Client Name: Andy Behrman Sex: Male
Age: As of 2009, 47 years old.
Medical Condition (s): See below
Reason for Referral
Client Andy Behrman has been referred due to extremely debilitating mental disturbances. He has the inability to control his excessive thoughts and overwhelming amount of energy. He suffers continually from manic episodes. These episodes are recurrent and completely change his way of living and day to day mental stability. Mr. Behrman is inflicted with the routines and rituals of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This OCD habits seem to interfere with his relationships, his work and his thoughts. His constant compulsive and irrational behavior has gone out of control. His substance abuse combined with his distressing and intrusive thoughts have started to haunt him to the point he has inflicted pain on himself. Mr. Behrman’s substantial paranoia has negatively affected his relationships, his professional life and his personal views on the world. He is excessively hyper-sexual, constantly fantasizing about sex, taking part in sexual activity with strangers, or masturbating.
Tests Administered/ Test Scores & Interpretation/Behavior Observations:
Mr. Behrman took various preliminary psychological tests prior to meeting with Dr. Frederick Goodwin. Dr. Goodwin is employed at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and sent these tests to Mr. Behrman in the mail, in order to have a little knowledge about Mr. Behrman before they started their therapy sessions. Dr. Goodwin diagnosed Mr. Behrman with manic depression, however, the specifics of his psychological tests are not available. I have not been informed of any other tests that may have beadministered by other doctors.
Mr. Behrman is quite an honest patient. Within the first few minutes of meeting me he was attempting to give me a full personal history. He speaks quickly and shows a lot of interest in himself. While he admits his bad habits openly, he does not seem to think that his lifestyle is really that bad. He seems to think it is normal and that his behavior is acceptable, at least to him. It is quite easy to tell that his mind is going a hundred miles a minute; he changes topics quickly, he speaks of all of his journeys - hopping from one to the next. He does mention that he is frustrated with the \"crazies\" and wants to find a way to rest his mind.
Client/Family Background:
Mr. Behrman’s family has a history of OCD and anger management problems. Mr. Behrman states that there was a touch of obsessiveness that marked everyone in his family. His father obsesses over working out, often inflicting his obsessions on his son. When Mr. Behrman was a little boy his dad forced him to do strenuous workouts – with hundreds of pushups and sit-ups prior to going to bed. His father also was obsessive about keeping the house spotless --neurotically clean. He also had specific rituals with folding clothes, polishing his shoes and organizing bills and mail. His father also struggled with managing his anger, occasionally having an outburst. Mr. Behrman’s mother also had a touch of the obsessive nature. She also obsessed about cleaning, often times scraping the wax between the tiles on the kitchen floor. His mother also had anger issues – often having outbursts at Nancy, Mr. Behrman’s sister when she was a teenager. Mr. Behrman’s grandfather on his dad’s side also had anger issues.
While Mr. Behrman’s parents did have some problems, they continually stepped in to help him when he needed it. There seemed to be a cycle of Mr. Behrman running back to his parents whenever he got into trouble. This may have stemmed to him being babied as a child, but without his parents support and intervention, Mr. Behrman may have spun even more out of control. While their help was necessary and probably essential to Mr. Behrman living as long as he did, his dependence on his parents could also be viewed as detrimental. Even as a grown man, Mr. Behrman never cut the ties with his parents. He continued to rely on them to bail him out whenever he got into trouble. This created a vicious cycle that negatively affected Mr. Behrman
Diagnosis
Reasons for Bipolar I
First, Mr. Behrman meets enough criteria for the Axis I diagnosis of Bipolar I. He has continual bouts of Mania where he has intense highs, feeling euphoric and almost as if his life is in fast-forward mode. (He has extreme and frequent Manic Episodes) He exhibits behaviors in which he feels indestructible in the areas of personal finances, business deals, and relationships. The majority of the time he has an elevated self-esteem, viewing himself as superior to others and as if he should be praised all of the time. He is excessively talkative, has innumerable abundance of irrational and flighty ideas, a reduced need for sleep, and is easily distracted. He will go on rampages of spending a crazy amount of money sporadically without thinking, and he makes extremely rash business and personal decisions. He not only engages in dangerous sexual behavior, but he has a love and almost an addiction to this type of behavior. He also abuses and is dependent on drugs and alcohol. His depression often becomes apparent as his high fades and as the penalty of his activities becomes apparent, the depressive episode can be exacerbated.
