was living homeless on a beach along the shoreline of Lake Charlevoix and it wasn't until winter started to set in that the Judge was finally able to authorize Skip to be committed to the state mental hospital.
Unfortunately for Skip, he was put in a ward with the criminally insane and within the first week there, he was almost beaten to death by another "patient".