Part IX Depression Suicide

Mike Wallace: Speaking to a Nation

In April of this year, the world lost one of its most respected journalists. A journalist who could hold the feet of world leaders to the fire and get them to respond to the tough questions that needed answered.
Born in 1918, Wallace was one of the original correspondents for CBS’ groundbreaking investigative journalism show 60 Minutes, which debuted in 1968. He worked as a full-time correspondent for the program until 2006, and until 2008 as an occasional correspondent.
However, it is not only his career as a respected journalist for which he will be remembered. He will also be remembered for his openness about his diagnosis and struggle with depression.
Wallace’s depression was brought on by a lawsuit in 1984 that was filed against him and several other members from CBS over a documentary about the Vietnam War. Wallace had been the chief correspondent.
As Wallace wrote for Guideposts in 2002, “I found myself suddenly struck, then overwhelmed, by something—an emptiness, a helplessness, an emotion and physical collapse—I’d never experienced before.”
At the time Wallace did not realize he was experiencing depression. He tried to keep going as usual: doing research, conducting interviews. However, the pressure of routinely going into the courthouse and having accusations thrown at him began to eat away him. He began to think that perhaps he had done something wrong; that perhaps he was a dishonest person.
The following month brought a brief period of respite as he was able to leave the courtroom and travel to Ethiopia for a story. He believed he was getting his old self back, back to normal.
But as soon as he returned, the feelings of depression swarmed over him again. One night, his depression came to a head when he took a large amount of sleeping pills. His wife found him unconscious at 3 a.m. and he was rushed to the hospital. Doctors were able to pump his stomach. At the urging of his wife, Wallace finally went to go see a doctor. At the time, his doctor warned him that admitting that he was having emotional difficulties could potentially do damage to his reputation.
At the end of year, after battling the flu, he was admitted a hospital with what CBS announced was “exhaustion.” In truth, as he soon found, it was actually clinical depression.
After the trial ended—the other side dropped the lawsuit—Wallace thought he would go back to feeling as he did before the trial. But he didn’t.
As his doctor told him, “That’s not how depression works. You don’t just snap out of a serious illness. You have to stay on the treatment and give it time to work.”
Because of the stigma associated with having depression and other mental illnesses, Wallace did not disclose his personal struggles with the public until 1988 when he appeared on Later with Bob Costas. His initial intention was not, however, to discuss his depression, but he soon realized that it was an opportune time to address the issue and could offer hope to the people watching who may also be struggling with their own illness.
Mike Wallace continued talk about his depression, including on the PBS program Healthy Minds in 2009.
Wallace understood that the people around him were what helped him stay strong through difficult times and was willing to give help to others. In a NAMI Blog, Helen Singer describes how even a single phone call from Wallace helped her greatly.
With the support of the people around him, Wallace was able to find strength. As he wrote in Guideposts:
“In a way, that’s been the key to my still going strong for all these years. Every time I reach out beyond myself—to my family and friends, to my doctor, to my coworkers and the public to whom we bring the news, to the whole community of people who battle depressive disorders, and to the one I have turned to ever since I was a boy in Brookline—I find hope that has led me out of the darkness.” (NAMI)

Part VIII Schizophrenia

Syd Barrett Shines On

The sound of Pink Floyd, we all know it. Those sweeping instrumentations of highs and lows, those hypnotic and haunting vocals; the sound that truly epitomizes psychedelic rock.
It was the sound of Syd Barrett, the voice of arguably one of the most influential rock bands. Syd Barrett was born Roger Keith Barrett on Jan. 6, 1946 in Cambridge, England. In 1965, Barrett, along with Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, formed the band Pink Floyd. In 1967, the band released their first album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” of which Barrett wrote nine of the 11 songs and was the lead singer.
After their first official release, the band continued to grow in popularity and they made their first tour of the U.S. in 1967. In late 1967 and early 1968, Barrett’s actions began to grow erratic and disruptive. While the band tried to accommodate his behavior—at the end of 1967 the group added David Gilmore to help play guitar and hoped Barrett could focus solely on singing—his actions began to impact the band during TV appearances and concerts. Their ability to even record in the studio also became difficult as Barrett played songs differently each time.

