Gallagher confirmed reports that Belanger suffers from severe bipolar disorder and has a history of hospitalizations, suicide attempts and psychiatric lockdowns at Lawrence General Hospital. Attorney James Krasnoo said his client’s illness is rooted in physical and sexual abuse from his father when he was very young, which at one point resulted in extreme head trauma from having his head smashed on the ground. At 3, while the father was in jail, his mother ran away with he and his sister to escape the abuse and legally changed their name, reports say. Belanger would later attend Lighthouse School in North Chelmsford that works with youth with a variety of disabilities.

The Belanger family appeared to have been under a great deal of stress, the Herald has learned. Thomas Belanger’s single mother Elaine, 47, a cosmetologist, filed a plea last June in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to be forgiven $76,500 in student loans after she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Her financial crisis and her illness, she claimed in court documents, “adversely affected the lives and health of” her two children.

According to a North Andover police report, Elaine Belanger was in the hospital Wednesday night when Mattian made her house call. Thomas Belanger and his sister Cassandra were quarreling, so the social worker called their aunt Jean Putnam to come and stay with them. Putnam showed up hours later, only to tell Mattian she was going to leave with Cassandra because she “did not feel safe staying in the apartment” with Thomas, police said.

In September 2002, a law enforcement source told the Herald, Thomas Belanger, then 14, was involved in an episode that led to multiple charges of assault with a knife and a fire extinguisher, as well as assault on a public official. The charges, part of a sealed juvenile record, were later dismissed, the source said.

Off meds they are sick.On meds they are well.Sick people need meds.Well people don’t.They aren’t sick “now”.They don’t need their meds.Only sick people take meds.

You got it. And lots of these people are not so well on meds that they don’t need help remembering to take them.

Off meds they are sick.
On meds they are well.
Sick people need meds.
Well people don’t.
They aren’t sick “now”.
They don’t need their meds.
Only sick people take meds.

Let me guess, he stopped taking his medications?

Excellent chance of that. Noncompliance is a huge problem. I would rather see the money spent on this FLEX program spent on long-term residential care for people who need it.

I am pretty sure I got his Myspace, but I cannot verify. It’s pretty easy to find the one I am talking about. Same area, same name, same age.

I’ve got that one too, Morb, but I just dunno if that’s him. Think we should link it anyway, or wait?