Reasons for Diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
To begin, Mr. Behrman fits the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder in addition to his Bipolar. His life revolves around behaviors of grandiosity, always needing to be noticed and do have the best and most expensive material things. He constantly is searching for admiration and has a sense of entitlement. He makes a lot of choices based on how it will make him look and if it will help his social status. He tends to exaggerate his importance in the lives of the people he knows and exaggerates all of his accomplishments. He is continually searching for self gratification and praise from others - whether or not he deserves it. Much of his time is taken up by fantasizing over substantial success and power professionally, love and beauty when it comes to his relationships and personal appearance. He seems to have this idea that he can only relate to people of a certain status - whether it is dealing with their amount of success, or if it is that they entertain the same lifestyle as he does. He views himself as invincible and as someone who is entitled to certain things in life based on his superiority. Yet, deep down there seems to be some underlying sense of inferiority that pushes him to want to rectify the negative views people have of him. This crosses over to his feelings of envy and anger towards those who have more in life - whether it is that they have more material things or if they have stronger relationships. He does not like to have his spotlight taken away from him and is always searching for attention.
Case History
Andy Behrman self proclaimed that his childhood was not as bad as his peers, but he did want to share a few key points. For example, in the basic form, Mr. Behrman had “The Deluxe Male Progeny Package.¨ What this means to him is that he lived the classic American dream, with ¨relatively sane Jewish parents,¨ a sister of greater age, a nice house, braces for his teeth, and all of the other material fixings that a kid could dream of including a trip to Disneyland. In other words, Andy had a relatively normal growing up experience, were it not for the quirkiness of the beginnings of mental illness. As he self reported, Andy felt the beginnings of ¨the crazies¨ when he was around eight years old. The first symptoms included staying up all night counting cars (numbering into the hundreds), vacuuming the floor continuously, devouring information and memorizing statistics, organizing and polishing his room, having delusions of grandeur, and a high level of self importance. Some of these last symptoms came about because of the amazing attention from the rest of the family; Andy was the first male child.
Around seven, Mr. Behrman cleaned his records with turpentine, and around ten, put light bulbs in the dishwasher. These are representative of his odd behavior.
The next stage of ¨the crazies¨ in Mr. Behrman´s life are reported as happening in the second grade. Mr. Behrman had his first female crush during this time when he viewed the legs of a girl named Allison. Furthermore, Mr. Behrman had a teacher that took special attention towards him, and this just added to his self importance. She gave him special projects in class, bought him an ant farm, and took him out to eat.
Around the time of junior high school, Andy had to take one on one instruction to overcome his speech impediment. Andy reported that he had a hard time controlling his behavior and he liked to be mischievous. At this time, his assertive nature propelled him to excel above and beyond his peers becoming the editor of the year book and the president of his student council. Mr. Behrman´s OCD took shape when he spent hours upon hours on his election signs perfecting them and unreasonable amounts of time washing his hands. Mr. Behrman reported that at this time, ¨inside I was suffering from a combination of anxiety and depression.¨
When Mr. Behrman was sixteen, he started pulling out his hair, suggesting trichotillomania; he later replaced this habit with popping pimples. He also had the odd behavior of sitting in a stifling hot car to test how long he could go in the heat. The unique kind of crazies came about when he was twelve. Mr. Behrman discovered the wonders of masturbation and addiction of pornography. Mr. Behrman claimed that he was omnisexual from the start, finding erotic just about everything.
By the end of senior year in high school, Mr. Behrman was sleeping too much and overeating. It was at this time that Mr. Behrman first saw a psychologist and shared the intimate details of his life with another human being. Before going to college, Mr. Behrman, on a whim, went in for plastic surgery on his nose. This was later explained as a symptom of his narcissistic personality disorder. Mr. Behrman had also continued his relationship with the Allison he met in second grade, seemingly impressing her with his new nose.
Freshmen year of college, Mr. Behrman met as many people as he possibly could, trying to prove his popularity. At this time, Mr. Behrman started to run into his first heavy duty problems. Alcohol, drugs, sex, and staying up all night became a staple of life for him. This all caused Mr. Behrman to experience his first real depression. An example of this was his staying in bed all day long, skipping a Japanese exam. Andy detailed a time he spent with cocaine, showing his failing ability to withstand negative peer pressure. Mr. Behrman has also started to see some of his manic symptoms as beneficial, giving him the energy to stay up all night and cram or write term papers. Mr. Behrman also spent numerous times with Dr. Logan receiving therapy that never quite helped him.