According to an article on Shizophrenia.com published following his death, one music magazine reported that he once stood on stage and played the same note for the entirety of the concert. Consequently, he was kicked out of the band. If the band wanted to move forward they would have to cut ties with one of their founding members. Barrett contributed to their second album, “A Saucerful of Secrets,” and few more singles, but that was it for the former frontman. Although he was only with the band for three years, his influence on the band would endure. Simply put, without him there would be no Pink Floyd.
At the time, his exit from the band, and soon thereafter, his exit from the music world on the whole, was labeled an “acid casualty.” Subsequently though, it has been largely agreed upon that Barrett actually began to exhibit the signs of mental illness, most likely schizophrenia. The use of drugs, however, could have played a role, as he may have had a genetic predisposition to mental illness and the heavy abuse of drugs, such as acid and cannabis, may have contributed to the onset of his illness.
Like most men who develop schizophrenia, Barrett began to exhibit symptoms, such as odd thoughts, bizarre actions, social withdrawal and ultimately psychosis, in his late teens and early 20s. On stage, Barrett may have exhibited symptoms including catatonia (e.g., such as playing one note for the entire concert).
While Roger Waters took over lead singing and songwriting duties for the band, they did not forget their founding member; the band’s 1975 album “Wish You Were Here,” paid tribute to Barrett. Specifically, the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond:”
Remember when you were young,
you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes
like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of
childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for far away laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr and shine!
Barrett’s musical career lasted barely seven years, but his influence on his band, and other bands, endured. His long lasting influence on musicians and artists continue to this day. His use of dissonance, distortion and other effects were incredibly innovative and influential. Artists such as Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend and David Bowie have all stated they were influenced by his work. As described in an article in the Guardian in 2006 shortly after his death, “[Syd Barrett] was the golden boy of the mind-melting late-60s psychedelic era, its brightest star and ultimately it’s most tragic victim.” (NAMI)

Part VII Depression Bipolar Suicide

Becoming One's Own: The Powerful Words of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, born in England in 1882, is considered one of the greatest modernist and early feminist writers of the 20th century.
Her most famous works include Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928) and A Room of One’s Own (1929).
Woolf also struggled with bipolar disorder and died from suicide in 1941.
She experienced her first depressive episode at age 15, after the death of her mother and then her half-sister two years later. In 1904, after her father died, she experienced her second episode of depression and was briefly hospitalized. Sexual abuse from half-brothers also contributed to her mental illness.
Throughout Woolf’s life, mood swings often resulted in periods of convalescence that compromised her creativity. Episodes would begin with migraine headaches and sleeplessness and eventually lead to her hearing voices and experiencing visual hallucinations. In 1932 she wrote in a letter: “My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring, diving and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?”
Woolf’s passion was for modernism in the arts—reaction to industrialization, urbanization and the horrors of World War I. It rejected traditional (realist) art forms in favor of radical reassessments and innovations, not only in style but also in considering the human condition and value of technological progress. Woolf experimented with stream-of consciousness narratives in her novels which revealed psychological and emotional motives of characters and other untraditional forms. In Flush: A Biography, for example, a semi-fictional biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the narrator is Browning’s cocker spaniel, Flush.
Ironically, the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf (1962) by Edward Albee, has nothing to do with Woolf the writer—except for the title. It reflects Woolf’s modernist perspective and is intended to ask “Who is afraid to live without illusion?” (i.e., peeling back social pretensions until raw motives and emotions are exposed).
Woolf’s greatest novel, Mrs. Dalloway, includes criticism of the medical establishment of the 1920s in its treatment of mental illness. One level, it is about a woman in London on a single day, preparing to host a party that night. But parallel chapters told from the perspective of a “shell-shocked” World War I veteran, who today would be referred to as living with posttraumatic stress disorder. Like Woolf, in her own experience with bipolar disorder, the character isolates himself, hears birds singing in Greek and ultimately dies from suicide.
In 1941 after finishing her last novel, Between the Acts, Woolf fell again into depression, which also coincided with the onset of World War II and destruction of her London home by a German bomb. In a note she left for her husband before she died, she wrote: “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I don’t think two people could have been happier ‘til this terrible disease came.” (NAMI)

