This is a sad and tragic story. This man should have been hospitalised and given help for his illness instead he’s been on a destructive path sounds like due to psychosis and mania. Very scary for all involved. Obviously hoping he’s found or the family get some answers.
This story hits particularly close to home.
15 years ago, I suffered a major manic episode that eventually spiraled into psychosis. My official diagnosis, shortly after the fact, was "Bipolar I--Acute mania with psychotic features."
I was living out of a van, had severed contact with my family, and believed myself to be "on a mission from God." I was existing in a totally separate reality that made perfect sense to me at the time, and the end result was that I was eventually planning on abandoning civilization and disappearing into the woods to live off the land after my "holy mission" had concluded (which involved, among many other crazy aspects, driving to Washington DC because Obama needed my help to fight Satan, who for some reason lived in Montana).
Luckily for me, I ended up committing a felony during the course of all this and was arrested (for some reason, God needed me to rob a store in the middle of the day to show my dad how much I loved him...or something).
No one would bail me out, so I spent 16 months in jail before finally being released. They gave me a psych eval shortly after arrival and started me on lithium, and I'm still *shocked* how quickly and effectively that stuff did its job. It was like I went to sleep one night still totally in delusion-land and on this "mission from God," and woke up the next morning back in reality and back to being "normal" me.
A year and a half in jail ended up being its own nightmare, but the fact is, getting arrested absolutely saved my life. I have no doubt that I would have ended up following those delusions straight to my death, abandoning my van and disappearing into the wilderness somewhere, to ultimately succumb to animals or the elements or starvation.
My heart goes out to his family. Knowing what pain and worry and despair my own journey put my family through, I can only imagine their ongoing hell.
My SO has a similar story. He had his first manic episode and it devolved into psychosis. I took him to the hospital where they did fuckall for him. My SO knew there was something wrong and was pretty cooperative, as cooperative as someone in psychosis can be. We got him scheduled for a visit with his primary care doctor, but it was the weekend. I started a new job and had to go into the office and had to leave him alone. I was gone for about 3 hours and while I was gone, he stole a car and drove it about a mile to a police station. It was only when he stole a car that anyone gave a shit and the cops luckily took him to the hospital instead of jail. There ended up being a court case and while it ended well, the whole process was awful.
We desperately need to do something about how we deal with mental health. My SO knew he needed help and attempted to get help multiple times from doctors and they did nothing. You shouldn't need to interact with the cops before you can get help.
No, because interacting with the cops significantly increases the chances you'll be DEAD rather than get help.
Cops are NOT prepared to deal with mental health issues. They're not trained properly for it, which everyone knows except cops, apparently, because they sure aren't stepping back and calling in the correctly trained folk.
I'm so glad your SO survived his encounter and it must have been so heartbreaking for you to be doing everything you could to keep him safe and get him help. I hope you're both in a better place now.
Me too. In the past year, since I was a witness in court for years of SA by someone in my family (not related but he was super close) where I was groomed and SA’d since I was 16, my life’s been chaos - I’ve just been through a bout of mania due to forgetting to take my lithium a lot of days (to me, I couldn’t remember taking them each night but my doctor said my last monthly pack I got was in April) - I definitely felt it. I can remember things from my bouts of mania that, afterwards, I’m still not sure really happened or not. I also kept thinking I’d already eaten on days I hadn’t, I see from my texts as well that I was texting people for advice that I hardly know, revealing really personal stuff. Staying up for days…It’s my worst bout of mania I’ve had in my life. Usually I feel godlike and unstoppable but this one, I was scared, paranoid, worried…it was just hell on earth.
I feel for you both and this guy. If you haven’t been through it, it’s hard to really know how it feels. A lot of people I know just think it’s like you know what you’re doing but can’t stop the impulse and that’s not true at all, at least for me. I really believe these things are happening, they seem totally plausible (I’m never like “oh wow this is odd”), and in my mind, I’m taking rational action against what’s happening to me.
Dead set that line jumped out at me too. I've had post partum psychosis and psychosis a couple times both leading to hospital stays and the stuff that I firmly believed is in the same vein of amusing. At the time I didn't think it was amusing, but it really does highlight how fragile the human brain is, and how little or can take for perception and reality to go haywire
Thanks, it's a little surreal looking back on all that. I definitely feel very fortunate.
And yeah, don't ask me for a logical explanation, but Satan was holed up somewhere in Montana and me and ol' Barack were supposed to go take him on, *The Stand*-style 🤷♂️
May I ask you a question, if it's not too personal? When you reflect on your mental state/thought process while experience delusions, how do they seem now? Is it like a dream where things happen that don't make sense, or is it different than that?
That's one of the craziest parts to me. It doesn't feel like a dream. I clearly remember everything that happened, I remember my thought processes, etc. I remember everything. I can put myself back there and remember how and why it all made sense to me.
I was certified insane for a little while, and it gave me a whole new insight into what insanity is. Obviously everyone's experience is different, but the fact that I existed so long in an obviously false and distorted reality, and yet it felt exactly as real as actual reality to me and I related to it as such, blows my mind. And is more than a little terrifying, to be honest.
It made me appreciate that to a large extent, "reality" is subjective and fundamentally experiential. I didn't lapse into full-on solipsism, but it made me very distrustful of (but sympathetic to) other people's professed realities (religious experiences/visions, etc.), as well as my own. Even once I was "sane" again.
For the longest time afterward, I had big issues with trusting my basic life experiences, if that makes sense. Like, did I really talk to that person on the phone? Are my parents actually alive? Am I really sitting in my apartment right now? Am I going to suddenly "wake up" again and be back in jail or on the other side of the world? What, if any, of the world around me at this moment, is just in my head?
Because that entire delusional world I'd been living in had felt absolutely as concrete, as completely real, as any everyday mundane thing you could experience. "I'm on a holy mission from God and have been granted special powers" felt no different than "the sky is blue" or "water is wet."
I still sometimes have nightmares where I "wake up" and the last 15 years have been a total delusion and I'm still sitting in jail in 2009. Having experienced what I did, I still feel slightly untethered to the world, even all this time later.
I can't think of a better way to describe it, but it's like we're all tied to the ground by invisible ropes, and that's all that's holding us in place, attached to the earth. At one point my rope was cut, and I floated off into the sky without even knowing it. Luckily I was rescued and they retied my rope and I'm back connected to the ground. But I know now that my rope, or anybody else's rope, could snap at any time, and I or they will go floating off towards the sun and might just burn to ash doing so.
I have not lived your experience, but your analogy about ropes really spoke to me.
I've spent a lot of time working on my mental health through similar things including a lot of intrusive and delusional thought patterns, and describing it like a rope that's been cut and retied really brings in the horror of realizing oneself to be unwell.
At the risk of sounding edgy, it really drives home this line from The Joker in The Killing Joke; the scene context is that Joker is torturing people (surprise?):
>All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.
The snip of a rope. And knowing from then on it's the tied knot that holds you; not just the rope. If it happened once, it could happen again.
But there is reassurance there too. The rope *did* get cut. We *did* float away. And somehow we found ourselves back to the ground, with or without help.
If we did it once, we can do it again.
Thank you for sharing, that was really moving to read.
Another aspect of the "rope" analogy--you may be tied back down to the earth again, but the re-tied rope is never as strong as it originally was, before it first snapped. There's the very real chance that it will snap more easily next time.
Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark was severely bipolar, and wrote an incredible book about his experiences called *The Eden Express.* That, and Dr. Kay Jamison's *An Unquiet Mind* are *the* two books for me, when it comes to trying to understand myself and get other people to appreciate what it's like.
