The Madness of Mental Illness, Explored Through Books
by Beth Carswell
There’s a line I love from the short story Eleonora by Edgar Allan Poe. It’s about madness. And who better than the macabre mind who brought us such gibbering, eye-shivering tales of horror as The Telltale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum to weigh in on the subject of insanity? The quote goes like this:
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”
I take that to mean, coarsely translated – “maybe the reason so many brilliant people go a bit off their heads is because insanity is only one step past genius.”
Another quote, this one from John Dryden, supports this theory:
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied – And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”
Right. So the line between superior intellect and mental illness is a thin, wobbly one. Not entirely surprising news, is it? We look at the Edgar Allan Poes, the Vincent Van Goghs, the Sylvia Plaths and the Ernest Hemingways, who bring us brilliance that shines long past their own lifetimes, and it seems difficult to argue.
We can chicken-or-egg ourselves to death trying to ascertain whether mental illness drives us toward drugs and drink, or booze and drugs invite the mental illness. But the fact remains that as a society and a culture, mental illness is not uncommon, and we have the pharmaceutical receipts to prove it.Mental illness runs the gamut of everything from mild depression to seasonal affective disorder, to bipolar disorder, to obsessive-compulsive disorder to schizophrenia and psychopathy and beyond. We hate it, we’re afraid of it, and we rail against it, trying everything from denial and a stiff upper lip to electroconvulsive therapy, artificial light and chemical compounds to combat it.
And naturally we’re fascinated by it, and try everything from talking about it, to conducting extensive studies, to clinical trials with placebos, to of course writing about it to understand it.
The go-to diagnostic tool for mental disorders is The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, commonly referred to as the DSM, published by the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM was first published in 1952, and was born of the necessity to compile statistics and facts around mental disorders in the United States, particularly in the military. The most recent edition is the fifth edition, or DSM-5, be published in May of 2013.
Beyond the scientific and diagnostic, there is still an endlessly deep pool of writing about mental illness. For true, old-timey madness, one need look no further than the aforementioned Edgar Allan Poe for a dose, or, of course, good old Shakespeare, who wrote more than his fair share of tormented characters losing their way and descending into madness – King Lear, Lady MacBeth and Hamlet’s Ophelia are just three of the countless characters struggling with wavering reality in Shakespeare plays.
Still in the realm of fiction, but less over-the-top dramatic, perhaps the best known is Ken Kesey’s classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, detailing the experience of a cocky, gregarious man named Randle Patrick McMurphy in an Oregon psychiatric facility.
Also very well-known and under the fiction category is the poet Sylvia Plath’s only novel,The Bell Jar, detailing a young woman’s bouts with intense, recurrent and crippling depression. It’s tough to call this one fiction, when by all accounts, the story of protagonist Esther bore an uncanny resemblance to Plath’s own journey, with the notable and sad exception that Esther’s story ends on a hopeful note, and Plath took her own life in 1963.
If it’s non-fiction you’re after, but less dry and clinical than the DSM, an interesting read is Jon Ronson’s 2011 book The Psychopath Test, in which he examined psychopathy from all angles, including discussions with those diagnosed with (or suspected of having) psychopathy. He also conducted extensive interviews with psychiatrists, psychologists and Robert D. Hare, the author of the now famous Hare Psychopathy checklist. Originally a 16-part test, the checklist is now 20 parts, and the most commonly used critera to determine psychopathy. It’s a fascinating read, but probably best avoided by those with hypochondriacal tendencies.
Whether it’s simply a good story you’re after, or just information, there are as many books dedicated to the subject of mental illness as you could ever hope to read.
This selection, a mixture of old and new, fiction and fact, is just a drop in the bucket.
Stories of Mental Illness, Real and Imagined
What is the most memorable book about mental illness you’ve ever read?