Once out of college, while staying at his parents, Andy planned out his future, deciding that he wanted an apartment in New York. Planning to live off of a small inheritance, Mr. Behrman showcased his lack of financial control. His first purchase was to feed his cocaine addiction, and the next order of business was to spend excessive amounts of money on furnishings for his new $1200 a month apartment. Sexual urges begin to express themselves in Mr. Behrman´s fascination with the sexual side of New York life: porn shops, massage centers, live shows, etc.
Mr. Behrman started to bring in money by working at Armani and asked for capital for his film project from wealthy friends. Mr. Behrman has also started to become involved in male stripping, making money by undressing for men in a club. Allison finally graduates, and the two move in together. Mr. Behrman also became a business partner to his sister, Nancy, in the field of public relations. Furthermore, Mr. Behrman began to become involved with Mark Kostabi, a con artist who makes tons of money and is in need of a public relations expert. Mr. Behrman continued to go on spending sprees, easily spending $6200 in one instance.
Mr. Behrman became even more involved at Kostabi world and has come to have a business relationship with a painter named Annike, who wants to set up a side deal where they can sell their own Kostabi paintings. Mr. Behrman continued to try different therapists, but to little success. His latest caretaker, Dr. Kleinman, prescribed him Prozac, which, after two weeks, makes him feel like he is having a wonderful day. Mr. Behrman an continued to have sex with strangers, including two guys at their apartment. His reckless sexual behavior is a continuous pattern. A fit of cleaning his apartment for hours on end, along with counting words on a page and checking locked doors suggests that his OCD is lurking in the background as strong as ever.
The selling of fake paintings went as strong as ever, with Mr. Behrman traveling abroad often to sell the counterfeits. Mr. Behrman is somewhat irrational in telling many of his friends about his illegal activities, thinking that none of them will report him, or even just that the news will get out eventually. The tension rises to the point where Mr. Behrman and Annike felt it necessary to end their work with the obituary of a fake counterfeiter, removing the blame from themselves, or so they think. Mr. Behrman reported that just a week after this, the real trouble began. Kostabi has discovered that there are fake paintings floating around, and Kostabi´s main suspect is Mr. Behrman, who immediately got a defense attorney.
These legal troubles fueled Mr. Behrman´s mania to the point where constant errands and social contacts become a must. Mr. Behrman also had a hair cutting incident at this time where he stood in front of the mirror naked and whacked off clumps of hair with a scissors. Mr. Behrman stressed constantly during the interim between his first lawyer meeting and the trial. The counterfeiting continued even during this time of investigation because Mr. Behrman and Annike need to bring in some money. They both started up a tiny company and began to try to trade paintings. At this time Annike and Mr. Behrman also went on a spree in Europe, where Mr. Behrman used canceled credit cards.
Once back in the U.S.A., Mr. Behrman begged his parents for help, but they wanted him to pull himself together. On a last resort, Mr. Behrman gets his sister to pay for him to see a psychiatrist once a week; this kindness on her part proves to Mr. Behrman how serious a condition he is dealing with at this time.
This does not stop Mr. Behrman from enjoying all the recognition he is getting from his art conspiracy that is being reported all over the place in newspapers. Mr. Behrman becomes even more distraught and distressed during the days of his trial. A small gesture of comfort is offered by the judge when he declares that Mr. Behrman had tremendously sincere and positive letters of support written in his defense by friends and family. Unfortunately for Mr. Behrman, he was declared guilty on the first count of fraud, but innocent on the other charges.
During the time between his trial and sentencing, Mr. Behrman contacted and started to see another practitioner, Dr. Fried. This woman firmly insisted that Mr. Behrman has bipolar, which he takes as a ¨life sentence.¨ Sadly, Mr. Behrman does not take his medication regiment seriously, but instead, for example, took the time to spill twelve pills all over his ice cream and continued to eat every last bite.
Multiple changes continued to take place in Mr. Behrman´s life. He went off and on other medications, started seeing another psychotherapist, continued and worsen in his level of anxiety, sold his office, and bought an apartment. Worse came to worse when Mr. Behrman started to have ¨paranoid and psychotic thoughts. He refused to answer the telephone out of paranoia and believed that words on paper would jump out and shred him to pieces.
