REMEMBERING ERIK YEAR-AGO SUICIDE STILL PAINFUL.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- The father who passed along some of his 25-year-old son's artistic talent may be braced enough today finally to read the young man's suicide note before visiting his grave on the first anniversary of his death.

``I was too devastated,'' Larry Fleischer said. ``Erik was such a deserving, wonderful person. That's what's so tragic: He was such a good kid. I felt he deserved so much in life.''

Erik Fleischer's artistic abilities blossomed at Hart High School, where his parents will meet with Principal Gary Fuller to propose an art scholarship in his memory. From the time he could hold a pencil, at age 3, Erik showed promise.

A self-portrait pencil drawing uses the metaphor of a shattered mirror to portray the illness. One of Erik's hands holds a pencil, the other his hurting head, gazing down at the scattered shards.

Lanky 6-foot-5-inch Erik was a typical kid until age 17. Then he grappled with social anxiety, depression and agoraphobia, and his illness eventually was diagnosed as schizophrenia. He often apologized to family members for his inconvenient behavior, and they tried to delve into the mind they no longer knew to connect with him.

Schizophrenia strikes about 1 percent of the population. That adds up to about half a million people in California and 3 million in the nation.

Bruce Spring, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Southern California, says the onset of schizophrenia is frequently insidious.

``It often looks like social withdrawal, unusual thinking or difficulty connecting with other people,'' he said. The victims may have less motivation and lowered self-care habits. After a while, many have an acute psychotic break, with hallucinations and delusions and fears of harm by others.

``Before someone's illness really declares itself, it may not look like full-blown schizophrenia,'' he said. ``It's not present all at once, like you get a cold all of a sudden.''

More than three years after Erik was diagnosed with social anxiety, his doctor concluded it was schizophrenia.

Erik's sister, Holly Matsuda, 39, who worked in the mental health section of an HMO in Sacramento where she lives, remembers his description of disorienting sensations he could not escape.

``The ground was coming up at him or the ground was falling,'' she said. ``There was a commotion of people around him -- social anxiety. He had episodes of overwhelming `They're going to get me.'''

For those afflicted, the first psychotic episode typically strikes men at 21, women at 27. Most experience the symptoms before age 30.

Spring said the diagnosis is seldom pronounced sooner unless symptoms have occurred for at least six months or the person is hospitalized. Suicide is common in schizophrenics, with about 10 percent taking their own lives, he said.

Spring said some people function quite well with the illness, while for others the deterioration is devastating. Many homeless people in Los Angeles are schizophrenics.

The family sought therapeutic treatment, and Erik sought religion, but his greatest fear was being institutionalized and helpless.

He tried to comfort family members who suffered along with him, but the unintended consequences of his suicide haunt his family.

About five months before he took his own life in the family's Saugus home, Holly's twin, Heidi Kakudo, who lives in Sacramento, received a 12-page letter from her brother, chronicling his mental journey from age 15 to 25, culled from his journal entries.

``He poured himself out into the letter, he wanted me to understand his testimony, for me to understand where he (ended up),'' she said. She devoted about 3 1/2 months to compiling an intimate 16-page paragraph-by-paragraph response, a comparison of their experiences, which was delivered in person, but not as planned.

``I wrapped it in an envelope and put it on top of the casket,'' she said. ``I lost him in the midst of this journey I was taking with him in this letter. I felt like I let him down, like I defeated my purpose.''

She wanted to hug him instead, but is consoled somewhat by daily conversations of more than three hours she had with Erik while she was writing. When she travels, she takes along the two letters and a teddy bear that Erik gave her when he was 10. They have been to Texas, Missouri, the Bahamas and Florida.

Barbie, 29, found her brother after his suicide.

``It's something I haven't been able to forget about. It's with me every day,'' she said. It seeps into her dreams. ``That's the memory he doesn't want me to remember, I'm sure.''

Abby, the tiny 6-year-old boxer she gave Erik for Christmas, lifts her spirits.

The family is selling the home that is a reminder of last June 28 and moving to a smaller one in Valencia. Erik's mother, Rita, figures it could be a year before the scholarship is handed out, but she can wait.

She is concerned that a promising mega-therapy vitamin treatment may have given Erik the vigor to carry out the suicide after two failed attempts.

``We felt orthomolecular treatment would have helped him if it was given back when he was 17,'' Rita said. The treatment is favored by a Canadian doctor. ``It may have given him the strength to do what he had made up his mind to do.''

She takes solace in creating scrapbooks. Her husband finds it in poetry. The two met at Art Center College of Design, though they pursued other endeavors. With Barbie, they belong to Compassionate Friends, a support group of parents and siblings of children who have died.

The last stanza of Larry's poem that could be read graveside today reads:

As eternity calls, we lift up our eyes, to a vision beyond life and death; though heaven may fall and worlds collide, as long as we may have breath, we shall remember; we shall abide with our love as vast as the ocean, though your life may be undone, O beloved son, eternal will be our devotion.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Barbie Fleischer, 29, sister of Erik Fleischer, sits in her brother's bedroom with their parents, Larry and Rita Fleischer, and Abby, Erik's dog, as they display artwork honoring Erik's memory. Today is the first anniversary of his death.

(2 -- color) Two portraits, one a photograph and another a self-portrait drawing of Erik Fleischer, and an award he received at a young age, are seen with a rose in Erik's room.

Alex Collins/Special to the Daily News