Vancouver couple believe Lyme disease has played a role in his son's suicide

While Zach Moritz was sitting in the shade of the redwoods, he could imagine the outlines of a new life.

It was July 2013 and the 25-year-old Vancouver native had just completed a vision quest with the school of lost borders in the Inyo Mountains in California. The quest for vision, or rite of passage for young adults, meant three days of camping, fasting and self-exploration. The year before, Zach had begun to appreciate transcendental meditation and saw in this quest a way to get his passion to the next level.

Then Zach's father, John, and his mother, Beth, joined him for a re-incorporation meeting, during which the quest participants shared their experiences, ideas, and thoughts on what they wanted. in life.

Zach, who played the 6-foot-10 center role for the Columbia River High School basketball team and played at Boise State University in Idaho, said that he wanted to help athletes develop healthy coping skills to cope with the pressure, anxiety and disappointment they had suffered. meet in their career. He realized that sport could be a difficult environment without much room for compassion and empathy. He wanted to improve this environment.

His parents, of Christian origin, have been slow to become familiar with Zach's less traditional spiritualism. But they saw how these things developed Zach and helped him to find a purpose.

"At this place and in me, I sought peace. I felt like I had found what I deserved, "he writes in a letter after the quest.

But returning from California, Zach had knee and back pain. The pain would never go away.

The aggravating pains in his body were followed by fogged words that altered his communications; sound sensitivity that hindered his love of music; sensitivity to light that mainly confined it to a dark and silent room for a year; and hallucinations and paranoia that made him think that his parents were conspiring against him.

In a year and a half, Zach was hospitalized three times for stabilizing his mental health and mixing with drugs that did not improve his health.

"We were with someone who had no background, no trace of that, which all of a sudden is vulnerable to themselves and potentially to others." It's scary, "said his mother.

In the fall of 2014, Beth came across an article in AARP magazine describing the symptoms of Lyme disease. Many corresponded to Zach.

Subsequent testing showed that Zach's blood was positive for Lyme disease. Her family had found the reason for her disturbing behavior and thought that she had found hope.

At the time, Peggy McCarthy, Executive Director of NAMI Southwest Washington, explained that she had first-hand experience with Lyme and that she knew they were still on a difficult path. McCarthy's prediction was prophetic. In August 2015, Zach Moritz committed suicide at 27 years old.

He felt that Lyme was preventing him from living his life to the fullest – the life he evoked in his quest for vision.

"The loss of Zach is that there was no progress," said his father. "I'm not better at all, nothing changes, and I can not live like that."

The psychiatric legacy of Lyme

Lyme disease is caused by infected ticks that transmit bacteria, B ourelia burgdorferi, through bites. Symptoms include fever, headaches, fatigue, and an expanding reddish rash that sometimes looks like that of an oculus. Lesser known and rarer symptoms include depression, anxiety, rapid mood swings, decreased cognition and memory, antisocial disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and in even more cases rare, psychotic symptoms.

Dr. Brian Fallon, who wrote the book "Conquering Lyme," directs the Center for Lyme and Tick Disease Research at Columbia University in New York and has spent nearly three decades researching the neuropsychiatric Lyme.

Fallon and his wife, Dr. Jenifer Nields, began their research in the early 1990s. To assess the power of the disease on his patients, they compared Lyme patients to those with rheumatoid arthritis, often painful, and lupus, an immune disease that can cause psychiatric symptoms.

"Patients with Lyme had a rate of depression four times that of patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients," said Fallon.

Fallon said that research done in 1990 showed that rates of depression in Lyme patients were higher. But public awareness is lacking.

"This is not very well recognized and I would say that some of the renowned neurologists in the United States do not accept the fact that Lyme disease can cause psychiatric problems," he said.

Fallon explained that Lyme disease is similar to syphilis. Both are caused by spirochaetes, a soft, twisted spiral bacteria that can cause psychiatric symptoms.

With Lyme disease, Fallon explained, the spirochaete is transmitted to the skin of an individual by the tick. This spirochete can remain localized in the skin or invade the blood vessels and be transmitted to different organs of the body, including the heart, joints and connective tissue.

Some patients may develop encephalitis, where the spirochaete lodges in the brain tissue. It can enter the cerebral blood vessels and cause an inflammatory reaction, which can manifest itself in neuropsychiatric disorders, psychosis, mania, irritability and depression.

"Clinicians need to know that suicidal risk does exist in patients with serious illnesses, including Lyme disease," said Fallon. "This risk increases dramatically in case of significant depression."