From his treatment of psychosis with Risperdal, Mr. Behrman suffered side effects that caused him to go on other medications to counter act the negative effects. Life changing for Mr. Behrman is the sentence that Judge Nickerson hands down: ¨I´m going to impose a sentence of five months´ imprisonment, two years´ supervised release, a special condition of home detention, two hundred fifty hours of community service, and I´ll impose the minimum fine of $7500¨(193).
With the help of an advocate, Mr. Behrman gets to spend his imprisonment sentence in a correctional institute. While in this half-way house, Mr. Behrman continues to take a handful of medications. Mr. Behrman appeared to have kept journal entries of the days of stay at Esmor, the correctional facility.
Finally out of the resident living arrangement, Mr. Behrman was received a warm welcome home from his family and sets off to enjoy life in his apartment, including the eating of ice cream and the watching of television.
Mr. Behrman became so hard to properly medicate, that Dr. Fried started giving extreme attention to his care. Being so out of control, Mr. Behrman considered suicide, and is relieved to find how much his doctor cares when she sends police to his house because he had not answered the phone. This unbelievable low and high caused Mr. Behrman to seek out a last resort with Dr. Fried. The doctor and patient agree that Mr. Behrman should try Electro-Convulsive Therapy.
After the initial treatment, Mr. Behrman woke up to feeling wonderful, even doing jumping-jacks for his family. The one major problem is that Mr. Behrman suffered some loss of memory. This memory loss took place each time he went in for maintenance shock therapies.
At this time, Mr. Behrman admitted to himself that ¨after thirty-three years it hits me that there´s something really wrong with me. I have a mental illness.¨
The memory loss becomes so bad that Mr. Behrman wakes up not knowing who he is and the status of his current location.
Finally Mr. Behrman had his last treatment and he is able to leave the ward. He went home to sleep and wakes to go to work only to find out that he has been laid off, but still will be kept afloat by the employer´s unemployment and disability insurance.
During this post-shock-treatment time, Mr. Behrman worked on completing his community service. Furthermore, and sadly, Mr. Behrman felt that the ECT had not done enough for him and he solicited the advice of friends, which included the ideas of seeing a Kabbalist, an acupuncturist, and a dominatrix. Mr. Behrman took up each of these ideas, but found himself without relief. Mr. Behrman looks to this clinic as his last hope.
Age: As of 2009, 47 years old.
Medical Condition (s): See below
Reason for Referral
Client Andy Behrman has been referred due to extremely debilitating mental disturbances. He has the inability to control his excessive thoughts and overwhelming amount of energy. He suffers continually from manic episodes. These episodes are recurrent and completely change his way of living and day to day mental stability. Mr. Behrman is inflicted with the routines and rituals of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This OCD habits seem to interfere with his relationships, his work and his thoughts. His constant compulsive and irrational behavior has gone out of control. His substance abuse combined with his distressing and intrusive thoughts have started to haunt him to the point he has inflicted pain on himself. Mr. Behrman’s substantial paranoia has negatively affected his relationships, his professional life and his personal views on the world. He is excessively hyper-sexual, constantly fantasizing about sex, taking part in sexual activity with strangers, or masturbating.
Tests Administered/ Test Scores & Interpretation/Behavior Observations:
Mr. Behrman took various preliminary psychological tests prior to meeting with Dr. Frederick Goodwin. Dr. Goodwin is employed at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and sent these tests to Mr. Behrman in the mail, in order to have a little knowledge about Mr. Behrman before they started their therapy sessions. Dr. Goodwin diagnosed Mr. Behrman with manic depression, however, the specifics of his psychological tests are not available. I have not been informed of any other tests that may have beadministered by other doctors.
Mr. Behrman is quite an honest patient. Within the first few minutes of meeting me he was attempting to give me a full personal history. He speaks quickly and shows a lot of interest in himself. While he admits his bad habits openly, he does not seem to think that his lifestyle is really that bad. He seems to think it is normal and that his behavior is acceptable, at least to him. It is quite easy to tell that his mind is going a hundred miles a minute; he changes topics quickly, he speaks of all of his journeys - hopping from one to the next. He does mention that he is frustrated with the \"crazies\" and wants to find a way to rest his mind.