ABE Books
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Michael Bresnahan · Works at Belmont WheelworksHow about books on recovery? I’ve struggled with bipolar depressive disorder. But it is treatable these
days. One can fall through the ice and actually find a way out. I’m not interested in reading booksl about
the privates helps of other peoples’ struggle with darkness. -
Teresa Groat · Kent State UniversityJust finished ‘Silver Linings Playbook.’ I loved it because it was hopeful, enlightening and gave a very moving account of two people moving through their own issues and finding happiness…just not the happiness that they had been looking for. Movie was good, too. -
Michael Bresnahan · Works at Belmont WheelworksI intended to write private “hell”. I’m empathetic cuz I’ve been there. But it’s kind of an old story don’t
you think? I’m in recovery from horrible depressive episodes and I’d rather focus on hope. Any books
like that? -
Leslie Barbara Zelinsky · Works at Self Employed ArtisanI Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. I read it a long time ago and remember being very impressed and shocked by the opening scene. Gripping tale. -
Lenore Riegel · Follow · Attorney at The Bloom FirmJay Neugeboren’s lifetime journey with his brother – Imagining Robert – is powerful and beautifully written, as befits a major novelist. There is also a documentary. Their struggle continues today and Jay wrote this for the New York Times earlier this year: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.c om/2014/01/13/ his-heart-my-sleeve-writing -about-my-brother/ ?_php=true&_type=blogs&smid =go-share&_r=0 -
Peg Bittner ·  Top commenterThe one story I hold dearly to me is an autobiography I wrote when I was close to the end of my therapy. I went through a great deal of hard work, the hardest work I have ever encountered. I was sitting on a weight machine at the company gym when the idea came to me. Immediately I wrote down the plot and five months later, “Broken Antler” was finished and my family and friends found it to be very good and could relate to story of a woman with a small self-sustaining farm who hunted that had a job in the city and how she faced her farm destroying deer. -
Cynthia McGarvie ·  Top commenter · Southern New Hampshire UniversityAlthough no one mentions it as solely about mental illness per se, David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel, ‘The Pale King,’ has a lot of content relevant to this issue. Meredith Rand describes her hospitalization in one chapter, and for some reason Chapter 50 seems to me (the way I read it) as a description of an ECT session. I didn’t realize that last bit until I re-read the chapter. It seems rather obvious to me now. -
Paula HilbyIrving Yalom’s books, including Love’s Executioner. Yalom is a therapist, Stanford professor (retired now), and author of clinical texts for students of therapy. -
Paula Graham · Works at RetiredI’m Dancing As Fast As I Can was a good biography of prescription drug induced mental illness. It came out around the same time my twin sister as admitted to hospital for the same problem. -
Iain McGinn · Upside Down at Cirque du SoleilJohn Burnside – Some amazing novels. Glister, A lie About my Father, The Devils Footsteps. Check him out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burnside -
David Moffatt ·  Top commenter · Colon Cleanser at The Island of Misfit ToysAn old, and somewhat obscure volume: “Asylum”, by William Seabrook. It describes the experiences of a man who checked himself into a state hospital in the hope of being treated for alcoholism. Very dated, and Seabrook’s “cure” didn’t work for him, but there is a lot of fascinating history here. “Asylum” is in many respects the antithesis of “The Snake Pit”. And during his hospitalization Seabrook almost, but not quite, developed a number of the ideas that would later be used by Alcoholics Anonymous.Seabrook was a thrill-seeker and saw his hospitalization as one more adventure to be chronicled. In so doing, he created a memorable book, though it should not be mistaken for a self-help manual.
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R Michelle Voiles ·  Top commenterThe most interesting books of this type I have read are both on the list: An Unquiet Mind and A Beautiful Mind. I also recommend others written by authors who write of their own illnesses such as Darkness Visible by William Styron and Asylum by William Seabrook. -
Sue BrownVernon God Little for the madness of everybody and everything.
A Journey to Laputa one of Gulliver’s Travels…. -
Sumner Raphael Berg · Oregon State UniversityDeviant; Story of Ed Gein, the original Psycho by Harold Schechter. -
Jamie Madden · University of DundeeNo one seems to have mentioned this yet but The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg is probably one of the earliest and most stunning -
David Roy Pagan · University of KwaZulu-NatalWhat about ‘The Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ and ‘The Shock of the Fall’ ? -
Ralph StrathmannZombie by Joyce Carol Oates – Oh my! -
Eva NeedhamDibs; in Search of Self. -
samkings69 (signed in using yahoo)Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban
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Nancy HammerIs There No Place On Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan. Won Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1983. Problems of family trying to find tx and “appropriate housing” for schizophrenic sister. Unfortunately, it could have been written today. Things have not changed in the last 30 years. -
Jann Griffith Hoke · WVU Collge of LawI recall reading “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” when I was in college. And a movie was made of it with Kathleen Quinlan. It is kind of like “Girl, Interrupted,” as I remember it, in that the heroine is quite young. But I thought it was quite good at the time. -
Dan Bailey · Southern Arkansas University, Arizona State UniversityKay Redfield Jamison’s Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide is, for me, even more memorable than her An Unquiet Mind… which is a remarkable accomplishment, considering the sheer excellence of the latter.-
Marisa Bennett · Follow ·  Top commenter · Self taught artist at Self-employed-artwork at www.intensebluegallery.com
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Laurie Isabella Blair · Works at Pet SitterThe Bell Jar, though I have to say An Unquiet Mind and Darkness Visible were lifelines when I needed them. SO beautifully written. -
Kathleen Kos · Direct Support Professional at Pennsylvania MENTORI’m Dancing As Fast As I Can. -
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Graham Bell · RMT at Elite Massage ReginaA very interesting read is Journey into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control & Medical Abuse the was subjected to USA but mainly Canadian citizens.by Gordon Thomas.