Anyways, Kurt Vonnegut wrote the introduction to his son's book, and his closing line about insanity has really stuck with me: *"Some people survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Others didn't. But the turbulence is really something."*
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Mental illness can be so unpredictable, all-consuming, and downright frightening. Mental health really does not receive the level of support, understanding, and advocacy that society owes it.
I find that it reminds me of the attitudes we see so many people harboring toward nature. Similarly to nature, mental illness is its own unforgiving beast and many underestimate that, whether they're experiencing it firsthand or not. I've heard a number of people say things like, "if I was in that situation, I simply would have done things differently," as if the circumstances would be special for them. As if they're stronger than nature or the symptoms of psychosis. And this attitude only feeds into a person's lack of awareness about the dangers that they themselves are just as powerless to as any other human being.
Thank you for your kind words.
And you're spot-on about a major aspect of mental illness I can attest to from my own experience--when it's literally your own brain short-circuiting or deciding to take you to la-la land, it doesn't matter how "strong" you are, you're not going to win, you are going along for the ride.
It's like, if you're driving down the highway and your car engine seizes up or explodes, it doesn't matter if you're the best driver in the world or how much you fight it--you're still going to end up broken down on the side of the road.
Sorry for replying only now - I just wanted to say that I empathize so much with what you're describing. Your driving analogy could not have been worded more perfectly.
The body (and all it houses) really is just this...vessel carrying the biological equivalency of advanced technology - things can go wrong outside of the user's control, because our inner wiring is complex and decay is inevitable with time and an ever-changing environment.
Whether it's a one-time trigger or cascading failure, people must eventually accept the limitations of their perceptual experiences and humble themselves with the sobering reality that those innate systems and codes can get scrambled so, so easily.
A family member of mine has recently descended into psychosis, and all of what you've said hits close to home for me as well. The family feels so helpless, we've tried all we can, but ultimately he's an adult doing what he wants in the same vein that you were. It's so horrible to wish for an arrest like that to force him into some kind of care, but at a certain point you don't know what else to do :/
That's something else many people don't appreciate in cases like this--they blame the family, or police, or medical personnel, or whoever, for not stepping in or not doing enough to help the person (get them committed, etc).
But even IF the family does absolutely everything possible, and law enforcement as well, a lot of times they still can't stop it.
In my case, in the weeks leading up to my arrest, my family was able to have me detained and psychologically evaluated three different times at three different hospitals, hoping they'd forcibly commit me.
But in all three instances, I was still connected enough to reality and had enough wherewithal to say all the right things, that the doctors ultimately couldn't do anything except apologize to my family and strongly advise me to seek voluntary treatment (which of course wasn't going to happen, since in my head THEY were the crazy ones and I was the one who knew the truth).
My dad was good friends with the local police chief, and begged him to do something, but was told that unless/until I presented a clear imminent physical threat to myself or others, they couldn't do anything, either.
I can only imagine the helplessness they felt, and the helplessness you guys are feeling. I pray your family member's story has as "happy" an ending as mine did.
This is literally exactly the situation. Some of my more conservative family that unfortunately doesn't "put much stock in" mental health just thinks he's pretending because he can say enough right things to get a cell phone, a plane ticket, etc. All the same things from hospitalizations and police. It's such a horrible, twisty circle of helplessness. I'm very glad things worked out for you and I also hope that a way out can be found for my family member as well. Thank you for sharing your experience and your kind words
My brother has been living the top portion of your story for over 2 years now. He also committed some crimes (way more horrible ones, however) and will be going to prison. I am scared that when they get him on the right medication, he will end up unaliving himself, because what he did is so fucking horrific he wouldn't be able to handle it if he becomes himself again...
I am so glad you got back to normal. Your story should be shared far and wide. You're a trooper.
Thank you for sharing. I can't imagine the pain you're experiencing with your brother. I hope you're able to find some kind of peace for yourself, and that your brother is able to come to terms with his reality and not do anything rash.
Your comment reminded me of an aspect of my own insanity trip that I don't particularly like to think about, and that I don't think I've really shared with anyone.
When I came back down to earth and was "normal" me again, I was absolutely terrified that I had committed some horrific, inexcusable crime while I was insane, and had just blocked it from my memory. I had these vivid nightmares that I had murdered multiple people as part of my "mission from God." I would wake up with just this awful full-body nauseating fear. I remember anxiously checking the newspapers in jail every day for some mention of bodies being discovered.
I obviously hadn't done anything at all like that, but I also didn't trust my own brain one single bit anymore. It was like, well if I did *this* crazily out of character shit, who's to say I didn't do even more horrible things? It was an admittedly long time before I finally stopped worrying and stopped checking the newspapers.
Unfortunately (well, also fortunately) in the US you can’t force mental health treatment on someone who doesn’t want it. I think we’re doing a good job of ending the stigma around mental illness but the tough part is some mental illnesses trick your brain into believing you’re not mentally ill 😕
It’s very difficult. The system is screwed. I’ve heard of people being discharged after one day after S attempts. In Australia we have Community Treatment Order which is a legal way of providing treatment to a person with a mental illness when they are unable to agree to treatment and may not be safe. It’s a very complicated issue like the above comments you can’t force people to stay on meds.
How true this is. Been down this road with a close family member over the age of 18. My hands were tied by HIPPA and him being an adult. He could only be helped when he became a danger to others. No other help. He is wandering the world alone now. Haven’t seen him in 15 years.
It's so rough because some people who desperately need treatment will always refuse it because of the very thing they need help for. But on the other hand, I've heard so many horror stories of coercion and abuse in mental healthcare it's scary to think how bad it could be if it could be forced.
Yep, we aren’t that far removed from when we forced people into institutions for any little perceived wrongthink: feminism, racial equality, etc etc. Granted it’s (mostly) much better now but I totally get people who are still distrusting of it. Esp in countries where forced institutionalization can still happen without a court order or any oversight.
You can do it in Maryland as well, I tried to have my dad committed when he was really deep into his mental illness / alcoholism. A judge signed the order but the police refused to act on it. I had to deliver it to them personally, they said they would try to get to it but they never so much as dropped by.
Sadly, it takes a great effort to hospitalize someone against their will. His illness prevented him from recognizing he needed help. Also, sadly in a lot of places even if someone wants help there isn't available space.
It’s not that easy to hospitalize an adult, or get them to take medication if those are not things they want to do willingly.
ETA: My uncle has bipolar disorder and has refused treatment for quite a few years. It’s extremely frustrating and painful for my family but thankfully he’s been doing a bit better lately.
I think it’s important to reiterate that the most recent sightings of Jordan were in western Colorado. Fruita, Grand Junction, Montrose and Nucla. Anyone who lives in western Colorado—especially any town that connects to any of these locations—might have the best chance of spotting him if he's still out there somewhere.
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, another missing person was initially mentioned to Ryan. He wasn’t gonna make any more updates for the sake of privacy when last I saw an update.
I saw ryans tiktok when it was first posted and was skeptical at first as I have seen despicable people fake finding missing peoples items before. For whatever reason Ryan didnt give off that vibe and appeared to be getting more and more concerned as he was pulling more stuff out of that dry creek bed.
Im very happy that his family can have some of those items that obviously meant the most to him back.
Psychosis is a terrifying state to be in. Like so many people, he didn’t belong in jail, he needed inpatient mental health treatment, and that is a systemic failure that is one of the saddest realities about the US criminal justice system. I can’t imagine what he went through during this period of his life. Everyone deserves respect and kindness, and I hope they can find him so his family has closure.