Client/Family Background:
Mr. Behrman’s family has a history of OCD and anger management problems. Mr. Behrman states that there was a touch of obsessiveness that marked everyone in his family. His father obsesses over working out, often inflicting his obsessions on his son. When Mr. Behrman was a little boy his dad forced him to do strenuous workouts – with hundreds of pushups and sit-ups prior to going to bed. His father also was obsessive about keeping the house spotless --neurotically clean. He also had specific rituals with folding clothes, polishing his shoes and organizing bills and mail. His father also struggled with managing his anger, occasionally having an outburst. Mr. Behrman’s mother also had a touch of the obsessive nature. She also obsessed about cleaning, often times scraping the wax between the tiles on the kitchen floor. His mother also had anger issues – often having outbursts at Nancy, Mr. Behrman’s sister when she was a teenager. Mr. Behrman’s grandfather on his dad’s side also had anger issues.
While Mr. Behrman’s parents did have some problems, they continually stepped in to help him when he needed it. There seemed to be a cycle of Mr. Behrman running back to his parents whenever he got into trouble. This may have stemmed to him being babied as a child, but without his parents support and intervention, Mr. Behrman may have spun even more out of control. While their help was necessary and probably essential to Mr. Behrman living as long as he did, his dependence on his parents could also be viewed as detrimental. Even as a grown man, Mr. Behrman never cut the ties with his parents. He continued to rely on them to bail him out whenever he got into trouble. This created a vicious cycle that negatively affected Mr. Behrman
Diagnosis
Reasons for Bipolar I
First, Mr. Behrman meets enough criteria for the Axis I diagnosis of Bipolar I. He has continual bouts of Mania where he has intense highs, feeling euphoric and almost as if his life is in fast-forward mode. (He has extreme and frequent Manic Episodes) He exhibits behaviors in which he feels indestructible in the areas of personal finances, business deals, and relationships. The majority of the time he has an elevated self-esteem, viewing himself as superior to others and as if he should be praised all of the time. He is excessively talkative, has innumerable abundance of irrational and flighty ideas, a reduced need for sleep, and is easily distracted. He will go on rampages of spending a crazy amount of money sporadically without thinking, and he makes extremely rash business and personal decisions. He not only engages in dangerous sexual behavior, but he has a love and almost an addiction to this type of behavior. He also abuses and is dependent on drugs and alcohol. His depression often becomes apparent as his high fades and as the penalty of his activities becomes apparent, the depressive episode can be exacerbated.
Reasons for Diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
To begin, Mr. Behrman fits the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder in addition to his Bipolar. His life revolves around behaviors of grandiosity, always needing to be noticed and do have the best and most expensive material things. He constantly is searching for admiration and has a sense of entitlement. He makes a lot of choices based on how it will make him look and if it will help his social status. He tends to exaggerate his importance in the lives of the people he knows and exaggerates all of his accomplishments. He is continually searching for self gratification and praise from others - whether or not he deserves it. Much of his time is taken up by fantasizing over substantial success and power professionally, love and beauty when it comes to his relationships and personal appearance. He seems to have this idea that he can only relate to people of a certain status - whether it is dealing with their amount of success, or if it is that they entertain the same lifestyle as he does. He views himself as invincible and as someone who is entitled to certain things in life based on his superiority. Yet, deep down there seems to be some underlying sense of inferiority that pushes him to want to rectify the negative views people have of him. This crosses over to his feelings of envy and anger towards those who have more in life - whether it is that they have more material things or if they have stronger relationships. He does not like to have his spotlight taken away from him and is always searching for attention.
Case History
Andy Behrman self proclaimed that his childhood was not as bad as his peers, but he did want to share a few key points. For example, in the basic form, Mr. Behrman had “The Deluxe Male Progeny Package.¨ What this means to him is that he lived the classic American dream, with ¨relatively sane Jewish parents,¨ a sister of greater age, a nice house, braces for his teeth, and all of the other material fixings that a kid could dream of including a trip to Disneyland. In other words, Andy had a relatively normal growing up experience, were it not for the quirkiness of the beginnings of mental illness. As he self reported, Andy felt the beginnings of ¨the crazies¨ when he was around eight years old. The first symptoms included staying up all night counting cars (numbering into the hundreds), vacuuming the floor continuously, devouring information and memorizing statistics, organizing and polishing his room, having delusions of grandeur, and a high level of self importance. Some of these last symptoms came about because of the amazing attention from the rest of the family; Andy was the first male child.
Around seven, Mr. Behrman cleaned his records with turpentine, and around ten, put light bulbs in the dishwasher. These are representative of his odd behavior.
