Former IU student Greg Fulk, 26, died in a car accident early Saturday morning. He was on his way back to Indianapolis after visiting a friend in Bloomington.
Although he attended IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis this semester, he had been a student at IUB off and on since 1989, concentrating on philosophy and religious studies. He graduated fromFranklin Central High School, where he was ranked fifth in his class andwas a member of the National Honor Society.
Two weeks ago, Fulk spoke to the S324 Sociology of Mental Illness class at IUB about his personal experience with schizophrenia, a mental illness characterized by a loss of contact with one's environment and functional deterioration. Schizophrenics often experience their first psychotic episodes in their late teens or 20s.
Fulk had been in mental hospitals six times since 1992, but had been successfully treated with the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa since last November, when he was a student in S324.
In an e-mail to S324 instructor and doctorate student Terri Winnick last September, he wrote, "My story is one of a struggle to maintain a seemingly elusive grip on reality."
Winnick said he seemed better than she had ever seen him, and that he was feeling "normal." Unfortunately, she thought he felt Zyprexa was the last barrier to him becoming fully normal, and he stopped taking the drug several days before his death.
His mother, Karen Fulk, told Winnick she thought Fulk felt a psychotic episode coming on while visiting his friend, and left so that she wouldn't see it. She thinks that he, like many schizophrenics who stop taking their medicine, might have "decompensated" and had an adverse psychological reaction, which caused him to crash into an oncoming semi truck. But there is also the possibility that he simply fell asleep at the wheel, she added.
Junior Jordan Pettay, the friend Fulk was visiting before the accident, said that he had been feeling better on Zyprexa, and was looking forward to returning to IUB in the fall and making new friends. They became friends while taking S324 together last semester. He e-mailed her on Thursday, asking if he could visit for the weekend, and said he was feeling sane and normal, but he didn't mention he'd stopped taking Zyprexa.
They ordered a pizza, but around 12:30, Fulk got his car keys and said he was going to drive around for a while. Pettay said he twirled his fingers around his head "like he was feeling loony" and said he'd come back when he felt better, or call her if he decided to go home to Indianapolis.
June 16 of this year, Fulk made the Bloomington Herald-Times when he ranwhat he termed "a schizophrenic crazed marathon" on Kirkwood and collapsed.
Fulk talked about his schizophrenia and experience in mental hospitals with humor, and hoped to one day become a non-professional counselor to schizophrenics. His mother said his gift was his "ability to give when he didn't have anything to give." If he saw someone sitting in a restaurant by themselves, he would sit down and befriend him or her. She said he helped people in any way he could and didn't see the bad in anyone.
He loved reading and learning, and was always teaching people something, said Mrs. Fulk. He wanted to set up a program to teach computer skills to people who couldn't afford a computer or classes, to help them get a job. A few summers ago, he helped a newfound friend from Pakistan find a place to stay and a job for the summer.
Winnick said, "because of the kind of guy he was -- to down to earth, so much fun -- he was able to break down barriers we have erected between ourselves and the mentally ill. Students experienced a radical jolt to their world view after meeting Greg. Nobody that ever knew him could ever view schizophrenia in the same way again."
Mrs. Fulk agreed and saud the public needs to learn about mental illness and get past their fears. She said people need to fight it together, and not turn their backs on the mentally ill.
An enthusiastic student of Zen Buddhism, Fulk felt that meditation was calming and helped his depression. He hoped Zen practices would eventually cure him completely.
Senior Jaylene Marsh, who knew Fulk when they attended Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis, said he was the class prankster and that everyone liked him. He was prom king and started an underground newspaper.
"People looked up to him because he aroused their thoughts in ways others couldn't, especially in the conservative farming community where we grew up," she said.
Pettay said Fulk "was the most inspirational, caring, loving, considerate, intelligent person I have even known. Our friendship ended way too soon, but I will never forget him."
In sadly prophetic last diary entry from 1995 that Fulk shared with the S324 class, he wrote "God -- I do not know what I am doing. My apologies."
Thursday, April 17, 1997
©1997 Indiana Daily Student