Someone who has diabetes, or cancer, or kidney failure is perceived by most people much differently than someone who is dealing with mental illness. I work with patients every day who are dealing with mental illness, and some who are profoundly affected, particularly those with schizophrenia who take Clozaril. This is in many ways a miracle drug. I have seen patients who were uncommunicative and withdrawn be able to hold a conversation and talk with me. The danger is the effect it can have in reducing white blood cells, therefore requiring monthly blood work before I can dispense their medication.
Brian Wilson is the most tragic case because he had his mental illness happen just as he was about to unleash Smile on the world. Can you imagine if we had no Sgt Peppers?
Daniel Johnston is another case of "what could have been" if not for mental illness. While it may have helped him at times creatively, it definitely stunted his potential and really became a burden on his life and to those around him to an extent.
I don't think members meant to ignore Jim Gordon's mental problems on the Jim Gordon obit thread. It just wasn't the place to discuss that part of his life in detail. In obituary discussions, I try to discuss the positive side of the deceased person. Your thread is the place to have that discussion.
Don't forget Skip Spence as well, although I've heard he was more or less normal before he started dropping acid, so maybe his was drug related. According to the Oar liner notes, he was somewhat hyperactive and over the top, but that was his normal personality. But by 1968 or so he spent a lot of time just staring blindly into space like a zombie. Marty Balin passed him by and said "the light had gone out of him"
Jim Gordon had years of "polydrug abuse"- most notably alcohol and cocaine- before snapping mentally and clubbing and stabbing his mother to death. My impression is that formerly it used to be more often the case that young people at greatest risk of severe mental illness were often distanced from the drug using cohort, either because they were shunned for their "uncoolness" or because they distanced themselves from that group with their asociality. (This is relative; I don't want to whitewash the 1960s and 1970s. But the drug scene was simply not as hardcore, as everything from the overdose and incarceration stats to the anecdotal accounts on Erowid indicate.) But the appeal of forbidden illicit substances has proved to be both enduring and increasingly widespread over the decades, and the extreme sport aspect of it has only accelerated in the designer drug/Internet era. So I'd venture that the majority of young people with major mental illnesses nowadays had their first onset brought on in connection with the use of powerful mind-altering substances, which are in that weird social limbo of being both wildly popular and oft-referenced in media culture in ways that accurately indicate that high degree of informal acceptance, while simultaneously remaining 100% illegal and criminal behavior that's potentially catastrophic in terms of the official social oppobrium connected with even one offense. So illicit drug use is all over the place, but the formal responses of society itself are erratic, disordered, unbalanced, and compartmentalized. If someone is mentally fragile, most any drug that's a stimulant or a perceptual sensitizer is liable to produce a bad reaction eventually. Because that's all bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia are- someone's perceptions and cognitions get heightened and pushed into the red zone, so to speak. Sometimes the deep red zone. They can't handle it. It's the difference between paranoid conjecture- which can get tested, often just by being calm and patient until it wears off- and paranoid certainty, which feeds on itself and entrenches itself to the extent of becoming delusional. The mind alteration isn't experienced as an adventure, or even as a journey with overtones of ordeal- it goes beyond that, into triggering a chronic stress/anxiety/panic/aggression response. If the vulnerable person ignores the warning signs in their own responses- often on the basis that the other people in their social circle appear relatively unaffected- they often continue using the substances until they take it up to the line of severe mental dysfunction. And if they don't put the brakes on- and then seek professional help, in the case of the chronically disordered- their dysfunctions can eventually manifest as severely antisocial behaviors that call attention to them and lead to intervention by law enforcement. And that sets up another level of stress, anxiety, panic, aggression...it can turn into a spiral. The spiral is encouraged by an uncomprehending or uncaring institutional system, as an inertial process. If we were a friendlier, mellower, more laid-back society, more tolerant of the neurodivergent, eccentric, and mentally fragile, and if initiatory drug-using social circles weren't almost entirely made up of teenagers involved in a clandestine activity, the potential for bad reactions would be a lot more well-sorted. The vulnerable would have more insight into their own risk profiles at the first signs of trouble, and they could more easily get help from people who understand their situation. But not the way things are now. What we have under the current regime is more like harm maximization. The people reaping the most benefit aren't the population who avoid illegal drugs; they're the hardcore drug users and dealers who have accepted the rules of criminalization and learned how to work the system.