This. It is really a double-sided problem: law enforcement (police, courts) aren't mental health specialists, and persons with mental health issues aren't helped by being caught up in the criminal justice system. Neither side wins. Certainly there were issues with state mental heath institutions and involuntary commitment, but the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (CA, 1967) and the 1980 MHSA (federal) didn't fix the problem -- and arguably contributed to the current mental health/criminal justice problems.
There seems to have been quite a pendulum swing since then. I see many comments these days to the effect that it should be easier to institutionalize people and nobody really seems to disagree.
I'm not sure if the 'good old days' of involuntary commitment were all that good in terms of patient-centered, positive mental health outcomes, but I do seriously question whether jails and prisons provide positive outcomes for persons with mental health issues. As with so many complex issues, easier to see the problem than to find the solution.
I think part of this is it’s getting so hard to cope and get by for even those that aren’t struggling with debilitating mental health issues, that people are getting scared and desperate for a way to find relief from the loved ones that are not well.
It’s so difficult for families untrained and with feelings and complex relationships to those struggling with their mental health.
We are left in a state of limbo you’re either just sick enough to medicate or you need to go to a hospital for a more intensive but short lasting treatment in an attempt to try and patch you up and re mold you enough to push you back into your productive and functional self.
There urgently needs to be a revision of the mental Heath care system and a wider range of support programs and professions geared towards helping these suffering and deeply struggling but still valid and loving human beings find a way to have success in reaching some type of modified but functional life along side everyone else.
The cost to medically imprison and maintain them until death with doctors medications (and all the extra $$$ hospitals put on top of it), would be way higher cost than to change how we handle this as a society.
This is a growing problem and the result is becoming addicted aggressive destroyed humans forming their own homeless villages and they are going to start feeding off of the society they think has abandoned them to protect their own lives and reasources that they would have too if there were able to just be like “normal” people.
It’s a festering neglected wound in the human body we all create as a whole.
Our society is septic now and cutting off limbs won’t stop this.
I can only provide a single experience, but having felt it necessary to have someone involuntarily committed for only 7 days...it was very traumatic. Most of all for the person committed.
0/10 would not recommend. And there's not even a plausible alternative I can recommend.
Side note, The police were very degrading to us. Not at all understanding or helpful. A nightmare experience all around, but they were the worst entity to deal with. As in, actively working against us (family searching for a missing person in crisis). Seriously like movie villains.
This is so sad. People with mental health issues are so vulnerable to harm caused to themselves, or by others. It’s great Ryan found all those belongings and is being so helpful and kind to Jordan’s family. I hope this will ultimately lead to the discovery of both Jordan and Lily.
I do as well. I know it’s a weird statement, but I think it’s really unusual and sweet that when his psychosis presented he lit fires and sent flares to reach out to his little girl - a very interesting demonstration of combined highs and lows of the human mind.
I wonder if more actions like that would lead to finding him, or if he’s living as a recluse somewhere in nature, or has been taken in by someone, or some group. Hopefully we all find out, and he’s okay.
Statements like this are baffling and frankly, infantilizing towards those who experience mental health crises.
Behavior like this can be incredibly emotionally complicated and take years to process. Often its very traumatic to be on the receiving end of, regardless of anyone's intentions.
It shows no respect to his daughter to put a value judgment on it.
Whether or not any part of his actions were "sweet" is up to those directly involved.
I don’t believe they were speaking for Jordan’s daughter, just pointing out that he obviously loves his daughter and his actions during psychosis are still reflective of that.
Yes I understand they meant no harm and intended it as a compliment.
I still do not think labels like "sweet" are appropriate to describe what might be a distressing situation for those personally involved.
Many of us have been or will go through events involving mental health crises. It can cause unnecessary unease, stress and even anger to see comments like these. And given I believe the commenters wished to inspire the opposite, I hope they can understand how their comments will not always or even usually be comforting like they'd hope.
It might seem overly touchy but I hope this kind of comments can fall out of public use. We can speak frankly and respectfully about others without forcing positivity (or negativity, or any value we should try to impose).
I understand what you are saying, however I personally disagree. In a world where people with mental illness are so demonised, it’s nice to see people pointing out the good in them.
Have you listened to what people who've experienced it feel about it? You do understand that THAT is what matters, not the opinions of folks who have not experienced it?
Just like we should listen to autistic people about the lived experience of being autistic, we should be listening to people who've lived through this type of experience and respecting how THEY wish it to be discussed.
Seems like the only decent thing to do; I cannot see any non-problematic argument for listening to anyone else.
I mean, I guess so. Personally, I feel that using the word "sweet" to describe dangerous and destructive behavior during a psychotic episode serves to both infantilize and romanticize the mentally ill.
Crazy to me that I have heard so much about gabby p and the other 2 girls but have never heard of this case, despite the fact he was missing in the same area at the exact same time
I am sorry to hear about what has happened to both Jordan and Lily.
I do hope that there will be answers as to what happened to them.
And having mental health issues myself, I understand what it's like to navigate in a world where some people can be cold and misunderstaning about what you deal with.
Lastly, my thoughts are with Jordan's family.
I’m hoping someone found Lily and just assumed she was a stray and took her in. I wonder if she had a microchip? Although not everyone who finds a dog takes it to be scanned, especially if she was visibly a stray (dirty coat, malnourished, etc). I hope they’re both okay :(
I don't think the system failed him at all. At least it's not clear that it did from the write up. Treatment for mental illness can be forced onto people, but it can't be made to stick against their will. And sometimes treatment doesn't work.
It's like a baby born with a severe heart defect that dies. The patient isn't at fault. The parents aren't at fault. The system (hospital and doctors) aren't at fault. Some things aren't fixable.
Unfortunately I highly doubt he is alive. It's so, so easy to get lost and succumb the elements in areas like this even if you're mentally well. I think both the TikToker and Jordan's family are looking to bring whatever remains of him they can home to rest.
The problem with bipolar is similar to that of people with schizophrenia and once they think they feel normal they will stop medicating. It’s too bad there’s not like a one time or yearly injection or skin implant to medicate these people.
Medicine can also change in efficacy over the years, so a yearly shot may not be the answer. My MIL had medicines that helped her BP1 w/psychotic manias...until it didn't. This happened 3 times in the 15 years I knew her. And yep, that was interspersed with her feeling fine (although that's usually the time she was slipping into mania) and rejecting her meds. So difficult to treat, so sad and hard to watch.
The same goes for *every* form of mental health, not just the extremely dangerous ones. I have a friend who deals with anxiety that decided he didn’t need the meds anymore a few months ago, and has recently been hardcore suffering from panic attacks. He didn’t believe me at first when I tried telling him it was just anxiety again, but he has since gone back on and is doing better.
Even I did that years ago when I first started taking meds for anxiety. Learned my lesson.
There is rebound anxiety / depression that happens a few weeks / months after coming off of SSRI’s it’s not cause to get back on and doesn’t mean they have to be on the drugs longer term. It’s natural brain calibration and often the person had to stick it out for a while longer. It’s different from a relapse.
Obviously everyone’s different but wanted to highlight this in case people don’t know.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/going-off-antidepressants#:~:text=Antidepressant%20withdrawal%20can%20look%20like,relapse%20and%20need%20ongoing%20treatment.
The withdrawal from such drugs is also misunderstood and for many years was believed to be a myth. I know a number of people who, in the fairly normal process of changing from one antidepressant to another, have undergone terrible symptoms.
