Heartbreaking story: A woman wakes up after 20 years in a catatonic state

April Burrell has been a catatonic woman for over 20 years and now she’s woken up. Her case, in fact, could revolutionize psychiatry. April was an outgoing student studying accounting at Maryland Eastern Shore University. She was 21 when her mental problems began.

The curiosity revealed by the newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ opens a glimmer of hope for many mentally ill people around the world. April Durrellan American woman admitted to a psychiatric hospital in a catatonic state after being diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis, he woke up 20 years later to discover that the disease he was suffering from was actually lupus.

April’s story begins in 1995 when she was studying at the university. She was a normal girl, with excellent grades and many friends and relatives who loved her. But an undisclosed traumatic event changed his life.

Because of this episode, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis. He then began a spiral where he stopped talking to others and had erratic behavior. About her He no longer recognized his friends and family, was unable to perform almost any tasks on his own, and did not allow anyone to have physical contact with him. Shortly thereafter, she became catatonic.

Catatonia is a symptom that occurs in some cases of schizophrenia. As it develops, the patient enters a state of silence and immobility often leading to catalepsy. In this case the patient enters a vegetable state in which he does not react to stimuli while being conscious.. It can go by hours, days, and even, as in April’s case, years.

In 2000, resident physician Sander Markx, now director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, appeared in April’s life. As he recalls in “The Washington Post”: “She’s the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.”

There was little he could do for her in those days, but years later, in 2018, their paths crossed again. Markx then assembled a group of 70 specialists in neuropsychiatry, neurology, neuroimmunology and rheumatology who worked on April’s case.

After many tests and investigations, they found the cause of her condition, lupus. They found that even though he had no physical symptoms of this autoimmune disease, his brain was being attacked in the very areas where schizophrenia and psychosis develop.

A personalized treatment was designed for him to cure neuropsychiatric lupus and he started to have healing symptoms. So much that In 2020, she was declared mentally competent and left the psychiatric hospital to continue her recovery in a rehabilitation center.

This case, which may seem like a miracle, is nothing more than proof that many mental patients who are evicted can have the opportunity to get their lives back. And it is that several ongoing investigations link many mental illnesses to inflammatory processes and autoimmune diseases.

If these theories are proven, it could be that the 20 years since April have been “forgotten” in a psychiatric facility they are needed so that many other patients have a more accurate diagnosis that allows them to access a speedy recovery and not see their life interrupted.