The next stage of ¨the crazies¨ in Mr. Behrman´s life are reported as happening in the second grade. Mr. Behrman had his first female crush during this time when he viewed the legs of a girl named Allison. Furthermore, Mr. Behrman had a teacher that took special attention towards him, and this just added to his self importance. She gave him special projects in class, bought him an ant farm, and took him out to eat.
Around the time of junior high school, Andy had to take one on one instruction to overcome his speech impediment. Andy reported that he had a hard time controlling his behavior and he liked to be mischievous. At this time, his assertive nature propelled him to excel above and beyond his peers becoming the editor of the year book and the president of his student council. Mr. Behrman´s OCD took shape when he spent hours upon hours on his election signs perfecting them and unreasonable amounts of time washing his hands. Mr. Behrman reported that at this time, ¨inside I was suffering from a combination of anxiety and depression.¨
When Mr. Behrman was sixteen, he started pulling out his hair, suggesting trichotillomania; he later replaced this habit with popping pimples. He also had the odd behavior of sitting in a stifling hot car to test how long he could go in the heat. The unique kind of crazies came about when he was twelve. Mr. Behrman discovered the wonders of masturbation and addiction of pornography. Mr. Behrman claimed that he was omnisexual from the start, finding erotic just about everything.
By the end of senior year in high school, Mr. Behrman was sleeping too much and overeating. It was at this time that Mr. Behrman first saw a psychologist and shared the intimate details of his life with another human being. Before going to college, Mr. Behrman, on a whim, went in for plastic surgery on his nose. This was later explained as a symptom of his narcissistic personality disorder. Mr. Behrman had also continued his relationship with the Allison he met in second grade, seemingly impressing her with his new nose.
Freshmen year of college, Mr. Behrman met as many people as he possibly could, trying to prove his popularity. At this time, Mr. Behrman started to run into his first heavy duty problems. Alcohol, drugs, sex, and staying up all night became a staple of life for him. This all caused Mr. Behrman to experience his first real depression. An example of this was his staying in bed all day long, skipping a Japanese exam. Andy detailed a time he spent with cocaine, showing his failing ability to withstand negative peer pressure. Mr. Behrman has also started to see some of his manic symptoms as beneficial, giving him the energy to stay up all night and cram or write term papers. Mr. Behrman also spent numerous times with Dr. Logan receiving therapy that never quite helped him.
Once out of college, while staying at his parents, Andy planned out his future, deciding that he wanted an apartment in New York. Planning to live off of a small inheritance, Mr. Behrman showcased his lack of financial control. His first purchase was to feed his cocaine addiction, and the next order of business was to spend excessive amounts of money on furnishings for his new $1200 a month apartment. Sexual urges begin to express themselves in Mr. Behrman´s fascination with the sexual side of New York life: porn shops, massage centers, live shows, etc.
Mr. Behrman started to bring in money by working at Armani and asked for capital for his film project from wealthy friends. Mr. Behrman has also started to become involved in male stripping, making money by undressing for men in a club. Allison finally graduates, and the two move in together. Mr. Behrman also became a business partner to his sister, Nancy, in the field of public relations. Furthermore, Mr. Behrman began to become involved with Mark Kostabi, a con artist who makes tons of money and is in need of a public relations expert. Mr. Behrman continued to go on spending sprees, easily spending $6200 in one instance.
Mr. Behrman became even more involved at Kostabi world and has come to have a business relationship with a painter named Annike, who wants to set up a side deal where they can sell their own Kostabi paintings. Mr. Behrman continued to try different therapists, but to little success. His latest caretaker, Dr. Kleinman, prescribed him Prozac, which, after two weeks, makes him feel like he is having a wonderful day. Mr. Behrman an continued to have sex with strangers, including two guys at their apartment. His reckless sexual behavior is a continuous pattern. A fit of cleaning his apartment for hours on end, along with counting words on a page and checking locked doors suggests that his OCD is lurking in the background as strong as ever.
The selling of fake paintings went as strong as ever, with Mr. Behrman traveling abroad often to sell the counterfeits. Mr. Behrman is somewhat irrational in telling many of his friends about his illegal activities, thinking that none of them will report him, or even just that the news will get out eventually. The tension rises to the point where Mr. Behrman and Annike felt it necessary to end their work with the obituary of a fake counterfeiter, removing the blame from themselves, or so they think. Mr. Behrman reported that just a week after this, the real trouble began. Kostabi has discovered that there are fake paintings floating around, and Kostabi´s main suspect is Mr. Behrman, who immediately got a defense attorney.