You'll have to be a bit more specific with Mozart and Beethoven. Perhaps the saddest case re: classical is Robert Schumann.
as I get older I noticed mental problems are a lot more prevalent in regular life than I knew, in my family and around me, I used to believe it but I don't know if musicians/artists are a lot more likely to have issues. We all know the big names but maybe that's clouding the waters, think about how many bands, session players etc there are. just my random thought
YeahI suspect that Slippy may have had an underlying illness that was triggered by the amount of acid he dropped Slippy did at least get some level of his former self back much like Peter Green did but, like Green, he was just never the same person again.
Also, there’s a lot of “armchair diagnoses” of public figures when the actual diagnosis may be unknown, as such health history isn’t always made public. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any definite clinical diagnosis was ever attributed to Peter Green, Syd Barrett, or Brian Wilson, (granted, I’ve never read a biography on any of them.)
Wilson was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder after years of misdiagnosis (including by his psychologist Eugene Landy, who said Wilson had paranoid schizophrenia). Landy nearly destroyed Wilson with his overuse of medications. After Wilson was removed from Landy’s treatment, a team of doctors at UCLA concluded that Landy’s poly pharmacy did more harm Wilson than any of Brian’s own drug use. Remember that Landy was a psychologist, not a psychiatrist who has prescriptive authority. Landy relied on others to write the prescriptions he wanted to use on Wilson.
Precisely. The fact that we hear all the time of musicians having mental illness does not necessarily mean they are more susceptible than other people; it could simply mean that we hear a lot about musicians.
This is my take as well. I am an IT guy who also writes poetry, plays music, does comedy and magic, and just a plain old weirdo according to many. I see the world very differently than other folks, but combine that with the drug stuff ... well the result wasn't good. You just hear about the famous musicians who went off their noggin. There are plenty of us who no one hears about. Enjoy the music!
Agreed. I think it goes without saying that, while we often hear about the examples that do not go well, there are likely many musicians dealing with mental illness that we never really know about (and really, it's none of our business). I have a lot of respect for someone like Alanis Morissette who has been open about her fights with depression and eating disorders and did things to raise awareness.
Have a look at the Roky Erickson doco You're Gonna Miss Me. Talent and torment. I'm not sure how Roky handled the down times but it would have been hell on his family
I really think Roky would have been better off without the shock treatment. He probably would still have had some problems but that made it much worse. The documentary has a nice ending though and he seems like he's in a better place by the end of it. When I saw him (on one of his last tours) he was singing great but forgot most of the words to arguably his two most famous songs (Two Headed Dog and You're Gonna Miss Me).
Donny Hathaway was only 33 when he jumped off The Essex House Hotel in NYC in 1979, falling 15 stories, due to a schizophrenic/depressive episode I believe. There should have been so much more but sadly it wasn't to be, a beautiful man and singer. His cover of A Song For You will always tear me up.
Mental illness is very common and exists across all walks of life, and all professions. There are as many mentally ill musicians as there are mentally ill dentists, accountants, and pharmacists. The difference is that dentists, accountants, and pharmacists aren’t famous, while musicians are, so to a lot of people, musicians are the only mentally ill folk they know of. There’s a tendency to romanticize the illness too when it’s a famous person.
Marvin Gaye was pretty far gone at the end of his life, drugged out and paranoid ...[listen to the fadeout of-Sanctified Lady].
In Brian’s case, can you make a distinction between his misdiagnosis & schizoaffective disorder? My limited understanding of the former is that being over-medicated by Landry is what led to Brian’s impaired motor skills namely tardive dyskinesia.
Donny's certainly the main person who comes to mind re music and mental illness. He really was in a horrible place mentally at the recording sessions for the album "Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway". Sadly, his heavy use of cocaine seemed to exacerbate his mental state. There really does need to be a biography done on Donny.
With schizoaffective disorder, there is a component of mood disorder which is the main feature of the condition. It could be either mania or depression, or a combination of both. Brian’s TD was most certainly due to Landy’s abuses of psychotropics and was separate from his schizoaffective disorder. I would go as far to say that Landy’s overmedication of Wilson and the damaging effects that resulted are the main reason for his struggles post-Landy.
I appreciate your response. Mania and/or depression are also associated with bipolar disorder, so how does the “schizo” feature manifest, generally speaking?
