We're All Mad Here

Diane Arbus took after her mother’s depression, but her photography talent was all her own. After starting a successful fashion photography business with her husband, Diane struck off on her own to take the pictures she really wanted: those of “freaks.” Circus performers, multiples, the intellectually disabled- she saw beauty and bravery in them and […]

For a fraction of the population, their greatest wish is to remove a body part. It’s not quite known what causes the phenomenon known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, but one theory is that it’s caused by the same part of the brain that is responsible for phantom limbs. But people with BIID are seen […]

Ernest Hemingway took his own life in 1961, only the second of five Hemingways to do so. Two of his siblings and his supermodel granddaughter followed his lead. Does suicide run in families? Is it learned behavior? In either case, can anything be done about it?

Ernest Hemingway ended his own life in 1961 after a lifetime of brain injuries and battling mental illness, but he was far from the only member of his family to do so. 5 people over 4 generations of Hemingways have died by suicide- and that doesn’t include all of the attempts and wives and husbands […]

Too often, if a man and a woman present in the ER with identical symptoms, the woman will be written off as simply “anxious” and sent home without treatment- or sometimes, being told she had been treated but was actually given a placebo. It’s not always based on gender, though- doctors are hesitant to give […]

The Martha Mitchell Effect: a clinical term for when someone (usually female) is labelled mentally ill for reporting truth stranger than fiction, with or without a history of insanity. Named for Martha Mitchell, of course, the woman notorious for drinking, gossiping… oh, and blowing the whistle on Watergate. Her life was ruined by the defamation […]

Failure can be frustrating. A lot of failure can be REALLY frustrating. And Charles Guiteau failed a lot. Was it that that led him to assassinate a president? Was it a lifetime of syphilis? Or was it insanity?

Was Joan of Arc crazy? No one can seem to agree whether the teenager who saved France in 1429 was truly speaking to God or if she had epilepsy. Or migraines. Or tuberculosis (EVERY TIME, GUYS!) But whether she was schizophrenic, was truly speaking to God, or was just a really clever teenage girl, Joan […]

In the 1860s, 8% of asylum patients were admitted due to “religious excitement.” While that’s no longer a diagnosis, 24% of schizophrenic patients in psych wards today report having some form of religious delusion. But religious delusions exist outside the psych ward, too. Religious fanatics are willing to blow up buildings and murder to please […]

When it comes to seniors and mental health treatment, society generally accepts that the older crowd are against it. They think it’s shameful or it’s witchcraft, right? WRONG! But, if people of a certain age are open to treatment, why aren’t they getting it?