Part VI Depression and Suicide

Gandhi: Depression’s Spiritual Transformation

Mohandas Gandhi was one of the principle leaders of India’s movement for independence from the British Empire. Independence was achieved in 1947. He is also recognized as the world’s foremost proponent of non-violent civil disobedience as a force for change, which greatly influenced the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gandhi was born in 1869. During his life, he lived through episodes of depression, including a suicide attempt as a teenager. He was also said to be shy and sensitive.
Following India’s independence, he endured his most severe episode of depression. India faced many tragic problems, including poverty and hunger. These issues weighed heavily on him as the “father of his country.”
Gandhi also felt a sense of personal failure. Independence was achieved at the cost of India being divided along religious lines into two separation nations: India, where the population was predominantly Hindu, and Pakistan, where the population was Muslim. The partition led to bloody riots in many cities between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi saw it as a rejection of his philosophy of non-violence and collapse of his life’s work.
Gandhi spoke of his depression openly, confounded and frustrated because he lacked patience and “technique” to overcome it.
He once believed he could live to be 125, but told a reporter, “I have lost the hope because of the terrible happenings in the world. I don’t want to live in darkness.” The tone of his speeches, his “voice,” grew less optimistic.
Gandhi’s sense of failure and depression led to deeper reflection over his philosophy of non-violence and his life’s work. In a sense, he revisited choices he had made over the years, struggling with self-doubt. The result was reaffirmation, and to some degree, transformation.
Reflection often is part of cycles of growth in all people, especially those confronted by loss. This includes individuals living with mental illness as part of a process of recovery.
As a lawyer in South Africa, early in his career, Gandhi led opposition to legal discrimination against the Indian minority. It was the period when he first developed his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience. When he returned to India in 1915, because of his work in South Africa, he became known as “Mahatma,” meaning “Great Soul.”
It was a title Gandhi did not like, until the last year of his life, as part of his transformation. He told a granddaughter: “I am a true Mahatma.”
His outlook included a sense of fatalism. Because of his teachings and work, he always believed he would die at the hands of an assassin, a death he said, he would gladly accept. In 1948, a Hindu extremist shot Gandhi to death, as part of a conspiracy whose members believed he favored Muslims in trying to end India’s violence.
Much of this article, including quotations, is based on the essay “From Mohandas to Mahatma: The Spiritual Metamorphosis of Gandhi” by Karen E. James in Essays in History, Vol. 28, pp. 5-20 Corcoran Department of History of the University of Virginia (1984), at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/gandhi.html. See also A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Graeme (Penguin Group, 2011). (NAMI)

Part V PTSD Depression

Audie Murphy: Branded by War, but Not Defeated by It

Audie Murphy is the most decorated soldier in American history. He received the Medal of Honor in World War II and many other awards for valor— including three Purple Hearts.
After the war, he built a successful career as a Hollywood actor and country and western songwriter.
He also lived with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and became an advocate for veterans, speaking openly about his ”battle fatigue” and calling for greater mental health care.
Born into poverty in Texas in 1924, he enlisted in the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the 3rd Infantry Division, he fought in Italy, France, Belgium and Germany—at one point winning a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant.
On Jan. 26, 1945, he fought the battle in France that earned him the Medal of Honor.

He then single-handedly fought the enemy advance.

Twenty-four inches of snow were on the ground and the temperature was 16 degrees below freezing. In the face of an armored attack from three sides, he ordered his company to retreat to a more protected position. He then single-handedly fought the enemy advance. He used his rifle until it ran out of ammunition, then a machine gun from on top of a burning tank destroyer and finally a land-line telephone to call in artillery strikes.
He then rallied his men into a counterattack. The official citation for his Medal of Honor declared that “his refusal to give an inch” of ground saved his company from encirclement and destruction” and held a vital position the enemy desperately sought to gain.
But heroism came with a price.
For the rest of his life, Murphy lived with insomnia, nightmares, paranoia and depression. He once claimed that the only way he could sleep was with a loaded pistol under his pillow.

When I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me?

In his autobiography, To Hell and Back (1949) he described the emotional conflict that haunted him:
"Like a horror film running backwards images of war flicker through my brain… I cannot sleep. My mind still whirls. When I was a child, I was told that men were branded by war. Has the brand been put on me? Have the years of blood stripped me of all decency?"
But he expressed hope and faith.
"I believe in men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimper and their triumphs without boasting. The men who went and would go again to hell and back to preserve what our country thinks right and decent.
My country. America! We have been so intent on death that we have forgotten life. And now suddenly life faces us. I swear to myself that I will measure up to it. I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it."

Even while struggling with PTSD, Murphy launched a movie career starring in over 40 films.

Even while struggling with PTSD, Murphy launched a movie career starring in over 40 films. He played himself in the film version of To Hell and Back (1955), which became Universal Studios’ biggest hit—ever— until 20 years later when Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws surpassed it.
He served as a major in the Texas National Guard and then the Army Reserve.
He died in a private plane crash in 1971. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington Cemetery, not far from the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. (NAMI)

Part IV Bipolar Disorder

Theodore Roosevelt: As Strong as a Bull Moose

Born in 1858, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was not blessed with strength—at least not physical strength. He was an asthmatic and sickly child, who had to be home schooled and was frequently confined. However, he would not let his physical limitations hinder his thirst for knowledge. He became an enthusiastic student of nature, including taking up taxidermy at the age of 7.
Encouraged by his father, he began a determined search to improve his strength and health. As a result, Roosevelt transformed himself from a weak child into a strong, manly adult; his body finally followed the might and intelligence of his mind.
As Teddy Roosevelt grew so did the number of activities he engaged in: he was a hunter, a naturalist, a conservationist, an explorer, a soldier and, of course, a politician. Prior to becoming president, Roosevelt formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, more commonly known as the Rough Riders at the beginning of the Spanish-American War. The Rough Riders consisted of cowboys and Ivy League friends of Roosevelt from when he attended college and law school.

