At first glance, Alec Dulude’s mental health decline followed a tragic—but all too familiar—pattern.
A bright, athletic, and deeply compassionate young man, Alec began struggling with physical symptoms in his early 20s. His energy dwindled. His body ached. His cognition faltered. He dropped out of college, stepped away from sports, and slowly disappeared into a psychiatric nightmare. Over the course of several years, Alec was hospitalized 14 times, endured bouts of psychosis and violent rage, and spent time in jail—his medical records thick with diagnoses, but thin on answers.
To the conventional psychiatric system, Alec’s condition was a behavioral disorder. He was treated accordingly—with medications, containment, and sometimes confinement. But what nearly every clinician missed, again and again, was the critical question: Why?
A Psychiatric Crisis with Biological Roots
In 2022, five years after Alec’s mental health began to unravel, his family connected with Dr. Cory Tichauer, a physician who specializes in chronic and complex illness. Looking beyond psychiatric labels, Dr. Tichauer suspected a biological root: tick-borne infections. His instincts were right.
Alec tested positive for Lyme disease (borrelia burgdorferi) and bartonella henselae—a pathogen often referred to as “cat scratch disease.” Additional testing after Alec’s death would confirm two more tick-borne infections.
With this new diagnosis, Alec finally began treatment with antibiotics. And for a brief, beautiful time, he began to return—his psychosis lifting, his cognition improving. “We saw glimmers of the old Alec again,” his father, Dr. Richard Dulude, recalled.
But the infections had been ravaging Alec’s body and brain for years. The toll was too great. On April 1, 2023, at age 27, Alec died by suicide.
Psychiatry’s Blind Spot: Biology
Alec’s story is not rare. Tick-borne infections like Lyme and Bartonella are increasingly recognized as potential triggers for neuropsychiatric symptoms—ranging from anxiety, depression, OCD, and rage to catatonia and suicidality. Yet mainstream psychiatric care remains largely unequipped to test for or treat these underlying conditions.
According to recent research and expert clinicians in the field, tick-borne pathogens can cross the blood-brain barrier, altering neural function and mimicking a wide range of mental illnesses. But because they don’t fit neatly into diagnostic manuals—or because patients present without a known tick bite or bullseye rash—many clinicians never consider them.
Instead, patients are labeled. Sedated. Discharged. Cycled through ERs and psychiatric hospitals. And in some cases, incarcerated. All while the real illness—biological, invisible, and insidious—goes untreated.
The Future of Psychiatry Depends on Change
Alec’s father, himself a physician, now advocates for widespread awareness of neuropsychiatric symptoms linked to tick-borne illness. He calls for:
- Routine screening for infections in psychiatric settings
- Better access to specialty labs and sensitive testing methods
- Greater clinician education on biological contributors to psychiatric symptoms
- Prevention and early intervention strategies, especially in vulnerable populations
His message is clear: We cannot treat the brain without understanding the body.
Conclusion: Learning From Alec’s Legacy
Alec Dulude’s story is devastating—but also illuminating. It calls us to reimagine what mental healthcare could look like if we stopped asking only “what’s the diagnosis?” and started asking “what’s the cause?”
Let Alec’s story not be in vain. Let it be the reason we all start looking deeper.
For more information about Dr. Rick Dulude’s non-profit foundation to advocate and educate about the neuropsychiatric ramifications of Tick-borne and other stealth infections, please visit www.alecsplace.com.
