zander

By the time Josaphine Marlow gave birth to her second and last son, Zander, she was already struggling as a single mother with an eight year old. With no other means to support her children, Josaphine gave up maternity leave and went back to her job as a waitress only two weeks later, leaving both Zander and Zachary in the care of her elder sister, Amanda. Zander spent so much time at his aunt's, that family relations became blurred and he assumed and treated Amanda as his mother which caused emotional distress; when at five, his mother became engaged to a man that she met over the internet and moved with her sons from Oregon to California.

Feeling abandoned and with a sense of having done something wrong to force the move, Zander became withdrawn and had a hard time making friends when first grade rolled around. Concerned that her son wasn't socializing properly, Josaphine enrolled him in an after school program in an attempt to solve the issue. It worked to a degree, but Zander continued to live inside his head and preferred to spend his time on independent projects than playing with the other kids.

The abuse started when Zander was ten and his brother had moved out of the house to join the military. Once again, left alone without the core person in his life, Zander turned inward and started focusing more on a life he invented for himself in a fantasy world than what was going on around him in the real world. His stepfather had always been nice to him, but without his teenage brother to share a room with and protect him, Zander was left vulnerable to the man's advances. He didn't know how to respond or realize what was happening was wrong, because he felt like he had to do whatever was asked of him in return for all the things that his stepfather was doing for him.

He told no one. His stepfather had made it clear that what they were doing was special between the two of them, that other people wouldn't understand and for a boy who felt like people already didn't understand him, he took the man's word. It wasn't until his brother came back from Afganhistan during his freshman year of high school that everything came to an abrupt stop and Zander's life began to change.

After Zachary had taken him out with some friends and had gotten Zander drunk for the first time, he admitted to his older brother what had been going on in his absence. Fueled with rage, they went back home where Zachary threatened their stepfather's life and told their mother what had happened. Though he tried to blame Zander, stating that it was another one of his fictional stories, Josaphine took her son's side and called the police. The trial was long and due to Zander's inability to speak properly while on the stand, the case was dropped. Regardless, Josaphine had an order of protection put on Zander and they tried to carry on with their life. The worst of it had only just started.

Word got around school about the trial through the sibling of a friend of his brother's and the few friends Zander had made by this point, didn't know how to react, so they began to distance themselves. About a month after the trial, Zachary gave in to his own demons that had developed during his time of service and hanged himself in the kitchen, where Zander found him when he returned home from school.

It wasn't long after the funeral, that everything finally got to the sixteen year old, and he lost control and tried to kill himself the same way that his brother had. Though he failed, having not tied the knots tight enough, Zander began to perceive the world a bit differently, and began to wonder if he had indeed succeeded and was stuck in some sort of familiar purgitory. His detachment from reality and the suicide attempt landed him in the state mental hospital for the first of many stints served at the facility. They put him on antipsychotics and medication for depression, citing that the stress of the trial, the abuse and his brother's suicide as the cause for his mental breakdown.

Zander focused on school and was able to graduate with his class and he made it into the science program at UCLA. He moved on campus into the dorms, but the stress of college and trying to have a social life that gave him panic attacks caused another mental break that landed him back in the hospital. Josaphine forced Zander to move back in with her so she could supervise him and through a new therapist, all of his issues and the patterns began to unfold. At twenty-one, Zander was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with panic disorder and generalized anxiety.

He's currently still in treatment and works from home as a technical assistant for AT&T. He avoids going out as much as possible, but still attempts to socialize for his well being. He's looking after his mother who suffers from depression herself since the death of Zachary. Zander spends most of his personal time on the internet, learning where he can about a variety of subjects that include: natural science, true crime, physics, and astronomy. He's extremely active of a variety of internet blogs and forums, where he feels safe talking and being more of what he considers his true self, because he can hide behind a username.

fast facts

• His older brother served three years in the Middle East and was discharged after injury. In reaction to PTSD, he committed suicide a year after being back in the US. This event was life changing for Zander and may have been a trigger for his own issues.

• Has always suffered from social anxiety, but is considered a friendly person and pleasant to be around under most circumstances. He likes to avoid large crowds, but smaller groups can make him more nervous. He handles it with a heavy cocktail of anti anxiety meds and marijuana.

• Diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia when he was twenty-one. He's been in and out of mental health facilities since he was sixteen but not given proper diagnosis til five years later. He doesn't talk about it and sticks with therapy plans in an attempt to battle it.

• Always wanted to go into some sort of science field when he was younger, but his anxieties and mental health problems kept him back in school. He dropped out of college his first year and has been working from home for AT&T since.

• Live with his mother and younger brother. Only lived out of the house his first semester of college but had to move back after panic attacks.

• Has never been in a relationship and has never really felt pulled to be in one, or a real attraction to any gender. He's had sex a couple times with women, but his anxieties pretty much keep all probabilities of anything serious at bay. Considers himself over all asexual.

• His relationship with his mother is probably considere by most unhealthy. She's the only person in his life he feels he can rely on. He's always been a mama's boy and he's overly protective of her and her own instabilities, mainly caused in reaction to losing her eldest son.

• Zander has his license but hates driving. He only takes side roads and has been known to have panic attacks about heavy traffic. He only drives when absolutely necessary.

• Symptoms of his schizophrenia include hearing voices, a separation from a delusional reality and true reality, paranoia of the motives of others, violent outbursts during paranoia induced anxities in a fight or flight response, detachmment from emotional expression, and trouble speaking.

• Spends too much time online watching documentaries and reading bizarre stories. Feels like he can be himself better online than offline and it's developed into an addiction.

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