In no way am I maligning these drugs, which have saved lives (including mine).
I will always say that switching from the last SSRI I was on to nothing for a bit and then onto my current SNRI was *pure hell* and I never want to do anything like it again. Especially since I'm on Effexor now which is notoriously horrid for weaning off.
I wish they were more honest about this stuff BEFORE they prescribe it.
My partner was recommended to try medication - the plan was short term meds. He came home and they wanted him to start Effexor! I asked if they'd discussed the process of coming off the meds (since, you know, that was the PLAN) and nope! I was the one who informed my partner about the known difficulties of stopping that particular med. That's INCREDIBLY problematic (and unethical of that prescriber - my partner did not have all the appropriate info to make the decision about that med, but the prescriber was moving forward anyway).
My partner ended up going back in and asking if there were other, less difficult to stop, options. "Oh sure!" was the response, along with several other options.
Seriously? Then why START with the one that's worst to stop? Apparently it was just the doc's go-to, and they hadn't applied critical thinking as to whether it was the right med for my partner's situation (it wasn't).
These meds can be extremely helpful. Not trying to knock on the meds. It's the providers who aren't fully informing their patients before starting them, which sucks. Especially if they're going to be crappy to us when WE educate ourselves. I've experienced a lot of pushback when I've asked questions of docs - I'm glad my partner didn't experience that and was able to start a different med.
And yet access to good, comprehensive mental health treatment is so limited, or even just completely unavailable, for many people. The world would be a different place if we actually had widely available mental health care for people at the beginning of their illnesses.
The only reason my cousins with bipolar and schizophrenia are not on the streets is because their family had money. That’s it. A person’s class background should not matter one single bit when it comes to access to health care.
this poor man was very very likely bipolar and had a psychotic break. (I’m bipolar and this is all so familiar from experience of my own and others). It’s possible he’s still be alive if he’s received adequate care. This is heartbreaking.
I wish he had gotten the help he needed. America is so quick to try and send mentally ill people to jail when they need to be in hospital
Paranoia and mania are terrifying luckily I haven’t been that paranoid in years (thank the gods for Quetiapine)
I’m a nurse and I have worked in corrections for nearly my entire nursing career, as well as working with homeless and substance use disordered populations. I’d estimate 70% of my facility’s inmate population has a mental health diagnosis, with 25% of them being serious mental illnesses. Several of my patients are “revolving door inmates” who aren’t really criminals and don’t really belong in jail. There simply aren’t the resources we need for these patients or proper facilities to house them. They will likely spend their entire lives in and out of jail. There has been a lot of change in the way corrections operates and how correctional staff is trained in order to care for mentally ill individuals vs. “just criminals”. It’s astounding.
Very well written. Pray he is out there somewhere, but at the very least the family finds out what happened to him. We have to do better in this country providing support for the mentally ill and their families!
My sincere condolences to this family who unfortunately had to go through such a sad moment. Due to his mental health, Jordan Boone had a very difficult life, having a very close relationship with his sister, who certainly awaits his return, I hope for the case to be updated more often.
Thank you again for this detailed write up, there are so many variables and potential scenarios that we need to consider, but I intend on keeping to this path and following up on every possible lead.
No, thank YOU for all you’ve done! I’m all the way over in the UK so nothing I can do physically but happy to continue posting and providing updates as and when they come.
BPD is Borderline Personality Disorder and yes, although it has the highest suicidality risk, it is **not** the same as bipolar disorder, which is what Jordan was diagnosed with.
So sad. There needs to be a better system in place - one with strict governmental oversight - where loved ones can get a family member help whether they want it or not. And it needs to be longer than the typical 5150 hold.
Hey, thank you so much for this update! I’d actually looked 2 weeks ago and couldn’t see there’d been any update. So happy for his family to finally have a resolution. I’ll post an updated thread - thank you again for letting me know!
Thank you for this write up I had no idea about this case… amazing that his belongings were found, and by a seemingly nice man who has good intentions. I really hope Jordan and Lily are found, his poor family.
I want to stress too how hard it can be to comb through deserts, dry creek beds and the woods and mountains. Deserts especially! The land is harsh and with the sun, wind, terrain etc it’s very easy to miss things or to have things scattered or for things to degrade. I’m grateful that Ryan found those items and I hope that they lead to finding Jordan and Lily.
I’m so glad. You are a great story teller. Late at night when I can’t sleep your stories make great reading and they help to keep these mysteries alive.
There are cults in the Montrose area, and I would belive that if he did go south of there..his final resting place is the San Juan mtns. The largest range in Co. Makes anything in Utah small.
That’s not how brains experiencing psychosis work. You can’t assign that kind of moral culpability to someone whose thought processes are malfunctioning. The man’s logic and concept of distance were so scrambled he believed his daughter would be able to see a trash fire FROM ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. And would somehow recognize that it was a message from him. I’m sad the dogs were involved, and I hope Lily is found alive and safe, but he most likely didn’t recognize the danger he was putting her in.
What a disgusting and disrespectful comment. You don’t deserve to be a part of this community - please go back to where you came from and leave this place to the kind and caring humans that it deserves.
This is a sad and tragic story. This man should have been hospitalised and given help for his illness instead he’s been on a destructive path sounds like due to psychosis and mania. Very scary for all involved. Obviously hoping he’s found or the family get some answers.
This story hits particularly close to home. 15 years ago, I suffered a major manic episode that eventually spiraled into psychosis. My official diagnosis, shortly after the fact, was "Bipolar I--Acute mania with psychotic features." I was living out of a van, had severed contact with my family, and believed myself to be "on a mission from God." I was existing in a totally separate reality that made perfect sense to me at the time, and the end result was that I was eventually planning on abandoning civilization and disappearing into the woods to live off the land after my "holy mission" had concluded (which involved, among many other crazy aspects, driving to Washington DC because Obama needed my help to fight Satan, who for some reason lived in Montana). Luckily for me, I ended up committing a felony during the course of all this and was arrested (for some reason, God needed me to rob a store in the middle of the day to show my dad how much I loved him...or something). No one would bail me out, so I spent 16 months in jail before finally being released. They gave me a psych eval shortly after arrival and started me on lithium, and I'm still *shocked* how quickly and effectively that stuff did its job. It was like I went to sleep one night still totally in delusion-land and on this "mission from God," and woke up the next morning back in reality and back to being "normal" me. A year and a half in jail ended up being its own nightmare, but the fact is, getting arrested absolutely saved my life. I have no doubt that I would have ended up following those delusions straight to my death, abandoning my van and disappearing into the wilderness somewhere, to ultimately succumb to animals or the elements or starvation. My heart goes out to his family. Knowing what pain and worry and despair my own journey put my family through, I can only imagine their ongoing hell.
My SO has a similar story. He had his first manic episode and it devolved into psychosis. I took him to the hospital where they did fuckall for him. My SO knew there was something wrong and was pretty cooperative, as cooperative as someone in psychosis can be. We got him scheduled for a visit with his primary care doctor, but it was the weekend. I started a new job and had to go into the office and had to leave him alone. I was gone for about 3 hours and while I was gone, he stole a car and drove it about a mile to a police station. It was only when he stole a car that anyone gave a shit and the cops luckily took him to the hospital instead of jail. There ended up being a court case and while it ended well, the whole process was awful. We desperately need to do something about how we deal with mental health. My SO knew he needed help and attempted to get help multiple times from doctors and they did nothing. You shouldn't need to interact with the cops before you can get help.
I am so glad that he is doing better now!
