> "I've never felt alone,' he said. "It's been a lot of thinking for years, sleeping in the open. It's very simple to live, we do not need many things."
I'm getting this positive feeling that nature must have cured him off schizophrenia.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
"If a person lives in a forest and no one is around to label them as a 'schizophrenic', can that person be claimed to have a disorder?"
When you're alone, you can't be compared against society's bullshit definition of "normal". You are just you. Imagine how freeing that is, to extract oneself from the judging glare and arbitrary definitions of your peers who think themselves better than you.
One of the more important changes in psychology in recent years is that conditions are not labeled a "disorder" unless and until they adversely impact the ability of the person to function happily without harming others. In short, if you are happy with the way your mind works, and you aren't hurting anyone else, you may be Just Fine(tm), according to modern psychology.
A situation like this perhaps tests the bounds of that idea. Even if he says, "I feel fine about all of this", it may be necessary for loved ones to step in and say, "OK, but you're endangering your health."
I travel full-time, often in some pretty odd places, and I have several friends and passing acquaintances who aren't all that far off from this guy. I know folks who ride trains with nothing but a backpack, people who hitchhike cross-country on a regular basis, people who've ridden bikes through multiple countries, people who live/travel in a van or car, etc. I worry about their mental state in some cases, and many have addiction issues, but many choose to live lightly, and I don't know that it would be ethical to insist they do otherwise.
Schizophrenia is more common than most folks realize, and people can suffer in a wide variety of ways because of it. It may be worse to be trapped in an apartment or a mental hospital, or to be suicidal, or to become violent, because of the condition than to be roaming around South America, at least for some folks. It isn't always treatable (anti-psychotics sometimes help, anti-depressants sometimes help, Lithium sometimes helps if schizophrenia is paired with bipolar disorder; my father was schizophrenic and was, at times, prescribed all of those), so maybe being happy (or content) and not hurting anyone is as good an outcome as one can achieve.
So, yeah, he may have schizophrenia, and I hope he's able to get treatment that works effectively. It sounds like he's happy to be back with his family, and they're happy to have him back. That's an awesome outcome.
I'm getting this positive feeling that nature must have cured him off schizophrenia.