Below is the text of an email I received. I have not read the sited book so cannot verify the information, but hope that it has veracity since I’m printing it here. If anyone has any additional information please let me know.
“Abraham Lincoln is one of the many people who accomplished greatness without medication!!!!! Thank God his brain wasn’t forced on medicaciton and damaged that way.
Below is a great argument for finding alternative ways to prevent violence without oppressing individuals and without using unnecessary force!
Society can benefit from inspiring everyone to attain their potential and be productive members of society rather than locked up in a mental institution or forced on medication!
Please read on…..
‘School violence: threat assessment’
Please consider the following profile of a troubled young adult, based on an actual case history:
- Talked about suicide for weeks at a time.
- Reportedly wrote dark poetry about thrusting a dagger in his heart and “draw[ing] blood in showers!”
- Was described as “indifferent to transpiring events,” and having “little to say” for extended periods.
- Was known to “go crazy,” requiring the removal of knives and dangerous items from his room.
- Used opiates and cocaine.
- Wandered around with a gun during periods of suicidal ideation.
- Was fascinated by a woman he was too shy to approach.
- Was described as being in a “morbid” state.
- Collapsed while speaking openly of his hopelessness and thoughts of suicide.
- Was eventually diagnosed with “recurrent major depression.”
Who was this risk to society?
The answer is Abraham Lincoln . Source: Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (2006).”
The link to the website directs one to finding out that NAMI and NMHA have honored the author. This is not surprising, but I’d like to ask them if they think that drugging the heck out of people doesn’t perhaps take the creative edge off? Lincoln forged his life bravely and painstakingly, I imagine–without the use of drugs other than as a young man as indicated in this note. NAMI instead supports the use of mind-numbing and often brain-damaging drugs.
At this point I’m curious to read the book.
Even so–I think it’s easy with information like this to romanticize mental suffering and I don’t want to do that. I still think that suffering can be diminished without drugs in a multitude of ways. If Lincoln had access to alternative methods of healing that did not blunt his brains like drugs do, I’m sure he would have thrived just as well.
Discover more from Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry
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I think its frightening. Today everyone has to be normal or else child protective services is called. The genius’s like Einstein and Nikola Tesla if born and children growing up today would be “helped” for their abnormal habits. How many unique thinkers and artists is humanity losing?
Jon,
That’s one take on it, but the author has another believing that it was the depression itself that fueled his greatness…as the title reads. “Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness.”
Our struggles are often what make us stronger. I would imagine that is true for you as well. No one who has struggled with mental anguish with some success is not better for it in some ways. Granted there are people who lose the struggle–those are the people who need care and CHOICES. That is what this blog is all about–having choices which include the choice to heal naturally.
thanks for your comment.
Can you imagine how much more Lincoln might have accomplished if he had his “melancholy” under control?
Oh it’s a wonderful book, an unplug-the-phone-stay-up-all-night-
and-miss-work-the-next-day compulsive read.
As for romanticizing mental illness, I like the facts to speak for themselves, what people want to add to them in the name of criticism is their own exaggeration.
Here’s a provocative thought to add to this: what do you suppose “now a day” society would have dx Lincoln’s killer? I bet he would have been ripped through the media, NAMI and TAC among others.