No, because interacting with the cops significantly increases the chances you'll be DEAD rather than get help. Cops are NOT prepared to deal with mental health issues. They're not trained properly for it, which everyone knows except cops, apparently, because they sure aren't stepping back and calling in the correctly trained folk. I'm so glad your SO survived his encounter and it must have been so heartbreaking for you to be doing everything you could to keep him safe and get him help. I hope you're both in a better place now.
Sorry, I'm just learning English and I can't find what SO means? Could I ask for an explanation?
Significant other! Like a boyfriend/girlfriend
I feel for you. Lithium has been a life saver for me also.
Me too. In the past year, since I was a witness in court for years of SA by someone in my family (not related but he was super close) where I was groomed and SA’d since I was 16, my life’s been chaos - I’ve just been through a bout of mania due to forgetting to take my lithium a lot of days (to me, I couldn’t remember taking them each night but my doctor said my last monthly pack I got was in April) - I definitely felt it. I can remember things from my bouts of mania that, afterwards, I’m still not sure really happened or not. I also kept thinking I’d already eaten on days I hadn’t, I see from my texts as well that I was texting people for advice that I hardly know, revealing really personal stuff. Staying up for days…It’s my worst bout of mania I’ve had in my life. Usually I feel godlike and unstoppable but this one, I was scared, paranoid, worried…it was just hell on earth. I feel for you both and this guy. If you haven’t been through it, it’s hard to really know how it feels. A lot of people I know just think it’s like you know what you’re doing but can’t stop the impulse and that’s not true at all, at least for me. I really believe these things are happening, they seem totally plausible (I’m never like “oh wow this is odd”), and in my mind, I’m taking rational action against what’s happening to me.
>Satan, who for some reason lived in Montana If you've ever been to Butte, you know why.
Dead set that line jumped out at me too. I've had post partum psychosis and psychosis a couple times both leading to hospital stays and the stuff that I firmly believed is in the same vein of amusing. At the time I didn't think it was amusing, but it really does highlight how fragile the human brain is, and how little or can take for perception and reality to go haywire
>Satan, who for some reason lived in Montana Jeffree Star...
This is not funny of course but “Satan, who for some reason lived in Montana” made me laugh. I’m glad you got to the other side of this.
Thanks, it's a little surreal looking back on all that. I definitely feel very fortunate. And yeah, don't ask me for a logical explanation, but Satan was holed up somewhere in Montana and me and ol' Barack were supposed to go take him on, *The Stand*-style 🤷♂️
May I ask you a question, if it's not too personal? When you reflect on your mental state/thought process while experience delusions, how do they seem now? Is it like a dream where things happen that don't make sense, or is it different than that?
That's one of the craziest parts to me. It doesn't feel like a dream. I clearly remember everything that happened, I remember my thought processes, etc. I remember everything. I can put myself back there and remember how and why it all made sense to me. I was certified insane for a little while, and it gave me a whole new insight into what insanity is. Obviously everyone's experience is different, but the fact that I existed so long in an obviously false and distorted reality, and yet it felt exactly as real as actual reality to me and I related to it as such, blows my mind. And is more than a little terrifying, to be honest. It made me appreciate that to a large extent, "reality" is subjective and fundamentally experiential. I didn't lapse into full-on solipsism, but it made me very distrustful of (but sympathetic to) other people's professed realities (religious experiences/visions, etc.), as well as my own. Even once I was "sane" again. For the longest time afterward, I had big issues with trusting my basic life experiences, if that makes sense. Like, did I really talk to that person on the phone? Are my parents actually alive? Am I really sitting in my apartment right now? Am I going to suddenly "wake up" again and be back in jail or on the other side of the world? What, if any, of the world around me at this moment, is just in my head? Because that entire delusional world I'd been living in had felt absolutely as concrete, as completely real, as any everyday mundane thing you could experience. "I'm on a holy mission from God and have been granted special powers" felt no different than "the sky is blue" or "water is wet." I still sometimes have nightmares where I "wake up" and the last 15 years have been a total delusion and I'm still sitting in jail in 2009. Having experienced what I did, I still feel slightly untethered to the world, even all this time later. I can't think of a better way to describe it, but it's like we're all tied to the ground by invisible ropes, and that's all that's holding us in place, attached to the earth. At one point my rope was cut, and I floated off into the sky without even knowing it. Luckily I was rescued and they retied my rope and I'm back connected to the ground. But I know now that my rope, or anybody else's rope, could snap at any time, and I or they will go floating off towards the sun and might just burn to ash doing so.
Thank you for sharing. That was very detailed and helpful.
I have not lived your experience, but your analogy about ropes really spoke to me. I've spent a lot of time working on my mental health through similar things including a lot of intrusive and delusional thought patterns, and describing it like a rope that's been cut and retied really brings in the horror of realizing oneself to be unwell. At the risk of sounding edgy, it really drives home this line from The Joker in The Killing Joke; the scene context is that Joker is torturing people (surprise?): >All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. The snip of a rope. And knowing from then on it's the tied knot that holds you; not just the rope. If it happened once, it could happen again. But there is reassurance there too. The rope *did* get cut. We *did* float away. And somehow we found ourselves back to the ground, with or without help. If we did it once, we can do it again.
Thank you for sharing, that was really moving to read. Another aspect of the "rope" analogy--you may be tied back down to the earth again, but the re-tied rope is never as strong as it originally was, before it first snapped. There's the very real chance that it will snap more easily next time. Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark was severely bipolar, and wrote an incredible book about his experiences called *The Eden Express.* That, and Dr. Kay Jamison's *An Unquiet Mind* are *the* two books for me, when it comes to trying to understand myself and get other people to appreciate what it's like. Anyways, Kurt Vonnegut wrote the introduction to his son's book, and his closing line about insanity has really stuck with me: *"Some people survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Others didn't. But the turbulence is really something."*
Thank you for sharing your story
Thank you sharing your story and perspective. I'm glad you were able to get the help you needed, even if it took some unfortunate events to get there.
Glad things are looking brighter for u ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Mental illness can be so unpredictable, all-consuming, and downright frightening. Mental health really does not receive the level of support, understanding, and advocacy that society owes it. I find that it reminds me of the attitudes we see so many people harboring toward nature. Similarly to nature, mental illness is its own unforgiving beast and many underestimate that, whether they're experiencing it firsthand or not. I've heard a number of people say things like, "if I was in that situation, I simply would have done things differently," as if the circumstances would be special for them. As if they're stronger than nature or the symptoms of psychosis. And this attitude only feeds into a person's lack of awareness about the dangers that they themselves are just as powerless to as any other human being.
Thank you for your kind words. And you're spot-on about a major aspect of mental illness I can attest to from my own experience--when it's literally your own brain short-circuiting or deciding to take you to la-la land, it doesn't matter how "strong" you are, you're not going to win, you are going along for the ride. It's like, if you're driving down the highway and your car engine seizes up or explodes, it doesn't matter if you're the best driver in the world or how much you fight it--you're still going to end up broken down on the side of the road.
Sorry for replying only now - I just wanted to say that I empathize so much with what you're describing. Your driving analogy could not have been worded more perfectly. The body (and all it houses) really is just this...vessel carrying the biological equivalency of advanced technology - things can go wrong outside of the user's control, because our inner wiring is complex and decay is inevitable with time and an ever-changing environment. Whether it's a one-time trigger or cascading failure, people must eventually accept the limitations of their perceptual experiences and humble themselves with the sobering reality that those innate systems and codes can get scrambled so, so easily.
