Katie first spoke with a demon when she was 14. He perched on the edge of her bed, and would persistently urge her to do bad things — like blow up her Arkansas high school. She spoke to God, too.
Her parents, Pentecostal Christians, believed her visions made her special. So she received no therapy, and no medications, and no diagnosis as her schizoaffective disorder began to take root.
Katie, who is now 35, has been homeless and hospitalized several times. She tried “just about every drug there is,” she said, before she found a medication — the antipsychotic risperidone — that works well for her. She’s got a happy and stable life these days, living with her husband in Texas. But she knows it’s tenuous.
“The thing is: A lot of times, a drug will work for you for several years, and then it’ll just stop,” said Katie, who asked that only her first name be used to protect her privacy. “At some point, I know I’ll have to find another drug.”
It’s a common, and well justified, fear for people with psychiatric disorders. While scientists have made tremendous advances in decoding the genetics of physical illnesses, such as cancer, and developing precision therapies, treatments for mental health remain blunt tools.
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