Wondrously Gifted

 

This article, "Wondrously Gifted," is a digest and expansion of my 2004 speech, “Wondrous Gifts: The Contributions of the Mentally Ill to Human Society,” which has been reprinted four times.  "Wondrously Gifted" was published in the Circle City Clubhouse newsletter.

 

Truth is, many great, accomplished people in history and contemporary life have suffered mental illness, addiction, or both, yet achieved anyway.  Mental illness, “mental health issues,” need not hold back such sufferers from achievement and accomplishment—history and lived life is replete with positive examples.

 

Indeed, two suffers of mental illness have been among history’s greatest geniuses:  Isaac Newton (bipolar) and Albert Einstein (severe depression).  Two other suffers of severe depression were two of history’s greatest statesmen:  Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.  Also suffering from mental illness and addiction were the seminal painter Vincent Van Gogh (schizophrenic and suicide) and be-bop jazz pioneer Charlie Parker (bipolar and heroin addict).  Other notable sufferers were actress Patty Duke (bipolar), who also became President of the Screen Actors Guild, as well as “America’s oldest teenager,” American Bandstand host and long-time TV commentator Dick Clark.

 

Many Nobel Laureates in Literature have suffered mental illness, and wrote their masterworks while so suffering—among them, poet T.S. Eliot, and novelists Sinclair Lewis (alcoholic), Ernest Hemingway (schizophrenic, alcoholic and suicide), and William Faulkner (alcoholic). Other notable writers who suffered from mental illness and/or addiction were the father of the short story, the horror story, and the mystery/detective story, Edgar Alan Poe (depressive, alcoholic, compulsive gambler) and Jack Kerouac (alcoholic and binge drinker).  Poet and novelist Sylvia Plath also suffered from mental illness, and ultimately committed suicide—yet she wrote a classic autobiographical novel on her struggle, The Bell Jar.   Pediatrician and Harvard Medical School associate Mark Vonnegut (son of noted writer Kurt Vonnegut, who also had mental health problems) suffered from bipolar, yet wrote a brilliant account of his struggles with it, The Eden Express.  Novelist Susana Kaysen wrote a compelling account of her psychiatric hospitalization, Girl Interrupted, which was even made into a movie.

 

This writer too has a diagnosed mental illness—borderline schizo-affective personality disorder, subject to chronic depression, who also overcame a drinking problem.  Yet I am a college graduate; know a foreign language; am an extensively-published writer, journalist, poet; and stand-up comedian; in addition to holding down a steady job and being self-supporting.

 

On the other hand, neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney, architects of the disastrous U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as of policies that led to the Great Recession of 2008, have ever had their sanity questioned!  Same goes for Ronald Reagan, who, among other things, gutted federal financing for mental health treatment.  And while Donald Trump has been called “narcissistic,” no one has ever questioned his basic sanity!

 

Appropriately enough, the last word was said by a mental health consumer—a former patient at Bellvue who went on to earn a Ph.D. and return to Bellvue—to head its Department of Psychology!  He said trenchantly, “Hey, Normals!  Do you realize what a mess you’ve made of things?”