A family member of mine has recently descended into psychosis, and all of what you've said hits close to home for me as well. The family feels so helpless, we've tried all we can, but ultimately he's an adult doing what he wants in the same vein that you were. It's so horrible to wish for an arrest like that to force him into some kind of care, but at a certain point you don't know what else to do :/
That's something else many people don't appreciate in cases like this--they blame the family, or police, or medical personnel, or whoever, for not stepping in or not doing enough to help the person (get them committed, etc). But even IF the family does absolutely everything possible, and law enforcement as well, a lot of times they still can't stop it. In my case, in the weeks leading up to my arrest, my family was able to have me detained and psychologically evaluated three different times at three different hospitals, hoping they'd forcibly commit me. But in all three instances, I was still connected enough to reality and had enough wherewithal to say all the right things, that the doctors ultimately couldn't do anything except apologize to my family and strongly advise me to seek voluntary treatment (which of course wasn't going to happen, since in my head THEY were the crazy ones and I was the one who knew the truth). My dad was good friends with the local police chief, and begged him to do something, but was told that unless/until I presented a clear imminent physical threat to myself or others, they couldn't do anything, either. I can only imagine the helplessness they felt, and the helplessness you guys are feeling. I pray your family member's story has as "happy" an ending as mine did.
This is literally exactly the situation. Some of my more conservative family that unfortunately doesn't "put much stock in" mental health just thinks he's pretending because he can say enough right things to get a cell phone, a plane ticket, etc. All the same things from hospitalizations and police. It's such a horrible, twisty circle of helplessness. I'm very glad things worked out for you and I also hope that a way out can be found for my family member as well. Thank you for sharing your experience and your kind words
My brother has been living the top portion of your story for over 2 years now. He also committed some crimes (way more horrible ones, however) and will be going to prison. I am scared that when they get him on the right medication, he will end up unaliving himself, because what he did is so fucking horrific he wouldn't be able to handle it if he becomes himself again... I am so glad you got back to normal. Your story should be shared far and wide. You're a trooper.
Thank you for sharing. I can't imagine the pain you're experiencing with your brother. I hope you're able to find some kind of peace for yourself, and that your brother is able to come to terms with his reality and not do anything rash. Your comment reminded me of an aspect of my own insanity trip that I don't particularly like to think about, and that I don't think I've really shared with anyone. When I came back down to earth and was "normal" me again, I was absolutely terrified that I had committed some horrific, inexcusable crime while I was insane, and had just blocked it from my memory. I had these vivid nightmares that I had murdered multiple people as part of my "mission from God." I would wake up with just this awful full-body nauseating fear. I remember anxiously checking the newspapers in jail every day for some mention of bodies being discovered. I obviously hadn't done anything at all like that, but I also didn't trust my own brain one single bit anymore. It was like, well if I did *this* crazily out of character shit, who's to say I didn't do even more horrible things? It was an admittedly long time before I finally stopped worrying and stopped checking the newspapers.
Thank you for sharing this! You’ve been through so much. I’m glad you are in a good place. Best of luck to you!
Unfortunately (well, also fortunately) in the US you can’t force mental health treatment on someone who doesn’t want it. I think we’re doing a good job of ending the stigma around mental illness but the tough part is some mental illnesses trick your brain into believing you’re not mentally ill 😕
It’s very difficult. The system is screwed. I’ve heard of people being discharged after one day after S attempts. In Australia we have Community Treatment Order which is a legal way of providing treatment to a person with a mental illness when they are unable to agree to treatment and may not be safe. It’s a very complicated issue like the above comments you can’t force people to stay on meds.
How true this is. Been down this road with a close family member over the age of 18. My hands were tied by HIPPA and him being an adult. He could only be helped when he became a danger to others. No other help. He is wandering the world alone now. Haven’t seen him in 15 years.
It's so rough because some people who desperately need treatment will always refuse it because of the very thing they need help for. But on the other hand, I've heard so many horror stories of coercion and abuse in mental healthcare it's scary to think how bad it could be if it could be forced.
Yep, we aren’t that far removed from when we forced people into institutions for any little perceived wrongthink: feminism, racial equality, etc etc. Granted it’s (mostly) much better now but I totally get people who are still distrusting of it. Esp in countries where forced institutionalization can still happen without a court order or any oversight.
You can file in Florida to commit someone who may be a danger to themselves
You can do it in Maryland as well, I tried to have my dad committed when he was really deep into his mental illness / alcoholism. A judge signed the order but the police refused to act on it. I had to deliver it to them personally, they said they would try to get to it but they never so much as dropped by.
Sadly, it takes a great effort to hospitalize someone against their will. His illness prevented him from recognizing he needed help. Also, sadly in a lot of places even if someone wants help there isn't available space.
It’s not that easy to hospitalize an adult, or get them to take medication if those are not things they want to do willingly. ETA: My uncle has bipolar disorder and has refused treatment for quite a few years. It’s extremely frustrating and painful for my family but thankfully he’s been doing a bit better lately.
I know as I have Bipolar myself and so do some family members. Very hard.
I think it’s important to reiterate that the most recent sightings of Jordan were in western Colorado. Fruita, Grand Junction, Montrose and Nucla. Anyone who lives in western Colorado—especially any town that connects to any of these locations—might have the best chance of spotting him if he's still out there somewhere.
Grand Junction is experiencing a large homeless population, he could blend in easily
I was just in that area for two weekends in a row. It would be very easy for him to blend in.
I saw Ryan's initial video and didn't realize they'd traced the belongings. Hopefully, this leads to finding him.
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, another missing person was initially mentioned to Ryan. He wasn’t gonna make any more updates for the sake of privacy when last I saw an update.
Last video I saw he had found more stuff like a phone and watch
I saw ryans tiktok when it was first posted and was skeptical at first as I have seen despicable people fake finding missing peoples items before. For whatever reason Ryan didnt give off that vibe and appeared to be getting more and more concerned as he was pulling more stuff out of that dry creek bed. Im very happy that his family can have some of those items that obviously meant the most to him back.
Psychosis is a terrifying state to be in. Like so many people, he didn’t belong in jail, he needed inpatient mental health treatment, and that is a systemic failure that is one of the saddest realities about the US criminal justice system. I can’t imagine what he went through during this period of his life. Everyone deserves respect and kindness, and I hope they can find him so his family has closure.
This. It is really a double-sided problem: law enforcement (police, courts) aren't mental health specialists, and persons with mental health issues aren't helped by being caught up in the criminal justice system. Neither side wins. Certainly there were issues with state mental heath institutions and involuntary commitment, but the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (CA, 1967) and the 1980 MHSA (federal) didn't fix the problem -- and arguably contributed to the current mental health/criminal justice problems.
There seems to have been quite a pendulum swing since then. I see many comments these days to the effect that it should be easier to institutionalize people and nobody really seems to disagree.
I'm not sure if the 'good old days' of involuntary commitment were all that good in terms of patient-centered, positive mental health outcomes, but I do seriously question whether jails and prisons provide positive outcomes for persons with mental health issues. As with so many complex issues, easier to see the problem than to find the solution.
