Published in the Westchester Guardian, May 2013
This article on mental illness has no insight, no tips, no advice, no stories, no ideas. It’s just a list of names of people like us who suffer or have suffered from mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. The names are have been divided by occupation/career.
“One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That’s a lot of people.”Alastair Campbell, British broadcaster, journalist. Depression.
May was National Mental Health Awareness Month and I thought it would be appropriate to list others who have also suffered. I cannot understate how important, how comforting their “coming out” are to us who suffer since the stigma, shame, embarrassment is still too great in our confused, goal oriented, befuddled culture for many of us to admit to a disease not of their making. We all need to know that we are not alone.
I only focused on Bipolar Disorder. I was running out of room.
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering …”
“I compare myself with my former self, not with others.”
―both, Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Many numerous sources overlap or are incomplete, so I hope the list is useful for someone. There are some crossovers/labeling of diagnoses between bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, etc. My methodology began and ended with the internet. For a name to be included, it would have to appear on at least three websites. Evidence in regards to historical figures may be debatable but appeared to have been analyzed by qualified individuals. Also, my apologies for improperly excluding or including individuals – time and resources are limited, but the knowledge of knowing about others who “made it” or have who put one foot in front of the other, contributed, persisted, on this mysterious journey called life is indispensible.
“Mental illness can happen to anybody. You can be dustman, a politician, a Tesco worker…anyone. It could be your dad, your brother your aunt.” –Frank Bruno, former world champion boxer. Bipolar.
Dear reader, add yourself to this ever growing list just for being here today.
Actors, Actresses and Comedians, Ned Beatty, Maurice Bernard, Jeremy Brett, Jim Carey, Robert Downey Jr., Richard Dreyfuss, Patty Duke, Carrie Fisher (Memoir Wishful Thinking.“ I am mentally ill. I am not ashamed of that.”), Connie Francis, Stephen Fry, Mel Gibson, Shecky Greene, Linda Hamilton, Moss Hart, Margot Kidder, Vivian Leigh, Kevin McDonald, Kristy McNichols, Burgess Meredith, Spike Milligan, Nicola Pagett, David Strickland, Tracy Ullman, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters.
Artists, Alvin Ailey, Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola, Bill Lichtenstein, Vincent Van Gogh and Norman Wexler.
Composers, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edward Elgar, George Fredrick Handel, Oscar Levant, Gustav Mahler, Amadeus Mozart and Robert Schumann.
Musicians, Adam Ant, Rosemary Clooney, DMX, Ray Davies, Lenny Dee, Peter Gabriel, Jimi Hendrix, Jack Irons, Phil Ochs, Sinead O’Connor, Charley Pride, Axl Rose, Del Shannon, Phil Spector, Sting, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Amy Whinehouse and Townes Van Zandt.
Other, Buzz Aldrin, Astronaut, Louis Althusser, philosopher, Clifford Beers, humanitarian, Mary Ellen Copeland, PhD, author, educator, mental health advocate, Larry Flynt, publisher, Phil Graham, owner Washington Post, Abbie Hoffman political activist, Karl Paul Link, chemist, Josh Logan director, Dimitri Mihalas, astronomer, Dick Cavett and Jane Pauley, TV personalities, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, Prof. of psychiatry, John Hopkins, John Strugnell, Biblical scholar, Ted Turner billionaire media mogul, Sol Wachtler, judge.
Poets, Sherman Alexie, John Berryman, C.E. Chaffin, Hart Crane, Robert Lowell, William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Johnson, John Keats, T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas and Walt Whitman.
Politicians, Napoleon Bonaparte, Winston Churchill (self-medicated with alcohol, called the depression state ‘The black dog’.), Thomas Eagleton Vice –president nominee, Alexander Hamilton, Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Patrick J. Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt and Margaret Trudeau.
Sports Personalities, John Daly, golf, Ilie Nastase, tennis, Jimmy Piersall, baseball, and Erik Ainge (NY Jets), Brandon Marshall, Barret Robbins , Alonzo Spellman, Dimitrius Underwood, all also football.
Writers, Hans Christian Andersen, Honors de Balzac, Art Buchwald, Joseph Conrad, Patricia Cromwell, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Henrik Ibsen, Henry James, William James, Jack London, Herman Melville, Robert Munsch, Eugene O’Neill, Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, and Emile Zola.
Some good company, a good club to be member of, unfortunately.
“For too long we have swept the problems of mental illness under the carpet…and hoped that they would go away.” -Richard J. Cody New Jersey State Senator
“Depression is a painfully slow, crashing death. Mania is the other extreme, a wild roller coaster run off its tracks, an eight ball of coke cut with speed. It’s fun and it’s frightening as hell. Some patients – bipolar type I – experience both extremes; other – bipolar type II – suffer depression almost exclusively. But the “mixed state,” the mercurial churning of both high and low, is the most dangerous, the most deadly. Suicide too often results from the impulsive nature and physical speed of psychotic mania coupled with depression’s paranoid self-loathing.” ― David Lovelace, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
Many of the above individuals have written about their experiences. So if you find a name that interest you, please do a quick search – it’s worth the effort.
Future article(s) will focus on other individuals who have or had one or more of the disorders coming under the umbrella of mental illness. Any suggestions? Let me know.
#966
Glenn Slaby Blog