Battling Schizophrenia

First premiered at SXSW in 2005, You’re Gonna Miss Me tells the story of rock visionary Roky Erickson, who was the front man of 60s psychedelic rock band 13th Floor Elevators.

The band became notorious for their fondness of drugs such as cannabis and LSD and Roky was subsequently arrested for possession of cannabis in 1969. To avoid a prison term, Roky pleaded insanity and was sentenced to a mental hospital for the criminally insane. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in Rusk State Hospital where he stayed for three and a half years.

Following his release in 1973, Roky came out crazier than when he went in. With a head full of devils and aliens, Roky went on to form a new band, Roky Erickson and the Aliens. ….

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Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizophrenia by Pamela Spiro Wagner ’75 and Carolyn S. Spiro ’74 (St. Martin’s Press).

The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated became a splitting point in the lives of twin sisters Carolyn Spiro and Pamela Spiro Wagner. When word spread through their sixth-grade classrooms that Kennedy had been shot, Spiro couldn’t understand why the adults were so upset. Wagner, however, began hearing voices whose meaning she gradually deciphered: she had helped kill the president. …

[MORE: BAM: Double Vision, Arts and Culture, May/June 2006]

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WHITTIER - Delia Rodriguez can see dead people.

A dead man wanders a local park in a dark suit and smiles at Rodriguez.

Another walks the park dragging his feet, and she feels an evil presence when she sees him.

“Spirits started following me when I was in college and it doesn’t go away,” said Rodriguez, 35. “I thought maybe if I talk to these dead people and find out what they want, they’ll go away.”

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