While campaigning in Milwaukee, an assassination attempt was made on Roosevelt. He was shot in the chest, but the bullet was slowed down after passing through his eyeglass case and a copy of a speech he was about to deliver...

Upon leaving the Army, Roosevelt was elected governor of New York in 1898. Because of his desire to eradicate corruption in politics he was chosen as William McKinley’s vice-presidential running mate for the 1901 presidential election.
However, Roosevelt was thrown into presidency much sooner than expected. On Sept. 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot. Eight days later he died and Roosevelt became the youngest president in United States history, at the age of 42. In 1904, he was elected president in his own right.
While in office, Roosevelt helped complete the Panama Canal and negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Four presidents have won the award, three while in office—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Barack Obama—and one who was not, Jimmy Carter, who won the award in 2002.

...whether it was related to his job or leisure activities. He would often read more than a book every day—even as president—and wrote an estimated 150,000 letters.

At the conclusion of his second term, Roosevelt left to tour Africa and Europe. Part of his goal was to bring back specimens for the American Museum of Natural History (one of the elephants he shot remains on display to this day).
Upon his return, Roosevelt tried to instill more progressive ideas into the Republican party, including women’s suffrage and social insurance. His friend, William Howard Taft, who he had promoted for the Republican nomination differed in the direction he believed the party should head. After failing to block Taft’s nomination, Roosevelt launched the Progressive party (nicknamed “the Bull Moose Party”) to have a platform to run for president. Presidents were not limited to serve two terms until the passage of the 22nd Amendment in 1947.
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wis., an assassination attempt was made on Roosevelt. He was shot in the chest, but the bullet was slowed down after passing through his eyeglass case and a copy of a speech he was about to deliver and did not puncture his lung. Instead of allowing himself to be taken to a doctor, he went on to give his speech that day. Ultimately, however, he lost his bid for a third term to Woodrow Wilson.

Roosevelt is depicted on Mount Rushmore, meaning that at least half of the presidents—Lincoln being the other—featured on the iconic memorial lived with a mental illness.

Theodore Roosevelt’s days were routinely jammed with undertakings, whether it was related to his job or leisure activities. He would often read more than a book every day—even as president—and wrote an estimated 150,000 letters. It is this, along with his extreme high energy that some historians believed that Roosevelt exhibited signs of hypomania and may have had bipolar disorder. However, unlike the majority of individuals with bipolar disorder, Roosevelt may not have experienced the other end of bipolar disorder: depression. In her book Exuberance: The Passion for Life, Kay Redfield Jamison suggests that 15 percent of individuals with bipolar disorder do not become depressed.
Theodore Roosevelt was able to channel his bipolar disorder and as a consequence, the nation prospered. Historians credit Roosevelt with changing the way the office of president is viewed by making character as important as the issues. Along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, Roosevelt is depicted on Mount Rushmore, meaning that at least half of the presidents—Lincoln being the other—featured on the iconic memorial lived with a mental illness. Roosevelt died on Jan. 6, 1919 from a heart attack. (NAMI)

Part III Black Dog Depression Bipolar Disorder

Winston Churchill and his “Black Dog” that Helped Win World War II

On Nov. 30, 1874, Winston Churchill was born into a family already of political prominence. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the eighth Duke of Marlborough, had become Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 30s, a role similar to that of Secretary of the Treasury in the United States.
Winston Churchill was also born into a family with a history of mental illness. Although it isn’t clear whether it was the consequence of neurosyphilis or schizophrenia, his father had displayed psychotic symptoms in his life and Winston’s daughter Diana, who had a major depressive episode in 1952, would ultimately die by suicide in 1963.

Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation . . . could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940

However, it was Winston Churchill’s own illness, which he referred to as his “black dog,” that played a major role in World War II and Churchill’s career development. Some suspect that it was Churchill’s recurrent episodes of depression that allowed him to realistically assess the threat of Germany. Because of his depression he may have understood that simply conciliating Hitler would not stop Germany from advancing across Europe.
In the years leading up to the war, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and many British leaders did not see, or wish to acknowledge, Hitler’s true motives and did not want to confront Germany’s advances with force. Churchill though was convinced that Hitler had sinister intentions. After Chamberlain’s resignation in 1940, Churchill was appointed prime minister and changed Britain’s political strategy from one of appeasement to one of active resistance.

In addition to serving as prime minister for decades, he wrote 43 books and had an extensive amount of correspondence.

Psychiatrist Anthony Storr described how Churchill used his experiences of depression to inform his political decisions: “Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation, whose courage was beyond reason and whose aggressive spirit burned at its fiercest when he was hemmed in and surrounded by enemies, could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940.”
It was Churchill’s experience with mental illness that ultimately allowed him to be successful leader. Looking back at Churchill’s life, it also becomes clear that he experienced symptoms of hypomania. His friend Lord Beaverbrook described Churchill as always either “at the top of the wheel of confidence or at the bottom of an intense depression.” During those periods when he wasn’t depressed, Churchill produced an incredible amount of work. In addition to serving as prime minister for decades, he wrote 43 books and had an extensive amount of correspondence. This has led many to suspect that Churchill may have lived with bipolar disorder.
Churchill’s depressive realism helped change the course of world history. He not only refused to submit to his black dog, he was able to use it to his advantage. If it were not for Churchill being influenced by his mental illness, the war in Europe might have ended in defeat for Britain, the U.S. and the rest of the Allies. Winston Churchill died in 1965 at the age of 90 after experiencing a stroke. (NAMI)

Part II

An American Icon and Depression: Abraham Lincoln

Everyone knows that Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the 16th President of the United States, but what is less commonly known is that Lincoln lived with major depression.
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Lincoln, David Herbert Donald wrote that Lincoln experienced depressive episodes after major life events, including the death of his first love, a broken engagement and the Second Battle of Bull Run.
“Was Lincoln's melancholy a ‘clinical depression?’ Yes—as far as that concept goes,” Joshua Wolf Shenk wrote in his 2005 book Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. “Certainly his condition in the summer of 1835 matches what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders labels a major depressive episode. Such an episode is characterized by depressed mood, a marked decrease in pleasure, or both, for at least two weeks, and symptoms such as agitation, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, and thoughts of death or suicide. Five and a half years later…Lincoln broke down again, and together these episodes suffice for modern clinicians to make an assessment of recurrent major depression.”
Though Lincoln battled depression, it never stopped him from changing the world and shaping American history. During his two presidential terms, Lincoln strategized behind the Civil War and saw victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, ended slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation and a Constitutional amendment and played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of the United States. (He also made Thanksgiving a national holiday.)
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., where Booth snuck up behind him and shot him at point-blank range in the head. After being in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died on April 15, 1865.
What’s important today is that we see Lincoln for the man he was. His mental illness was just one piece of a whole person—a person who changed the world and improved lives for others. Lincoln is an icon remembered for his vision and strength. (NAMI)

Crawling Out of the Darkness Part I

Walking and Fundraising for NAMI is important to me. Everyday, there will be one more person diagnosed with Depression, Anxiety, a Personality Disorder, have their first psychotic break and be classified as Schizophrenic, struggle with OCD, PTSD and commit suicide as a result. getting the word out there and helping people get appropriate treatment costs money.

Did you know that Gandhi, Virginia Wolf, Syd Barrett, Mike Wallace, Audie Murphy, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln all struggled with Depression? Neither did I? Did you know that medication was not available as it is today? Do you ever wonder what life must have been like for them. Falling into the deep black hole with just a small ray of light and climbing inch by inch towards that light until light replaces darkness. Being afraid to never reach the light.

Depression is just, but one disease.

"Broken by it, I, too, maybe; bow to it, I never will." (Abraham Lincoln)

"Never give in-----never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." (Winston Churchill)

"I may be branded by war, but I will not be defeated by it. " (Audie Murphy)

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)

Every time I reach out beyond myself, I find the hope that has led me out of the darkness." (Mike Wallace)

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Teddy Roosevelt)  

Walk For Mental Health With NAMI

6th Annual Greater Philadelphia NAMIWalk

Saturday May 18, 2013
Montgomery County Community College
340 DeKalb Pike
Blue Bell, PA 19422
Registration: 8:00 AM

Rally: 9:30 AM
Walk: 10:00 AM

Asbury Park and Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Damage from Sandy

Part of the sea wall came down

 

There were several roads closed due to mountains of sand.

Grounds of Statures Hamilton NJ