These legal troubles fueled Mr. Behrman´s mania to the point where constant errands and social contacts become a must. Mr. Behrman also had a hair cutting incident at this time where he stood in front of the mirror naked and whacked off clumps of hair with a scissors. Mr. Behrman stressed constantly during the interim between his first lawyer meeting and the trial. The counterfeiting continued even during this time of investigation because Mr. Behrman and Annike need to bring in some money. They both started up a tiny company and began to try to trade paintings. At this time Annike and Mr. Behrman also went on a spree in Europe, where Mr. Behrman used canceled credit cards.
Once back in the U.S.A., Mr. Behrman begged his parents for help, but they wanted him to pull himself together. On a last resort, Mr. Behrman gets his sister to pay for him to see a psychiatrist once a week; this kindness on her part proves to Mr. Behrman how serious a condition he is dealing with at this time.
This does not stop Mr. Behrman from enjoying all the recognition he is getting from his art conspiracy that is being reported all over the place in newspapers. Mr. Behrman becomes even more distraught and distressed during the days of his trial. A small gesture of comfort is offered by the judge when he declares that Mr. Behrman had tremendously sincere and positive letters of support written in his defense by friends and family. Unfortunately for Mr. Behrman, he was declared guilty on the first count of fraud, but innocent on the other charges.
During the time between his trial and sentencing, Mr. Behrman contacted and started to see another practitioner, Dr. Fried. This woman firmly insisted that Mr. Behrman has bipolar, which he takes as a ¨life sentence.¨ Sadly, Mr. Behrman does not take his medication regiment seriously, but instead, for example, took the time to spill twelve pills all over his ice cream and continued to eat every last bite.
Multiple changes continued to take place in Mr. Behrman´s life. He went off and on other medications, started seeing another psychotherapist, continued and worsen in his level of anxiety, sold his office, and bought an apartment. Worse came to worse when Mr. Behrman started to have ¨paranoid and psychotic thoughts. He refused to answer the telephone out of paranoia and believed that words on paper would jump out and shred him to pieces.
From his treatment of psychosis with Risperdal, Mr. Behrman suffered side effects that caused him to go on other medications to counter act the negative effects. Life changing for Mr. Behrman is the sentence that Judge Nickerson hands down: ¨I´m going to impose a sentence of five months´ imprisonment, two years´ supervised release, a special condition of home detention, two hundred fifty hours of community service, and I´ll impose the minimum fine of $7500¨(193).
With the help of an advocate, Mr. Behrman gets to spend his imprisonment sentence in a correctional institute. While in this half-way house, Mr. Behrman continues to take a handful of medications. Mr. Behrman appeared to have kept journal entries of the days of stay at Esmor, the correctional facility.
Finally out of the resident living arrangement, Mr. Behrman was received a warm welcome home from his family and sets off to enjoy life in his apartment, including the eating of ice cream and the watching of television.
Mr. Behrman became so hard to properly medicate, that Dr. Fried started giving extreme attention to his care. Being so out of control, Mr. Behrman considered suicide, and is relieved to find how much his doctor cares when she sends police to his house because he had not answered the phone. This unbelievable low and high caused Mr. Behrman to seek out a last resort with Dr. Fried. The doctor and patient agree that Mr. Behrman should try Electro-Convulsive Therapy.
After the initial treatment, Mr. Behrman woke up to feeling wonderful, even doing jumping-jacks for his family. The one major problem is that Mr. Behrman suffered some loss of memory. This memory loss took place each time he went in for maintenance shock therapies.
At this time, Mr. Behrman admitted to himself that ¨after thirty-three years it hits me that there´s something really wrong with me. I have a mental illness.¨
The memory loss becomes so bad that Mr. Behrman wakes up not knowing who he is and the status of his current location.
Finally Mr. Behrman had his last treatment and he is able to leave the ward. He went home to sleep and wakes to go to work only to find out that he has been laid off, but still will be kept afloat by the employer´s unemployment and disability insurance.
During this post-shock-treatment time, Mr. Behrman worked on completing his community service. Furthermore, and sadly, Mr. Behrman felt that the ECT had not done enough for him and he solicited the advice of friends, which included the ideas of seeing a Kabbalist, an acupuncturist, and a dominatrix. Mr. Behrman took up each of these ideas, but found himself without relief. Mr. Behrman looks to this clinic as his last hope.
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