Covenant House Vancouver

Tom had been living on the streets, on the beach and in adult shelters before he first came to Covenant House. He had fled the family home because of conflict with his parents. Tom managed to get odd jobs now and then but was unable to keep them. He was a daily pot smoker and because of this was discharged from our shelter several times as he would often come back "high".

Though staff couldn't put their finger on it, there was something about Tom that wasn't "quite right". During his 7th intake into the shelter, one of our youth workers, Tracy, noticed Tom staring at the desk. She asked Tom what he was looking at and he said it was a bug. Curious, Tracy started asking Tom more and more questions and it became apparent that he was experiencing both visual and auditory hallucinations. He had never told anyone before. A myriad of delusions plagued Tom every day and he was using marijuana to quiet down his mind.  

Once this piece of the puzzle was assembled, Tracy got Tom a psychiatric assessment which confirmed that he had schizophrenia (a mental illness that causes hallucinations, distortion of reality, paranoia and disorganized speech and thinking). Tracy was then able to trace back the beginnings of Tom's family conflict to age 15, when his symptoms first appeared (75% of those with schizophrenia become ill between 17 and 25).

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