‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ Star John McCook Opens Up About His Son’s Schizophrenia
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Longtime Bold and the Beautiful star John McCook took to Instagram on Wednesday, November 15, to share a heartfelt video message about his son, Jake, who has been living with schizophrenia.
“I want to tell you about a book my wife and my son have written. My son Jake has schizophrenia. He and my wife, Laurette wanted to write a book to help people understand what it’s like in a family to help each other and to be understanding,” McCook said in the video.
The book, titled The Cliffs of Schizophrenia, is co-written by Jake and Laurette, with both writing short, alternating chapters, and is said to be “a story of resilience and enduring hope for a better life.”
“While creating it, Jake’s worst paranoid thoughts were triggered,” reads the logline for the book. “He overcame this by writing some chapters in free-form style, allowing you to experience what goes inside his head with remarkable insight and humor. Laurette enhances those thoughts by shining a light on logic wrapped in mother’s wisdom, as if it might keep her son from dropping into an abyss.”
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McCook, who has played Eric Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful for over 30 years, went on to talk about how schizophrenia affects his son’s day-to-day life.
“When Jake was first diagnosed with schizophrenia, it was alarming, actually, to Laurette and me as it would be, I think, for anyone,” the Daytime Emmy-winning actor stated. “There’s a stigma attached to the words “schizophrenia”, and there’s a very wide spectrum of what schizophrenia means, or represents.”
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He continued, “Fortunately for us, and Jake, he is not in a radical place with it. It’s an area where it can be managed, and then we immediately thought, ‘we’re going to deal with this.’”
Jake was hospitalized at age 30 with anxiety, depression, and paranoia and later diagnosed with schizophrenia. In his video, John praised his wife for how she’s handled the situation.
“I give her all the credit for this, Laurette took charge of this on how we were going to deal with this as a family,” he shared. “Laurette has been all these years, not just a co-author with Jake, but his champion. More importantly than that, she has been the mom … the best mom, he could have ever had.”
He went on to talk about the book, noting, “I was impressed that they wanted to do it and that Jake wanted to do it too. It took them months and months and months to put this together, and I, on purpose, did not want to read it.”
However, McCook has now read the book and is immensely proud of what his wife and son have accomplished.
“I was more than impressed. I was so proud of their accomplishment and what they got done and so proud of what I think the book offers to people who are curious about it or who are going through this with their own families,” he said. “It’s a helpful book, wonderfully instructive, and so with great pride I recommend this book.”
The Cliffs of Schizophrenia is available for pre-order at www.JakeMcCook.com.
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