- [Narrator] Gerald S. is grossly delusional
and thought-disordered.
He is currently on the following medications.
Haloperidol, 32 milligrams daily.
Benztropine B, four milligrams daily.
- Not doing so hot, I think and feel as though people
have called me here to electrocute me, judge me,
put me in jail, or kill me, electrocute me
because of some of the sins I've been in.
- [Doctor] Is this a new feeling for you?
- The main thing is don't get excited.
But the thing is,
it's not a new feeling, no.
I'm scared of people.
- [Doctor] Must be very frightening for you though.
Feel like you're about to get killed.
- It's so scared, I can tell you
that picture's got a headache.
- [Doctor] Can you tell me more about that?
The picture has a headache.
- Do you wanna know? - Yes I do.
- Okay, when a sperm and an egg go together to make a baby,
only one sperm goes up in the egg.
And when they touch, there's two contact points
that touch before any other two.
Then it's carried up into the egg.
When they fuse, it's like nuclear fusion,
except it's human fusion.
There's a mass loss, the proton.
One heat abstraction goes up in the electron,
spins around, comes back down into the proton
to form the mind.
And the mind could be reduced to one atom.
- Gerry, in one patient at one time,
shows almost every one
of the major features of schizophrenia.
His thinking is disorganized.
The thoughts are loosely connected.
He has formed delusional ideas.
Some of those delusions are grandiose.
Some of them are paranoid.
He has disturbances in his mood.
His mood is in some cases almost absent
and in other cases is totally inappropriate.
And his behavior is disordered, it's unusual.
He has mannerisms that are inexplicable.
He has purposeless, aimless behavior around the ward.
He's a textbook case.
He combines all those things in one person.
- [Doctor] At this point, what would you like us to do
for you? - I would like you
to get me off of cigarettes.
Get me dried out, cleaned up, so I can go home
and get a job in a bakery, and go to medical school.
- Gerry's voices may at times say, you raped that woman.
In a case where he may have just seen a woman on the street,
the voices will accuse him of assaulting her.
One of the things that worries me
about Gerry and about many patients
is at times his voices tell him to do things.
In just the short time he's been in this program,
the voices at times have told him
that he's got to leave because we're going to hurt him.
So obviously, they say things that greatly distress him,
that scare him.
- Nice to see you. - Dr. Bigelow's
Clinical director.
Wanna sit there?
Well, thank you for coming down.
- Dr. Bigelow. - Good morning.
How are you today?
- About to get my teeth knocked out, I feel like.
'Cause I'm nagging people, I'm playing a game
with my psychological pain.
But it exists.
- I know it does, Gerry, that's why you're here, isn't it?
To see if we can help you with it.
- Gerry, I think the big question today
is if you stay, and when you and I
met with Dr. Bigelow on Friday,
that wasn't very certain.
And that's the whole reason that your mother flew out here.
- I will stay if my mom stays.
- Well, I told you before that I can't stay continuously.
- Well, how is that working?
- We can come down maybe once every six weeks
and stay a week, but I can't-
- See what I'm doing right now.
I understand what I'm doing.
I've got you one down and I'm not gonna let you up.
And that's a game, that just gets you mad.
- Truly deep down he knows
that this is the last chance he's got of having anything
and being able to control anything that he's wants
or tries to do.
- Yeah, I can- - And he knows
that if he turns his back on it, that he's had it.
- I hate you.
Dr. Petrolley in Detroit looked at my transcripts,
and he started going like this.
Gerald, just, what could you have done
if anything had ever went right for you?
Been my boss?
- Can I interrupt you?
If- - Every time in school
that I was gonna do something,
I would raise my hand,
and a colored kid would stab me in the back of the neck.
What is your explanation for that, God?
That's what you're afraid to say.
What is your explanation over that?
'Cause you can't say it.
- My explanation is, is that you feel
that whatever decision you make, you're gonna lose here.
And maybe that's why it's so hard
for you to make that decision.
- My dad told me to stay here.
I will stay if my mother will stay.
There's no pressing job for her.
She can have my social security check to live on
while she's here.
- [Doctor] Is that possible Mrs. Smith?
- I told him that I could we could come down
once a month maybe and stay a week.
- You're gonna get me not scared
so I'm not scared while this dude's playing
boogie woogie with me.
- But, Gerry, listen a minute.
You mean that you can't stay away once a month?
Let us come once a month and see you.
- I mean, in walked this one old dude with green teeth.
And I couldn't think of nothing to do,
so I just reached out and kicked old green teeth
right in the knee.
- [Doctor] Your mom asked you a question.
- Gerry- - If I'm not scared,
I won't kill ya. - Gerry, it's important
that you listen to me for a minute.
- [Gerry] Why, are you gonna tell me Dad's dead?
- No, if you go back, you- - You gonna tell me
Snoopy's dead? - You had better listen.
Don't think of something else while I'm talking to you.
Listen to what I'm saying. - I'm not talking to you
at all. - Okay, if you go back,
you may wind up in a hospital
that I won't even get to come and see you once a month.
- You are not my- - Do you understand me?
- Do you realize this is my mother
and I'm trying to keep her alive?
Now, what do you recommend, doctor?
- [Doctor] I recommend you give her a chance
to listen to her.
- Don't you think it would be better
that you stay here on your own?
Where you- - No.
- Where you signed yourself in.
- I don't. - Gerry, I think that you're-
- You don't know- - Confused enough about,
and frightened enough
that I'd be afraid you would hurt yourself
if you weren't in a hospital.
- [Gerry] Okay, now you are afraid that I would hurt myself
if I wasn't in a hospital.
Now why is that?
- Because of what you've said.
- [Gerry] Because you're not afraid?
- No, from what you've said
- [Gerry] I think my dad can treat me very nicely.
- Well, I understand that your dad knows that you have to
be in a hospital for that.
- I can't see why you can't stay and participate
on good terms without- - Because I was raped
going to kindergarten about five times.
- That was a few years ago. - Okay.
Let me give it to you a different way.
How long has it been since I dreamed I was there
in hillbilly heaven?
Or how long has it been since town without pity for rape?
Or how long has it been since
the man who shot Liberty Valance?
- My first impression of his family
was the one I have in a lot of these cases.
And that's that they're like a group of people
that have been struck by lightning.
Their son has developed a terrible illness,
has been through lots of treatment,
and has not gotten much better.
And they feel devastated by it.