This week marks Schizophrenia Awareness Week. Therefore, I bring you this story in hopes of helping to break the stigma. Mental illness in the news is usually reported when something horrific happens. A homicide. A mass shooting. Infanticide. However, mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators themselves.
We’ve seen it in movies – think Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. In the case of both films, electroshock therapy is shown as a punishment. The efficacy of the treatment is shrouded in mystery. But electroshock therapy is not archaic, as some would believe. The treatment has evolved.
Drip. Drip. Drip. SPLAT. Drip. Drip. SLATHER. Drip. Drip. SPLAT. That’s the sound of Jackson Pollock, stick in hand in a barn-turned-studio on Long Island, drenching his canvas with paint for his latest masterpiece. We’ve all seen his iconic, messy paintings, but what about the man behind the mess?
There’s blood on his typewriter. Dope-nose blood. Stephen King, the master of horror, is binge-writing and binge-snorting cocaine.
It’s pretty abnormal to not drink, especially if you’re young – 40 or under. It’s even somewhat abnormal to not smoke weed if you move in certain artistic or bohemian social circles, like I do. When is it OK to disclose your addiction?
Nick is a 55-year-old bipolar professionally trained musician. In this excerpt from my upcoming book The Eccentrics, we hear about how he got mixed up with the mob during his drinking days.
Everyone in the world is affected by mental illness in some way. Whether you have mental illness yourself or if you have a friend or family member who does, mental illness is universal.
It’s midnight. There’s a candle burning in a bedroom, a bottle of Bordeaux gleaming in its wake. Creative genius flows as quickly as the wine. Ernest Hemingway — Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author — is hunched over his typewriter in a frenzy, crafting the perfect prose: clickety-clack-clack-clack as he sips the red wine. The Sun Also Rises takes shape. He’s drunk. Truth is, Hemingway never drank while writing. But when he was not writing, he was a certifiable lush.
When you hear the words “mentally ill,” the first thing that comes to mind is probably “crazy” — and we have the media’s negative depictions to thank for that. The truth is, many of us who are mentally ill manage our symptoms with medication and therapy and are able to lead normal or near-normal lives.
Alcohol and drugs are featured prominently in many movies because they make for sexy storylines. From prescription-drug thievery to heroin overdoses, I compiled this list of the definitive films featuring drug and alcohol addiction.
