Portrait of Lucas

Lucas Peluffo

Spanish-English Translator and Secretary: Lucas Peluffo

Lucas was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1963. He immigrated to the United States when he was 14 years old. As a child, he recalls that Argentina was not safe in terms of democracy and freedom of expression. Yet, Argentina has, over the last few decades, become safer for its citizens. To this day, Lucas loves to spend time in Buenos Aires with his family members who remain there.

In 1980, Lucas graduated from Edgemont High School in Scarsdale, New York. He then began college at the University of Vermont and very much enjoyed his years here. He had all A’s in his premed courses and was a member of the track team, setting a school record for the indoor 500 meters. He also was a member of a 4×400 indoor relay team that set a school record in Boston.

Lucas graduated from college in 1984 with his BA degree. He later began studies to obtain a PhD in neuroscience at Columbia University in New York, but he never finished his degree program.

From 1988 to 1990, Lucas experienced two one-month psychiatric hospitalizations following the emergence of his first psychotic symptoms. Lucas remembers seeing angels, believing he could read minds, and experiencing a cognitive decline.

Prior to his hospitalization, Lucas had landed a job as a bilingual science teacher at a high school in Manhattan, New York. It had taken him a year to acquire the license to teach. However, his psychologist quickly determined that he was unable to work this job due to his mind-reading delusions and other symptoms. At that time, Lucas found himself unable to know what was true versus what was a hallucination, and he struggled with anger. Changes in his personality also led to conflicts with his family members.

During one of the hospitalizations, while psychotic, Lucas stole his mother’s credit card. He intended to escape from the hospital to fly to Buenos Aires and hoped to finance his trip with the credit card. His father, a doctor, and a brother who later became a psychiatrist, were living in Buenos Aires at that time. Lucas remembers that the pathological drive to escape from the hospital included hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. It was surely related to feelings of total hopelessness while foreseeing a grim horizon, including a financial burden for Lucas’ family.

Lucas was unable to escape from the hospital, and since that time, his diagnosis has been schizophrenia. Unfortunately, he also felt traumatized by his experience in the hospital.  

Fortunately, in retrospect, the hospitalizations were the beginning of a prolonged treatment that in the end proved fruitful. Lucas believes that it took 10 years of intensive psychology and medications to fully “resuscitate” him from his psychotic symptoms and other memories.

Twenty years ago, Lucas made a choice that turned his life around for the better: he began competing in track again. He spent 15 years doing track intervals and long-distance runs. In total, he completed about 160 veterans track races. Because he had smoked cigarettes quite a bit during his previous 10-year struggle, his times weren’t competitive, but his motivation never declined. His overall health improved dramatically. He started sleeping better, holding onto jobs (like translating and secretary work in a medical center), and reading more. He stopped smoking.

Six years ago, Lucas found another welcome turn in his life: he started meditating. He stopped running track races, even though he continues to do regular exercise, especially long aerobic runs. On a daily basis, he hopes to strengthen his mind. Combining meditation with exercise provides Lucas with the hope of overcoming the psychotic symptoms by considering them as transient and not as important to health as other aspects of the organism.

Treatment with the rarely used medication clozapine was also key in helping Lucas to rebuild his life. As of today, Lucas has taken clozapine since 1998 with no relapse. He also believes that mindfulness has been important in his recovery.

Lucas currently works a job as a secretary in a medical center and is a freelance translator. He is fully bilingual in English and Spanish and has worked as a translator for 20 years. In his spare time, he writes and creates collages.

In retrospect he says, “When I recall the entire process I went through over my difficult 10 years of serious illness, I consider my being alive and even thriving as a great miracle.”