Josh Lampert started having psychotic episodes in college, when he was 19 and living in Seattle.
"My diagnosis was psychotic depression," he told his father, Chuck, during a visit to StoryCorps. "You can hallucinate sounds and smells and tastes. And my mistake was doing drugs, because sometimes the line got blurred of what is real and what isn't. Other people seemed like they had so much — social relationships and girlfriends, and I was just trying to function."
The Lamperts flew to Seattle, took Josh back home to Richmond, Va., and helped him get well. Today, at 32, he is a line cook at a Mediterranean restaurant in San Francisco.
Audio produced for Morning Edition by Nadia Reiman.
Click on the audio link above to hear Josh's story.
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