But if O'Hare was taking cocaine and attacking people, I do think it would have been better if he were arrested and got the help he needed much sooner than he did.
Certain medications can cause you to gain/loose weight which may be why he got fat, I mean, I gained some weight when I was on omeprazole and citalopram which I used for a few months.
He was not self-medicating with anything, nor did he have any drinking problem or drug issue. According to JMS' book, this actually made things more difficult - because he was NOT dangerous to himself or others, he could not be put under involuntary observation, and - and this was rather implied - he was even a good enough actor to put on a good face and disguise his symptoms from his family! (Indeed, there was an article written after his death by a family friend, and he obviously had no idea, either!) - The big problem with paranoid schizophrenics is that the illness itself stops them for realizing that they need treatment, they don't trust anyone - but they cannot be forced to get treatment if they don't cause trouble. He made inappropriate comments (the kinds were not specified, but it's pretty common for severely mentally ill people to lose the sense for privacy. There was no news about O'Hare doing public undressing a la Jennifer Lien, or w...ing, at least!) but issues showed mainly when he was tired. Then his thought patterns just got messed up and he did not make any sense. He admitted to hear voices, and a scene described by JMS subtly tells the reader that he must have had visual hallucinations as well.
The guy did not have a gently caressing hope. Schizophrenia causes issues with memory recall and focus, loss of facial expressions and emotional perception and whatnot. For an actor, like a bullet into the head. Up to the 90s, most antipsychotics turned one into a jerkingly moving zombie over time. The first atypical antipsychotics appeared in clinical practice at the time O'Hare got treatment, but they cause weight gain and issues with long term effectivity and increased risks of lung embolism and heart attack associated with them came clear by around 2010.
I think O'Hare portrayed Sinclair quite well, but it would have needed all his remaining self-awareness and some kind of iron will, and I think he must have had mastered methods for reality-checking (and the incident with the car radio with Jerry would have been one...), how??? or why??? guess he took to his grave. Jerry hints in an interview at IGN that MOH did not 'do the work at home' but at work. If, as JMS describes, MOH was a mess by the end of the day, he really only was able to get prepaired next morning or on set.
Of course, psychosis symptoms to an extent overlap with drug abuse, and on a board someone described a con evening when O'Hare obviously started to hallucinate and talk nonsense, and other occasions when he appeared to be barely lucid. However, regarding Jerry: he probably knew that this was not a drug issue, as he knew "how to wind him up just to watch him to spin out, and used every opportunity to do so". - He would have observed some pattern. By riling him up, he was working against JMS' and Netter's efforts to ease the stress on O'Hare and with that, his symptoms. Not nice. Irony is, both O'Hare and Doyle were paranoid, just for JD it surfaced in a more sociably acceptable form (conspiracy theories).
Regarding this
Netter Digital Entertainment Inc 1996 Optional form for annual and transition reports of small business issuers 10KSB , the claim was filed end June 1995, that's already around a year after finishing production of the 1st season with MOH, so unlikely related.
Another interesting thing is, that Andrea Thompson indeed had a harassment case, but that was against her Italian costume designer, with whom she started a relationship indeed while being married to Jerry - that must have pissed him off! - , but that ended and the guy stalked her afterwards for months. He ended up getting deported from the US.
Designer to Be Imprisoned, Deported for Stalking Actress
Andrea did not marry Jerry until 1995, and her child's father is not Jerry, despite giving his name.
Seems like many different little things added up and mixed up to a rumour avalanche over the years.
