Star Wars child actor in mental health rehab after psychotic break

[ad_1]

Jake Lloyd, the actor known for playing young Anakin Skywalker in 1999. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom MenaceHe has been in a mental health facility for almost a year, his mother shared this week.

“Jake started having some problems in high school,” Lisa Lloyd said. Scripps News. “She started talking about ‘realities’. He didn’t know if she was in this reality or a different reality. He really didn’t know exactly what to say to that.”

Lisa said Jake is now 10 months into an 18-month stay in a mental health rehabilitation facility following what she described as a full-blown psychotic break in March 2023, when he turned off his car in the middle of a highway in three lanes.

Lisa said doctors initially suggested her son might have bipolar disorder, but treatment never seemed to work and Jake often refused to take medication. He was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

“When they finally told him, it totally threw him into an even worse depression,” he said of the diagnosis. “It was really difficult.”

Jake, now 35, graduated high school in 2007 and initially enrolled in classes at Columbia College Chicago, Lisa continued.

“He missed a lot of classes and he told me that people followed him,” she said of her son in college. He also recalled a 2015 incident in which Jake led officers on a chase through several counties before crashing his car and recounted instances in which he claimed to have seen people with “black eyes” staring at him in public and striking up conversations with them. daily program presenter Jon Stewart through the television screen.

The situation, however, seems to have become hopeful. “She’s doing a lot better than he expected,” Lisa said of Jake’s stay at the rehab center. “He’s relating better to people and becoming a little more sociable, which is really nice. It’s like getting more of the old Jake back because he’s always been incredibly social until he became schizophrenic.”

Two decades later, Jake is still a Star Wars fan. “People think Jake hates Star Wars”Lisa said. “He loves him.”

Leave a Comment