>>16515108My best friend from middle school (aka junior high) became an actual schizophrenic.
We went to separate public high schools. His neighborhood is upper middle class, but the high school district is absolute shit. It includes a lot of Blacks and Mexicans, and is locally notorious for being complete shit. Nearly all of the kids we went to middle school with that also lived in that district ended up going to private school.
So he was basically alone, not knowing anyone, while the rest of the school knew each other from different middle schools or just from the neighborhood. And since he was a goofy looking nerd, he was bullied relentlessly. It wasn’t just teasing; he was assaulted several times. He knew some people he could chat with in class, but didn’t really have a social circle. Ate lunch alone, that sort of thing. Just a total outcast.
His typical boomer parents just ignored it. They could have sent him to a different public school, scraped enough cash together for private, or home schooled him (his mom didn’t work). They’re sort of culpable in this.
We still hung out occasionally, and I saw him deteriorate over the course of years. It was pretty bad. His behavior just changed, like he had PTSD or something. We rode our bikes to the mall one Saturday and the dude started hyperventilating when we got to the doors.
He did go to college, but since he had been socially stunted in high school it was purely academic. His degree is in a hard science, some sort of engineering thing (I’m really not sure).
He’s 41 now, and still lives at home. The longest job he’s had lasted about 5 months (retail, at a large clothing store). He lives in constant fear, and suffers from pretty extreme agoraphobia.