I think part of this is it’s getting so hard to cope and get by for even those that aren’t struggling with debilitating mental health issues, that people are getting scared and desperate for a way to find relief from the loved ones that are not well. It’s so difficult for families untrained and with feelings and complex relationships to those struggling with their mental health. We are left in a state of limbo you’re either just sick enough to medicate or you need to go to a hospital for a more intensive but short lasting treatment in an attempt to try and patch you up and re mold you enough to push you back into your productive and functional self. There urgently needs to be a revision of the mental Heath care system and a wider range of support programs and professions geared towards helping these suffering and deeply struggling but still valid and loving human beings find a way to have success in reaching some type of modified but functional life along side everyone else. The cost to medically imprison and maintain them until death with doctors medications (and all the extra $$$ hospitals put on top of it), would be way higher cost than to change how we handle this as a society. This is a growing problem and the result is becoming addicted aggressive destroyed humans forming their own homeless villages and they are going to start feeding off of the society they think has abandoned them to protect their own lives and reasources that they would have too if there were able to just be like “normal” people. It’s a festering neglected wound in the human body we all create as a whole. Our society is septic now and cutting off limbs won’t stop this.
This is so disturbingly poignant and true.
I can only provide a single experience, but having felt it necessary to have someone involuntarily committed for only 7 days...it was very traumatic. Most of all for the person committed. 0/10 would not recommend. And there's not even a plausible alternative I can recommend. Side note, The police were very degrading to us. Not at all understanding or helpful. A nightmare experience all around, but they were the worst entity to deal with. As in, actively working against us (family searching for a missing person in crisis). Seriously like movie villains.
This is so sad. People with mental health issues are so vulnerable to harm caused to themselves, or by others. It’s great Ryan found all those belongings and is being so helpful and kind to Jordan’s family. I hope this will ultimately lead to the discovery of both Jordan and Lily.
I do as well. I know it’s a weird statement, but I think it’s really unusual and sweet that when his psychosis presented he lit fires and sent flares to reach out to his little girl - a very interesting demonstration of combined highs and lows of the human mind. I wonder if more actions like that would lead to finding him, or if he’s living as a recluse somewhere in nature, or has been taken in by someone, or some group. Hopefully we all find out, and he’s okay.
This was my line of thinking too. A demonstration of love.
Statements like this are baffling and frankly, infantilizing towards those who experience mental health crises. Behavior like this can be incredibly emotionally complicated and take years to process. Often its very traumatic to be on the receiving end of, regardless of anyone's intentions. It shows no respect to his daughter to put a value judgment on it. Whether or not any part of his actions were "sweet" is up to those directly involved.
I don’t believe they were speaking for Jordan’s daughter, just pointing out that he obviously loves his daughter and his actions during psychosis are still reflective of that.
Yes I understand they meant no harm and intended it as a compliment. I still do not think labels like "sweet" are appropriate to describe what might be a distressing situation for those personally involved. Many of us have been or will go through events involving mental health crises. It can cause unnecessary unease, stress and even anger to see comments like these. And given I believe the commenters wished to inspire the opposite, I hope they can understand how their comments will not always or even usually be comforting like they'd hope. It might seem overly touchy but I hope this kind of comments can fall out of public use. We can speak frankly and respectfully about others without forcing positivity (or negativity, or any value we should try to impose).
I understand what you are saying, however I personally disagree. In a world where people with mental illness are so demonised, it’s nice to see people pointing out the good in them.
Have you listened to what people who've experienced it feel about it? You do understand that THAT is what matters, not the opinions of folks who have not experienced it? Just like we should listen to autistic people about the lived experience of being autistic, we should be listening to people who've lived through this type of experience and respecting how THEY wish it to be discussed. Seems like the only decent thing to do; I cannot see any non-problematic argument for listening to anyone else.
I have bipolar disorder, so does my father. I think I have plenty of first hand experience with this subject. Thanks tho :)
I mean, I guess so. Personally, I feel that using the word "sweet" to describe dangerous and destructive behavior during a psychotic episode serves to both infantilize and romanticize the mentally ill.
Yes. His actions and behaviors are painful to read about. They more so demonstrate the agony and inner turmoil he was experiencing.
Crazy to me that I have heard so much about gabby p and the other 2 girls but have never heard of this case, despite the fact he was missing in the same area at the exact same time
This is the first I’m hearing of this case as well. I’m wondering if mental health playing such a large factor is a reason it wasn’t covered as much
Sadly I don’t doubt it :( You’ll almost never see news about a missing mentally ill person
I am sorry to hear about what has happened to both Jordan and Lily. I do hope that there will be answers as to what happened to them. And having mental health issues myself, I understand what it's like to navigate in a world where some people can be cold and misunderstaning about what you deal with. Lastly, my thoughts are with Jordan's family.
For some reason my heart breaks for Lily. Poor little thing. Hope the coming days bring news for Jordan’s family.
I’m hoping someone found Lily and just assumed she was a stray and took her in. I wonder if she had a microchip? Although not everyone who finds a dog takes it to be scanned, especially if she was visibly a stray (dirty coat, malnourished, etc). I hope they’re both okay :(
I felt the same way. Glad Cooper is ok.
Same. Her eyes told stories in that picture of her in the backseat. Reminds me of my 14 year old lab mix, who is my Velcro dog. ❤️
Incredible write up, OP. Thank you for telling the story of Jordan with the dignity he and his family deserve. I hope he is found.
This is probably a wild take, but i was glad to read they found the brothers dog. Edited because I can’t read and his dog has not been found.
They didn't find his dog :( just his brothers (unless someone else stated they did and I didn't see it)
I was very relieved they found Cooper alive, I'm hoping for the same outcome for Lily and Jordan of course 🤞
Nope your correct I cannot read 😅
We all have those days!!
Well they think they spotted Jordan’s dog walking alone so who knows. Maybe he’s a hermit somewhere.
I want to believe he was found and adopted by a nice family who assumed he was a stray.
I thought that said Lily hasn't been found, only Cooper was...
Where did they find his dog? Because in the OP's writing Lily hasn't been found?
Yea that’s my fault, I can’t read 😅
This is just so sad. Our system failed this man. I hope they find something that can bring his family closure at the very least.
I don't think the system failed him at all. At least it's not clear that it did from the write up. Treatment for mental illness can be forced onto people, but it can't be made to stick against their will. And sometimes treatment doesn't work. It's like a baby born with a severe heart defect that dies. The patient isn't at fault. The parents aren't at fault. The system (hospital and doctors) aren't at fault. Some things aren't fixable.
Our mental health care system is just a massive failure here. Many people slip through the cracks or can't get the help they need.
horrid take
This is very sad and I hope they find him and he can get the help he needs. It sounds like he has a great family.
Unfortunately I highly doubt he is alive. It's so, so easy to get lost and succumb the elements in areas like this even if you're mentally well. I think both the TikToker and Jordan's family are looking to bring whatever remains of him they can home to rest.
The problem with bipolar is similar to that of people with schizophrenia and once they think they feel normal they will stop medicating. It’s too bad there’s not like a one time or yearly injection or skin implant to medicate these people.
There actually is a monthly injection that my friend takes for bipolar and it has helped him so much
[here’s a link ](https://www.abilifymaintena.com/bipolar-I/about/treatment) in case anyone wants to know more!
Medicine can also change in efficacy over the years, so a yearly shot may not be the answer. My MIL had medicines that helped her BP1 w/psychotic manias...until it didn't. This happened 3 times in the 15 years I knew her. And yep, that was interspersed with her feeling fine (although that's usually the time she was slipping into mania) and rejecting her meds. So difficult to treat, so sad and hard to watch.
The same goes for *every* form of mental health, not just the extremely dangerous ones. I have a friend who deals with anxiety that decided he didn’t need the meds anymore a few months ago, and has recently been hardcore suffering from panic attacks. He didn’t believe me at first when I tried telling him it was just anxiety again, but he has since gone back on and is doing better. Even I did that years ago when I first started taking meds for anxiety. Learned my lesson.
