BOSTON -- If you met Brooke Katz, you would see a determined college student with a bright future. But growing up, Brooke harbored a secret -- she was tortured by an enemy she couldn't reveal, one that threatened her family and filled her thoughts with violence.
NewsCenter 5's Medical Editor Dr. Timothy Johnson opens the door to a world seldom seen -- the world of psychosis.
Every day, Brooke Katz leaves her Boston condo and rides the T to Simmons College, where she's studying to be a nurse.
But what you can't see in this driven 24-year-old is the dark world she for years kept secret.
"People at school say, 'You? Really?' And they're curious, they want to know more," she said.
Brooke was born healthy, and as she grew, her parents realized she was special.
"Brooke was never normal. She was above normal. She was more active, more excited, brighter and we really enjoyed that part of her," Brooke's father, Frank Katz, said.
But what no one knew -- not even her parents -- was starting in the third grade, she was being terrorized.
"I'd be sitting in class and look out the window and there would be these huge men, with guns and knives and they'd be staring at me and threatening me," she said.
There were voices, too, telling her to harm herself and others -- on the soccer field, on the playground -- turning her childhood dreams into a maze of violent thoughts.
"They carried guns sometimes but this time, they each had a big knife. I would be home in bed and then I would blink, and I would be at the video store. I stood in the shower, contemplating life and death. How would I kill myself?" Brooke said. "I would look at someone and then they would get stuck in my head, and I would start violently torturing them inside my head, and I wouldn't hurt anyone, but they would be in my head, these violent thoughts."
Through her early teen years, the voices hovered, threatening that if she told anyone, her family would be killed. By the time she turned 17, the stress was overwhelming. One night, she became distraught. Her parents -- who still had no clue of Brooke's inner terror, rushed her to the emergency room.
"As a mother, I can admit, I worried about everything. I worried about children doing drugs, and getting in with the wrong crowds and getting home late and driving after curfew. Every single thing I could possibly worry about, I did. It was never on my radar screen, to worry about mental illness," Brooke's mother, Elsie Katz, said.
Brooke has schizophrenia -- an illness that affects 1 in every 100 people. Brooke's disease started much younger than usual and led to many years in and out of hospitals.
"It is a scary disease because we don't understand it. It is the one disease that scares us because it fundamentally changes what makes us human," schizophrenia specialist Dr. Stephen Heckers said.
Heckers said that while about one-third of those who have the disease will remain institutionalized for most of their lives, many can, with the right treatment, have a job and live independently.
"It is possible for a patient with schizophrenia to suffer an illness for months or years, but then completely remit and become healthy again," he said.
Today, Brooke's thoughts are clearer than they've ever been. With new medication, it's been 16 months since she was last hospitalized. She's hoping to work someday with kids who have mental illness.
She's written a book detailing her story and her success -- a message of hope.
"I was so bad I had top doctors tell me I'll never get better. Very top doctors -- 'You'll be in institutions the rest of your life. You'll never graduate from school. You'll never have a family,' and I will have a family, and I will graduate from school, and I do have a life," Brooke said.
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Dr. Timothy Johnson Reports On Disease
