Lecture reveals difficulties of schizophrenia

On Thursday, Oct. 6, Andrew Gadtke spoke to Georgia College about his battle with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder in honor of Mental Health Awareness Week. 

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Gadtke spoke on everything from the onset of his symptoms to his treatment and how he lives with his illness day-to-day.

“I chose Andrew Gadtke as a speaker because he is not the typical image of someone with a mental illness,” said Bevan Burgamy, organizer of the event and administrative assistant to the dean of the library. I thought he would be a great connector for the Georgia College community.”

Gadtke was only a sophomore in college when his symptoms began to appear, and as he stated during his lecture, “all mental illness strikes between the ages of 18 and 25.”

Up until the onset of his illness, Gadtke was a normal teenager with no signs of schizophrenia. Once starting college at the California Institute of Technology, he was a successful student who was performing well in school and played for the baseball team.

By the time his sophomore year rolled around, his illness started to set in. The first thing he noticed was social withdrawal. Gadtke stopped caring for his friendships and moved off campus to his own apartment and isolated himself.

“I also had no motivation to do my course work,” Gadtke said.

He stopped going to classes and turning in assignments. After a while, his personality began to change and he became paranoid. Eventually he became so paranoid that he slept with a knife in his hand and hardly ever left his apartment for fear that CIA spies would find him. All of these symptoms and behavioral changes are what is called prodrome, which is a non-specific set of symptoms that eventually lead

to the onset of mental illness.

Gadtke’s illness continued to set in as he transferred from school to school to try and get away from his unhappy life. After hitting rock bottom in 2003, Gadtke’s mother took him to see a psychiatrist, where he was prescribed antipsychotic medications. He debated whether or not to take the medication, thinking it was poisoned, but in the end he decided that he was so miserable that something had to change. For a while, the medication worked, until he stopped taking it and began to spiral downwards again. After visiting a psychiatrist again and being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he began treatment.

After years of treatment and different medications, Gadtke finally began to function more normally. He began volunteering and speaking for the Barbara Schneider Foundation, which works with law enforcement to improve its response to the mentally ill. It was through his work with the the Barbara Schneider Foundation that Burgamy found Gadtke.

Gadtke’s speech was important for the GC community to raise awareness and understanding about mental illness.

“Hearing Gadtke’s story was really touching,” said junior special education major Sandy Strickland. “Gadtke’s speech was really informative and good for us to hear so we can better understand what people with mental illnesses go through and that they are people too that deserve respect and understanding.”

The event was sponsored by the Center for Health and Social Issues, Disability Services, Greek Life, the Library and Instructional Technology Center, Music Therapy Society, School of Nursing and National Alliance on Mental Illness, Oconee.

Posted by Emily Rivers on Oct 20 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.