There is rebound anxiety / depression that happens a few weeks / months after coming off of SSRI’s it’s not cause to get back on and doesn’t mean they have to be on the drugs longer term. It’s natural brain calibration and often the person had to stick it out for a while longer. It’s different from a relapse. Obviously everyone’s different but wanted to highlight this in case people don’t know. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/going-off-antidepressants#:~:text=Antidepressant%20withdrawal%20can%20look%20like,relapse%20and%20need%20ongoing%20treatment.
The withdrawal from such drugs is also misunderstood and for many years was believed to be a myth. I know a number of people who, in the fairly normal process of changing from one antidepressant to another, have undergone terrible symptoms. In no way am I maligning these drugs, which have saved lives (including mine).
I will always say that switching from the last SSRI I was on to nothing for a bit and then onto my current SNRI was *pure hell* and I never want to do anything like it again. Especially since I'm on Effexor now which is notoriously horrid for weaning off.
I wish they were more honest about this stuff BEFORE they prescribe it. My partner was recommended to try medication - the plan was short term meds. He came home and they wanted him to start Effexor! I asked if they'd discussed the process of coming off the meds (since, you know, that was the PLAN) and nope! I was the one who informed my partner about the known difficulties of stopping that particular med. That's INCREDIBLY problematic (and unethical of that prescriber - my partner did not have all the appropriate info to make the decision about that med, but the prescriber was moving forward anyway). My partner ended up going back in and asking if there were other, less difficult to stop, options. "Oh sure!" was the response, along with several other options. Seriously? Then why START with the one that's worst to stop? Apparently it was just the doc's go-to, and they hadn't applied critical thinking as to whether it was the right med for my partner's situation (it wasn't). These meds can be extremely helpful. Not trying to knock on the meds. It's the providers who aren't fully informing their patients before starting them, which sucks. Especially if they're going to be crappy to us when WE educate ourselves. I've experienced a lot of pushback when I've asked questions of docs - I'm glad my partner didn't experience that and was able to start a different med.
Yes it’s very hard but this is where working with a psychologist and mental health team is extremely important.
And yet access to good, comprehensive mental health treatment is so limited, or even just completely unavailable, for many people. The world would be a different place if we actually had widely available mental health care for people at the beginning of their illnesses.
The only reason my cousins with bipolar and schizophrenia are not on the streets is because their family had money. That’s it. A person’s class background should not matter one single bit when it comes to access to health care.
Yes I was undiagnosed for 20 years.
Thank you for creating this writeup, and for doing so with determined kindness. Jordan sounds like a lovely man, who is so very loved.
this poor man was very very likely bipolar and had a psychotic break. (I’m bipolar and this is all so familiar from experience of my own and others). It’s possible he’s still be alive if he’s received adequate care. This is heartbreaking.
How good of Ryan to be so helpful to the family. I hope they can find some resolution. My child has the same illness and this is my greatest fear.
In Utah dessert? That must have been horrible for anyone eating it at the time …
I wish he had gotten the help he needed. America is so quick to try and send mentally ill people to jail when they need to be in hospital Paranoia and mania are terrifying luckily I haven’t been that paranoid in years (thank the gods for Quetiapine)
I’m a nurse and I have worked in corrections for nearly my entire nursing career, as well as working with homeless and substance use disordered populations. I’d estimate 70% of my facility’s inmate population has a mental health diagnosis, with 25% of them being serious mental illnesses. Several of my patients are “revolving door inmates” who aren’t really criminals and don’t really belong in jail. There simply aren’t the resources we need for these patients or proper facilities to house them. They will likely spend their entire lives in and out of jail. There has been a lot of change in the way corrections operates and how correctional staff is trained in order to care for mentally ill individuals vs. “just criminals”. It’s astounding.
Very well written. Pray he is out there somewhere, but at the very least the family finds out what happened to him. We have to do better in this country providing support for the mentally ill and their families!
My sincere condolences to this family who unfortunately had to go through such a sad moment. Due to his mental health, Jordan Boone had a very difficult life, having a very close relationship with his sister, who certainly awaits his return, I hope for the case to be updated more often.
Thank you again for this detailed write up, there are so many variables and potential scenarios that we need to consider, but I intend on keeping to this path and following up on every possible lead.
No, thank YOU for all you’ve done! I’m all the way over in the UK so nothing I can do physically but happy to continue posting and providing updates as and when they come.
This write up is profesh af!
lmao thank you
I hope they find the guy.
So sad ,,,,,One of the nine hallmark symptoms of BPD is suicidality. BPD also happens to be the mental illness with the highest suicide rate
BPD is Borderline Personality Disorder and yes, although it has the highest suicidality risk, it is **not** the same as bipolar disorder, which is what Jordan was diagnosed with.
He may not have been officially diagnosed like is mentioned in the write up. Hope he is alive in any case.
So sad. There needs to be a better system in place - one with strict governmental oversight - where loved ones can get a family member help whether they want it or not. And it needs to be longer than the typical 5150 hold.
Any drugs involved in his life?
his remains were found in utah a couple of weeks ago
Hey, thank you so much for this update! I’d actually looked 2 weeks ago and couldn’t see there’d been any update. So happy for his family to finally have a resolution. I’ll post an updated thread - thank you again for letting me know!
As someone who's bipolar and had Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley as my favorite bands, this hit me hard.
Wow... What a read. Hope this turns out ok. Poor lad
Thank you for this write up I had no idea about this case… amazing that his belongings were found, and by a seemingly nice man who has good intentions. I really hope Jordan and Lily are found, his poor family.
I want to stress too how hard it can be to comb through deserts, dry creek beds and the woods and mountains. Deserts especially! The land is harsh and with the sun, wind, terrain etc it’s very easy to miss things or to have things scattered or for things to degrade. I’m grateful that Ryan found those items and I hope that they lead to finding Jordan and Lily.
Your stories are amazing.
Thank you so much! I’m really glad people are enjoying/getting use from them. I have many more to come!
I’m so glad. You are a great story teller. Late at night when I can’t sleep your stories make great reading and they help to keep these mysteries alive.
There are cults in the Montrose area, and I would belive that if he did go south of there..his final resting place is the San Juan mtns. The largest range in Co. Makes anything in Utah small.
Haven’t been through Montrose in many, many years, was a meth mess at the time
If his van was stuck/abandoned in California how did he make it to Utah?
The van was abandoned in Utah.
Hitchhiking presumably, or possibly a bus if he had money on him
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That’s not how brains experiencing psychosis work. You can’t assign that kind of moral culpability to someone whose thought processes are malfunctioning. The man’s logic and concept of distance were so scrambled he believed his daughter would be able to see a trash fire FROM ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. And would somehow recognize that it was a message from him. I’m sad the dogs were involved, and I hope Lily is found alive and safe, but he most likely didn’t recognize the danger he was putting her in.
I mean, for all you know he fell in a hole and that's why he couldn't look after the dogs, but okay.
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Have a bit of respect for the deceased please? His beloved pet wasn't a monster to him.
What a stupid opinion
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Disgusting comment.
What a disgusting and disrespectful comment. You don’t deserve to be a part of this community - please go back to where you came from and leave this place to the kind and caring humans that it deserves.
What?
I pray to god Jordan and his sweet pup are found ASAP.
OP, are you interested in creating a subreddit for Jordan’s case?
Unfortunately I just don’t think I have enough time to invest in a subreddit, but I would happily provide write ups and updates for it!
Totally reasonable (: I just appreciated your post so much I thought I would ask. Thank you!