In cases of Lyme disease that are treated quickly, "the vast majority of people do not exhibit residual symptoms or problems," said Fallon. But Lyme cases that are not treated quickly may be more difficult to treat in the long term and medical complications may become more serious, he said.

This is what happened to Zach Moritz.

A downward spiral

The Moritz believe their son contracted Lyme disease in January 2013 while Zach was playing professional basketball in Copenhagen. Zach missed a weekly call on Skype and a basketball game.

Zach checked a few days later. He said he had the flu and had treated a lump inside a rose petal tattoo on his left arm.

He finished his basketball season and returned to the United States. That summer, he participated in the quest for vision, then returned to Denmark for another season.

But his knee was still hurting. His contract was canceled two months after the start of the season.

Zach came home, determined to continue playing. Arthroscopy did not illuminate any structural problem of the knee. He tried rehabilitation, but his condition did not improve. With his physical health deteriorating, Zach enrolled at the Maharishi School of Management in Iowa to deepen his knowledge of transcendental meditation.

As soon as Zach arrived in Iowa, he experienced a loss of consciousness. He suffered from paranoia. He called his parents to let them know that he needed their help. The light and the sound hurt his head, he said, and he could not leave his room to go to the cafeteria or fly to the house.

His mother came looking for him. Zach had lost 40 pounds in six weeks. When Zach returned to Vancouver, he isolated himself. He did not want to live at home anymore and yet he was there. An MRI of his brain revealed nothing. He saw a therapist and an acupuncturist and found that it was a minor relief.

"Every time we went somewhere, nobody detected anything," said Beth. "So, you start going there," Something real? Or is not it? We do not know.

Zach became verbally aggressive in May 2014. He would accuse his parents of making loud noises to annoy him. If they went on a walk, he would say that they were conspiring against him.

Zach complains of joint pains. He was hospitalized in June 2014. Zach's parents found him on the kitchen floor, stabbing a box of tissues with a knife, and then one night later, Zach accused his parents of having conspired with an avatar called "The Father".

"Hospitalizations are really the saddest part of everything," said his mother. "It's a painful thing as parents to involuntarily hospitalize your child."

None of the antipsychotics cured Zach. In April 2015, Zach started receiving antibiotics to treat Lyme disease, but as his mother said: "There was some relief, but nothing flew away." Zach joined a men's depression group in May 2015.

According to Zach, some mental health professionals did not think that Lyme disease could cause psychiatric or psychotic symptoms.

"We are bitter that no one has recognized the many symptoms of Lyme disease," said his mother.

A changed man

Growing up, Zach was empathetic, curious and playful, his parents said. He loved books and movies. Once, his father bought him a shelf from a local Blockbuster store that was closing and Zach filled it with DVDs and CDs. Zach and his family loved getting acquainted with the new music. Like his parents, the great man loved nature.

"He loved being outside because there is no ladder outside," said John. "The trees are bigger, the rocks are bigger, the lakes are bigger. He just felt at home outside.

In June 2015, Zach strove to reconnect with the world. He tried Pilates and yoga with Mom. He ate on Saturday with his father.

He played Go Fish or Boggle with his parents to work on the word recall. Zach had studied journalism at Boise State and wanted to write film scripts, but he was afraid he could not remember easy words. Zach loved listening to others, but had the impression that Lyme disease had deprived him of that energy, his parents said.

"He had no sense of personality and he would tell you," said his father.

A few weeks before Zach's death, he made a camp trip between singles. Zach wanted to be social, but felt he did not fit in.

"When he came home, it was a confrontation with reality. It was so sad. We were heartbroken, "said his mother. "It was like, that was all I feared. I am not what they all know me. I have tried. I could not even enjoy a beer. "

Zach had three days of peace before dying. He and Beth visited the Columbia Gorge. John and he hosted a BBQ dinner one night and the whole family enjoyed dinner and a movie night. He has prepared a tuxedo for a future wedding. One day before his death, he bought two sunflowers from his mother and told him they would call him back.

There were sunflowers at her memorial service, where her parents presented leaflets about Lyme disease and talked about the disease, which her parents saw as the beginning of their Lyme disease awareness campaign. His mother is writing a book on Zach and Lyme disease.

She has never planted the sunflowers left by Zach, but has saved about 15 different sunflower seeds. She planted them last year, June 6th, Zach's birthday, and planted more seeds for Mother's Day this month. Last year, the plants grew in his garden and grew up, just like Zach.

"It was wonderful in a strange way," said his mother.