This stage also passed, eventually and Christine got tolerably well.

Christine's healing process is quite typical and demonstrates why
orthomolecular treatment is not popular. As a psychotic genuinely
improves, their aberrated behavior often becomes more aggressive
initially and thus, harder to control. It seems far more convenient
for all concerned to suppress psychotic behavior with stupefying
drugs. A drugged person can be controlled when they're in a sort of
perpetual sedation but then, they never get genuinely well, either.

Another early patient, Elizabeth, gave me a particularly valuable
lesson, one that changed the direction of my career away from curing
insanity and toward regular medicine. Elizabeth was a catatonic
schizophrenic who did not speak or move, except for some waxy
posturing. She had to be fed, dressed and pottied. Elizabeth was a
pretty little brunette who got through a couple of years of college
and then spent several years in a state mental hospital. She had
recently run away from a hospital, and had been found wandering
aimlessly or standing rigidly, apparently staring fixedly at
nothing. The emergency mental health facility in a small city nearby
called me up and asked if I would take her. I said I would, and
drove into town to pick her up. I found Elizabeth in someone's back
yard staring at a bush. It took me three hours to persuade her to
get in my car, but that effort turned out to be the easiest part of
the next months.

Elizabeth would do nothing for herself, including going to the
bathroom. I managed to get some nutrition into her, and change her
clothes, but that was about all I could do. Eventually she wore me
down; I drifted off for an hour's nap instead of watching her all