The story of the Galvins initially seems like that of a large, conventional American family. Don and Mimi Galvin lived in Colorado Springs and had 12 children. But as the years went by, something extraordinary began to happen inside that house.
The first was Donald, one of the older children. During his adolescence, he began to display increasingly strange behavior, until he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Then something that seemed impossible happened: five other siblings were also diagnosed with the same illness.
In total, 6 of the 12 children ended up suffering from schizophrenia. Such an unusual concentration of cases that it made the family a subject of interest to researchers seeking to understand how much genes influenced the development of the illness.
But the illness was not the only secret that family was hiding.
While some of the siblings struggled with delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and hospitalizations, the other six tried to build their own lives amid an increasingly chaotic home.
Over the years, episodes of violence and abuse within the family also came to light, making it even more difficult to determine how much of what happened could be attributed to genetics, how much to the environment, and how much to the traumatic experiences the siblings endured.
The family ended up participating in scientific research for decades and providing genetic samples. Their case helped researchers study the complex interaction between genetic predisposition and environmental factors in schizophrenia.
Decades later, journalist Robert Kolker reconstructed the story in Hidden Valley Road, a book published in 2020 that became a bestseller and was a Pulitzer finalist.
The most disturbing thing about the Galvins’ story is that all 12 children grew up under the same roof, with the same parents and in the same environment.
And yet, six developed one of the most complex mental illnesses known to medicine, while the other six had to learn to live with the consequences.
A family that appeared perfect from the outside ended up becoming one of the most extraordinary family cases ever studied in relation to schizophrenia.