Psychedelic drugs were once hailed as a magic bullet treatment for all kinds of psychological illnesses and addictions. Drugs Inc s2e4: Hallucinogens, National Geographic 2012
We don’t usually think of them as mentally ill. Prison Nation, National Geographic 2007
Prisons have effectively become the new asylums. ibid.
Up to 50% of the mentally ill are in segregation. ibid.
Harming themselves is the one thing they can control. ibid.
Broadmoor – a place with a sinister past that’s synonymous with some of the country’s most notorious offenders. David Wilson, Broadmoor: A History of the Criminally Insane I, CI 2013
The Victorians used to be proud of Broadmoor. ibid.
There are about 260 patients living in Broadmoor. ibid.
The killer Richard Dadd – a prominent nineteenth-century artist. Dadd murdered his own father on 28th August 1843: he was declared insane. ibid.
Children were sent there too. ibid.
The McNaughton rule was born, and for forty years defendants suffering from mental illness were deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. ibid.
Insanity: an inability to reason because of mental illness. Insanity has a wide reach. ibid.
As Queen Victoria’s reign came to an end the numbers of female patients was close to 200. ibid.
Psychiatric therapies were continuing to be developed. ibid.
Can mental illness and human nature ever really be governed? ibid.
It’s what you’d call a mixed marriage, or an inter-marriage, in that the girl was paranoid and the boy was schizophrenic. And there was a big conflict on which way they would bring up the children. Woody Allen, The Sid Caesar Show
The foundation of all mental illness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering. Carl Jung
About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be defined as the general neurosis of our times. C G Jung
Winny the Willy Grater. Rab C Nesbitt s6e2: Wild, spoof Broadmoor patient, BBC 1997
A national objective of the National Mental Health Program is to increase our fund of scientific knowledge about mental health and about mental illness. We’re not doing this. Why? Because there are all too few skilled mental health workers. Dr Robert H Felix, director new American Mental Health Project
Medication time. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 1975 ***** starring Jack Nicholson & Louise Fletcher & William Redfield & Brad Dourif & Sydney Lassick & Danny DeVito & Christopher Lloyd & Will Sampson & Dean Brooks & William Duell & Vincent Schiavelli et al, director Milos Forman, nurse’s morning announcement
I fight and fuck too much. ibid. Randle to Doc
I’m a goddamn marvel of modern science. ibid.
Put it in the basket, Chief! ibid. Randle plays basketball
I tried, didn’t I, goddamnit. At least I did that. ibid. Randle
Which one of you nuts have got any guts? ibid.
I want that television set turned on right now! ibid. Randle to Ratched
She’s something of a cunt, ain’t she, Doc? ibid. Randle to Doc
You all crazy? ibid. Candy to boys
He’s not crazy but he’s dangerous. ibid. Doc
I’d like to keep him on the ward. I think we can help him. ibid. Nurse Ratched to Shrinks
You’re going to stay with us until we let you go. ibid. auxiliary
What do you think you are, for Christ sake, crazy or something? Well you’re not. You’re not. You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walking around the streets. ibid. Randle
Time spent in the company of others is very therapeutic. ibid. Nurse Ratched
You fooled ’em, Chief. You fooled ’em all. ibid. Randle
They was giving me ten thousand watts a day and I’m hot to trot. Next woman takes me on is gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars. ibid.
Everyone has an angel, a guardian who watches over us. Sucker Punch 2011 starring Emily Browning & Abbie Cornish & Jena Malone & Venessa Hudgens & Jamie Chung & Carla Gugino & Oscar Isaac & Jon Hamm & Scott Glen et al, director Zack Snyder, opening remarks
Lennox House For The Mentally Insane. ibid. sign
If carefully trained they can be taught simple routine tasks. Once they have been born, defectives are happier and more useful in these institutions when at large. It would have been better by far for them and the rest of the community if they had never been born. Public Information Eugenics film, cited The Queen’s Hidden Cousins
Drugs were quite widely used ... To sedate them and tranquillize them ... And the other was to punish them. Professor Jan Walmsley
I’m thinking about cleaning up that storm shelter out back. Take Shelter 2011 starring Michael Shannon & Jessica Chastain & Shea Whigham & Katy Mixon & Kathy Baker & Ray McKinnon & Lisa Gay Hamilton & Tova Stewart & Stuart Greer et al, director Jeff Nichols, hero
The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me. The neighbourhood is impoverished. I had once Richardson and Lawrence in my reach. Mrs Allen is dead. My house has lost Levet, a man who took interest in everything, and therefore ready at conversation. Mrs Williams is so weak that she can be a companion no longer. When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking, except that Dr Brocklesby for a little keeps him at a distance. Dinner with a sick woman you may venture to suppose not much better than solitary. After dinner, what remains but to count the clock, and hope for that sleep which I can scarce expect. Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from an habitation like this? Samuel Johnson
Your path is not one of merit. Bring the recurring desires of your mind to me, every time they emerge. They cannot shock me, for I willed them! Bring me your confusion, your fear, your craving, your anxiety, your inability to love the world, your hesitation to serve, your jealousy, all the deficiencies that defy your spiritual disciplines. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
It seemed like this was one big Prozac nation, one big mess of malaise. Perhaps the next time half a million people gather for a protest march on the White House green it will not be for abortion rights or gay liberation, but because we’re all so bummed out. Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation
In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression. Dr Sterling was right about that. I loved it because I thought it was all I had. I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony. ibid.
Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on? ... I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t. I don’t want any more vicissitudes, I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted. ibid.
Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family’s mental health. Susanna Kaysen, ‘Girl, Interrupted’
Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself. William Shakespeare, Macbeth V iii
PTSD is a whole-body tragedy, an integral human event of enormous proportions with massive repercussions. Susan Pease Banitt