The book January First popped up in my list of Amazon book recommendations. It’s a memoir about a father raising a daughter diagnosed with schizophrenia at a very young age. But some of the reviews indicate that the story is bullshit and it’s simply a case of bad parenting. I was wondering if any Dopers have read the book or followed her story and had an opinion on its legitimacy.
I saw the documentary they made about her, Born Schizophrenic. It didn’t leave me with a good opinion about her parents, but that’s about all I recall of it other than them having two houses to protect her little brother.
I saw the family on Dr. Phil. I know a lot of people here aren’t crazy about him, but he seems to have a pretty accurate bs detector. It seemed like a legitimate story to me.
I read the book, but I’d never heard of anything about them before.
I will say that if it’s true (or even if she’s not schitzo, she’s SOMETHING) that sort of continuing behavior problem will make anyone’s home life and child-rearing practices look bad.
I left the book feeling really sorry for the mom and the little brother. Dad didn’t seem to have too solid a handle on life beforehand, and the mom and little one both got the shit end of the stick pretty solidly, through no fault of their own.
Not a situation I feel like I can be judgy about. Unless it comes out conclusively that they’re Munchausen-by-proxying the girl, in which case, I’ll get all sorts of judgy then.
“Born schizophrenic” is meaningless. There is no way anyone could possibly tell that an infant was schizophrenic. Then there are toddlers. They are all difficult (though some more than others) and irrational. I say its bullshit, and probably an excuse for abuse.
I think supposedly the little brother is autistic.
I haven’t read the book but have seen some articles and videos about this family and didn’t know what to think.
What are the chances that one full sibling would be severely schizophrenic and the other would be autistic? Although they’re both disorders of a malfunction in the brain so maybe it makes sense.
They are both completely different disorders of the brain, so no it doesn’t.
At the time they didn’t know she was schizophrenic, of course, but her behavior even as a baby was very unusual. That’s not just the parents saying it, there are videos.
I read the book and watched the special on TLC or whatever. I believe them and they’re handling it a lot better than I would.
Coincidentally, the Dr. Phil episode on her is on right now.