2015-10-30 4:29:56 ¶ ●

## Personal take on Josh’s Mental Health

whyarewescreamingatgames said:
…I was wondering what your take on Josh’s mental state and the conditions he was diagnosed with…
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As I’ve mentioned in the previous posting, my best GUESS is that he *COULD* have severe schizoaffective disorder (mixed-episodes biopolar) because Josh shows different episodes of normal to manic states (happens in bipolar) with the severe psychosis(more common in schizophrenia).
In terms of my personal take on where Josh might be with his illness since he got exorcised, I imagine that, as a lot of mental patients do, Josh probably isn’t too fond of taking multiple Antipsychotic Medications due to the side effects. However, the fear of hurting his loved ones again as he did on the mountain would make him endure and willingly suffer through the side effects that he doesn’t like. Maybe even the symptoms that he is supposed to report to the psychiatrists if he feels that the particular medication showed any amount of effectiveness in stabilizing himself. This could also have a little to do with self-punishing attitude that he might have developed after the game.
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In his medical record, it is actually shown that he doesn’t respond too well to a lot of the treatments that usually work well enough for other people.
However, according to canon, it appears that he was still carrying out friendly and outgoing life style especially during college where he developed a bit of party-animal streak.
(more canon profile on companion app here: http://theexorcismofemily.tumblr.com/tagged/ud-profiles)
When he started having trouble with the lose of his sisters however, it seems that his symptoms got a lot worse and they were having even more trouble figuring out the right medication for him. It is also stated that, he was studying psychology before dropping out due to the trauma of losing his sisters.
I’m not too sure on what has been tried, but in the record, ECT for sure was only considered and not proceeded.