A Holiday Wish for the Mentally Ill

My brother John, a gentle giant, wanted his story told to help others.

John Judge in his freshman season with the Iowa Hawkeyes in 1979. John took his own life in 1982 while suffering from schizophrenia.

My Dec. 12 piece, “Luigi Mangione’s ‘Baffling’ Journey,” shot to the top of TFP’s most read posts in just five days with more than 23,400 views and counting. The piece is about what I saw as signs that the young man arrested for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is suffering from a serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia, and how willfully ignorant many in the media seem to be about this particularly tragic case and others involving defendants with SMIs. As you might imagine, the comments section has been lively and enlightening, with at least one medical professional pointing out that many in the press and society at large “seem unable to use terms such as schizophrenia and psychotic break” in cases where “it is not rocket science, but rather Psychiatry 101.” That this piece caught fire was a surprise to me, since I’ve been wri…