丹尼尔-莱特曼

Working as a Stand-Up Comic: Daniel Laitman

Daniel attended SUNY Purchase University where he studied screen writing and playwriting and founded the Standup comedy club, graduating in 2015. He currently works as a comedian in Manhattan and helps run the nonprofit “Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Mental Illness” with his family.

Daniel Laitman was born in the Bronx, New York, to a mom who worked as an internist and a father who was a nephrologist. He has three sisters, one is older and two who are younger. Growing up, Daniel felt he was always “a bit different.”  But overall, he enjoyed a mostly happy and normal, upper middle-class childhood in the northern Westchester hamlet of Bedford, New York.

Daniel had his struggles and had occasional “meltdowns” in middle and elementary school. In fourth grade he started to see a psychiatrist and was treated with medication for anxiety and ADHD. He had an IEP (individual education plan) and a tutor and with this support he did well. During eighth grade he took a vacation to Italy, and after a visit to Murano, he developed an intense interest in glass blowing.

After many hours of research on where he might study it, he discovered a summer camp in Connecticut named Buck’s Rock. It was a perfect fit for him. Not only did he learn more about glass blowing, but it was here that he was introduced to stand-up comedy. The clown shop became his second home. He spent four weeks there that summer, and that was his first time away from the family. It was a dramatic success. He would subsequently spend eight weeks there the following three summers.

Daniel’s freshman year of high school went very well, but in retrospect, he noted that he was starting on rare occasion to hear voices. The summer between freshman and sophomore year he went back to camp for eight weeks, but as the summer progressed, the voices became more pervasive. At first, the voices told him they would help him with his comedy, and he remembers them as neither positive or negative, but “benign.” However, a few days later, they began to order him to do strange things, altering his behavior.

The voices mandated he hold his arm at a constant right angle, which later he referred as his “tard arm.” They threatened him that if he did not continue to hold his arm in this uncomfortable position, something terrible would happen. He worried the voices might “take away” his comedy. He also began to see “trails” behind people who were walking by and heard voices in his mind telling him that if anyone passed him by, he needed to wait 15 seconds before continuing to follow them. After his parents picked him up from camp, they went on a short vacation to Canada. While in Canada, Daniel knew something was very wrong. The tard arm and other unusual behavior were quite apparent. Despite this, he interacted with his siblings and parents and had a good time.

Daniel returned to school after the summer vacation. As he had done after every summer, he restarted his ADHD medication. But within a few days he looked and felt sick. The light had gone out of his eyes, and they were blank. His parents felt that he was disappearing in front of them.

It was at that time he first told his parents that he had been hearing command voices and was not only afraid of losing his comedy but also of losing his soul. Soon after, Daniel saw his psychiatrist and was placed on his first antipsychotic medication, aripiprazole.

Unfortunately, his first experience on antipsychotic medication was negative, and over several months, he experienced severe side effects that resembled Parkinson’s disease (which often presents with antipsychotic medications). The medication also did not resolve his symptoms. Ziprasidone and quetiapine were also tried and ineffective. In the fall semester of Daniel’s sophomore year of high school, he was taken out of regular school and began an intensive outpatient program at a facility called Four Winds. During the spring semester, he was back in school at a special BOCES program (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), which provided Daniel with smaller classes and more individualized instruction. During this year and the next, Daniel tried other cocktails of meds including another antipsychotic medication, paliperidone. He remembers seeing his father cry.

As Daniel continued to suffer on partially effective medications, his parents did extensive research. With tremendous help from Deborah Levy, head of Mclean’s Psychology Research lab, they read everything they could find and discovered information about the only FDA-approved medication for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, clozapine. Finally, in March of 2008, with the help of Daniel’s psychiatrist Charles Kaufman, he began clozapine on his grandfather’s birthday.

Daniel does not remember his first few weeks on clozapine well, though he does recall sleeping for many hours during the days. He remembers taking a video course through school soon after and sleeping through it with his head on the keyboard. But with time, it was as though Daniel woke from a deep sleep. A few months later, while at lunch in school, Daniel began to wander from table to table, practicing his comedy. He quickly earned the reputation “comic boy.”

Daniel’s parents were dismayed that many psychiatric clinicians simply “did not know what they were doing” when it came to treating psychosis. They were outraged at the tremendous underutilization of clozapine and were further disappointed that psychiatrists did not “do the medicine,” a catch phrase Dr. Laitman uses today about trying clozapine, to mitigate predictable side effects in those rare occasions when clozapine was used.

Over the years his parents slowly started to treat other patients who had psychosis with approaches that were originally developed for Daniel. Over the last 15 years they have transformed their practice to be psychiatric internists with special expertise in the optimal management of clozapine. They now have treated several 100 patients, founded a charity called Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Serious Mental Illness, written a book titled Meaningful Recovery from Schizophrenia and Serious Mental Illness with Clozapine, and continue to deliver regular lectures on their approach and their results. Currently, they are trying to train several psychiatric DNPs (NP, PhD) in their approach.

On clozapine, Daniel successfully graduated from high school and began studying for a film and a TV degree at Westchester Community College. He graduated with honors in 2012. Following the completion of his associate degree, he started performing standup comedy at open mics in various restaurants and clubs in New York City. Following his community college graduation, he attended SUNY Purchase University where he studied screen writing and playwriting and founded the Standup comedy club. In 2015, he graduated on the Dean’s list. He then moved into the city to live in the East Village in order to pursue his career in standup comedy.  He continues to write and work on his craft and has a large network of friends and admirers. His dream today is to write for a late-night host such as Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, or John Oliver and to continue to perform standup in continually larger venues.

Daniel is thankful for the medication clozapine which has given him his life back. He is also grateful for his two committed parents who were willing to do whatever it took to bring him to recovery and who now work tirelessly as advocates for other young people like Daniel who are struggling with schizophrenia, many who have never been offered clozapine or even heard of the medication.

Daniel is happy with his current work and looks forward to a bright future as a comedian.

See Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Mental Illness.