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Henrik TorjusenThe Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky by Vaslav Nijinsky. Very moving and sad account of the decent into madness. Nijinsky was and still is considered one of the most famous dancers of all time, but at the age of 27 he fell ill and never recovered. -
Eileen MacDougall ·  Top commenter · Creator/Host/Editor at Book Stew on WCTVJanuary First by Michale Schofield, and The Noonday Demon. -
Raydene Boulton · Loma Linda UniversityHow about a classic from the fifties, Operators and Things, by Barbara O’Brien – chronicles the inner life of a schizophrenic. -
Charles BrumbelowPatty Duke – “Call Me Anna” and “A Brilliant Madness” – bipolar-
Marisa Bennett · Follow ·  Top commenter · Self taught artist at Self-employed-artwork at www.intensebluegallery.com
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Joan Blackwood · Toronto, OntarioCurrently reading _The Words To Say It_ by Marie Cardinal. -
Patricia Long Foster · Neptune Senior High SchoolActually, I read Sybil when I was in my late teens and while I found the multiple personality angle less than credible, I was horrified with not Sybil herself, but rather the bizarre behavior of her parents. If even a few of the mother’s described behavior was true, she was in possession of the real sick mind in that family. Alternately, the father’s passive behavior in the face of such abuse while knowing full well of his wife’s blatant mental illness was felonious neglect. It was definitely the parents that stick in my mind even years later.-
David Moffatt ·  Top commenter · Colon Cleanser at The Island of Misfit Toys“Sybil” is largely fiction. See “Sybil Unmasked” and related online resources. Indeed, virtually all, if not all cases of “multiple personalities” (now called “Dissociative Identity Disorder”) are iatrogenic, that is, created in therapy by professionals who may have been well-intentioned but did not realize the power they had over suggestible people. This, along with the parallel “recovered memories” and “satanic child abuse” hysterias, may be among the saddest chapters in modern thought. Mind, a lot of therapists became wealthy convincing troubled people that they were crazy and in the process convincing them to act so.
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Melanie Wilson · Follow ·  Top commenter · Oak Park, IllinoisJanet Frame’s “An Autobiography”, which sees her misdiagnosed with schizophrenia after a nervous breakdown, institutionalized, subjected to shock treatment, and nearly lobotomized. Also, her novel “Faces in the Water”. -
Karen Bieling · Burlington, New JerseyBut inside I’m screaming by Elizabeth Flock; I never promised you a rose garden. -
Bill Leahy (signed in using Hotmail)Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) and Michel Foucault’s History of Madness (1961).
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Mitchell Jon MacKay · College for Creative StudiesI’m writing one – DAY OF THE RAVEN the Strange & Unscrupulous Conviction of a Psychopath. -
Carroll Kelly · University of DenverDarkness Visible by William Styron. A must-read for those who suffer from, or want insight into depression. -
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Ilana Halupovich ·  Top commenter · SW CM support at AstroPatricia McKillip “Stepping from the Shadows”. -
Gerard MacCarthy · Follow · De La Salle CollegeEyebrows and Other Fish by Tony Scally. -
Catherine Diana Shull KlatzkerIn Search of a Lost Brother by Molly McCloskey -
Jim JaarsmaThe Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes. -
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Catherine Diana Shull KlatzkerThe Voice in my Head by Emma Forrest
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Wayne Gillingham · Owner at Wayne the Book GuyWhen Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase. A must read in this category! -
Brian Engelhardt · Kansas City, MissouriLe schizo et les langues by Louis Wolfson without a doubt. -
ÃÂtalo Teles · Federal University of Rio de JaneiroDarkness Visible of William Styron have a incredible account in first person perspective of depression disorder. I daresay Styron’s book describes depression better than any diagnostic tool for mental disorders.-
Marisa Bennett · Follow ·  Top commenter · Self taught artist at Self-employed-artwork at www.intensebluegallery.com
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Sandy Thomson · University of Massachusetts AmherstIn college I took a Comp Lit class called “Madness In Literature”. THE book that struck home with me the most was The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. It was a really extra ordinary diary of a brilliant ballet dancer with the Russian Ballet under Diaghelev, who comes unhinged bit by bit… I don’t remember it really well but I do remember that I was fixated on it for a long time and wrote a long and ‘heavy’ paper about it! So, there you have it, that’s my favorite book on Mental Illness. -
John Harmer · London, United KingdomOperators and Things by Barbara O’Brien, long since out of print, a first hand account of hallucinations and paranoia, utterly amazing book. -
Carol Muth · Works at The Natural History Center“Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, by Michel Foucault. And for the everyday neuroses (that is, my own) I appreciated two memoirs: “Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life” by Allen Shawn, and “Devil in the Details: Scenes From an Obsessive Girlhood” by Jennifer Traig. -
Denise Marie Gosser · Louisville, KentuckyBalancing the Beast by Helena Smole is a bright view of the Schitzoaffective Disorder -
Rob Price ·  Top commenter · School of Hard KnocksInto the wild by Jon Krakauer. Or what about Heart of Darkness by Conrad (supposedly based on the explorer Stanley, I think). -
Ronald TurnerKing Saul One and King Saul Two.
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Jerry Waddle ·  Top commenter · Standing or sitting at at Ducky Waddle’s EmporiumRobert M. Lindner’s “Rebel Without A Cause”. -
Willow C. Arune · Follow ·  Top commenter · Works at UNBC University of Northern British Columbia“My Struggle” by the late Geoff Brown.
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