# Stars with mental disorders **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 19, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571 "2016-02-19T18:55:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/41 "2016-02-21T05:20:02Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Truman Capote has long been believed to have been a sociopath He had a great understanding of emotions for a sociopath. His rival Gore Vidal, on the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. He was a bastard’s bastard and unable of expressing warmth or compassion even in his fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/42 "2016-02-21T12:55:44Z")
Townes Van Zandt suffered from depression as a young man, and had some fairly terrifying sounding treatment in the early 60s that left him pretty damaged, including short term memory loss. It seems like his drug and alcohol addictions were a response to both the illness and unsuccessful treatment. I’ve read a biography of him and it sounds like he had a generally unhappy life, despite seeming to have a happy childhood. ---
**Author:** ![Satellite\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Satellite\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satellite_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/43 "2016-02-21T13:47:03Z")
I was going to say Gary Busey, but upon reading [his wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Busey), I discovered that it would have been caused by an accident injury. It’s mentioned under the **Personal Life** header. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/44 "2016-02-21T16:04:19Z")
I don’t like posting this, since I am a huge fan of hers. But it’s pretty obvious **Joni Mitchell** suffers from at least one mental disorder. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/45 "2016-02-21T16:22:57Z")
Convicted murderer Phil Spector. [“He has said during interviews that at some point he was diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder.”](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200904/dangerous-genius-the-rise-and-fall-phil-spector) ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/46 "2016-02-21T17:09:13Z")
Frances Farmer ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/47 "2016-02-21T17:39:45Z")
Counting Crows lead singer/chief lyricist [Adam Duritz](http://www.miaminewtimes.com/music/counting-crows-adam-duritz-discusses-mental-health-and-metaphors-7781223) claims to suffer from a dissociative disorder. Also, Swedish black metal musician [Per “Dead” Ohlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_%22Dead%22_Ohlin) suffered from a few disorders. Reports vary on the cause (ice skating accident or beaten by a bully as a child), but he suffered a ruptured spleen, and was technically dead for a few minutes. From his [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_%22Dead%22_Ohlin#Performances) entry: > [@wikipedia](#): > > For concerts, Dead went to great lengths to achieve the image and atmosphere he wished. From the beginning of his career, he was known to wear “corpse paint”, which involved covering his face with black and white makeup. According to Necrobutcher, “\*t wasn’t anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn’t do it to look cool”. Hellhammer claimed that Dead “was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint”. To complete his corpse-like image, Dead would bury his stage clothes and dig them up again to wear on the night of a concert. According to Hellhammer: > > “Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that grave scent. He was a corpse on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground — he wanted his skin to become pale.” > > During one tour with Mayhem, he found a dead crow and kept it in a plastic bag. He often carried it about with him and would smell the bird before going onstage, to sing “with the stench of death in his nostrils”. He also kept dead birds under his bed. > > Dead would cut himself while singing onstage. During a gig in 1990, he slashed his arm with a broken bottle. Faust claims that Dead had to be taken to hospital after the gig, but arrived too late and so “it was no use to give him stitches”. > > In an interview done by Marduk guitarist Morgan ‘Evil’ Håkansson and published in Slayer fanzine, Dead explained how he and the band tried to weed-out poseurs at their concerts: > > “Before we began to play there was a crowd of about 300 in there, but in the second song ‘Necro Lust’ we began to throw around those pig heads. Only 50 were left, I liked that! […] We wanna scare those [who] shouldn’t be at our concerts and they will have to escape through the emergency exit with parts of their body missing, so we can have something to throw around. […] If someone doesn’t like blood and rotten flesh thrown in their face they can FUCK OFF, and that’s exactly what they do.” He went on to commit suicide. He slit his own throat, and both of his wrists. Right after, he put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. One of his bandmates found the body, and took pictures of it. They used one of the pictures as the cover for their bootleg live album _Dawn of the Black Hearts_. I won’t link to the artwork, but it’s easily found using google. His suicide note read: > [@Per "Dead" Ohlin](#): > > Excuse the blood, but I have slit my wrists and neck. It was the intention that I would die in the woods so that it would take a few days before I was possibly found. I belong in the woods and have always done so. No one will understand the reason for this anyway. To give some semblance of an explanation I’m not a human, this is just a dream and soon I will awake. It was too cold and the blood was frozen in time, plus my new knife is too dull. If I don’t succeed dying to the knife I will blow all the shit out of my skull. Yet I do not know. I left all my lyrics by “Let the good times roll”—plus the rest of the money. Whoever finds it gets the fucking thing. As a last salutation may I present “Life Eternal”. Do whatever you want with the fucking thing. / Pelle. > > I didn’t come up with this now, but seventeen years ago.[4] It’s been speculated that Per suffered from [Cotard Delusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion), stemming from his ruptured spleen. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/48 "2016-02-21T19:21:20Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Townes Van Zandt suffered from depression as a young man, and had some fairly terrifying sounding treatment in the early 60s that left him pretty damaged, including short term memory loss. It seems like his drug and alcohol addictions were a response to both the illness and unsuccessful treatment. I’ve read a biography of him and it sounds like he had a generally unhappy life, despite seeming to have a happy childhood. Are you referring to electro-convulsive therapy (ECT)? It could be a very brutal treatment back in the day; it’s much less so now and is only used when less drastic measures don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/49 "2016-02-21T21:29:38Z")
Is there a distinction to be made between a drug dilettante-turned-addict and someone who came by their mental illness, shall we say, organically? Or is the final result all that matters? I understand Jonathan Winters was stuck in character as Maud for several months and spent lots of time institutionalized. “These voices are always screaming to get out,” he explained. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/50 "2016-02-22T00:33:11Z")
I’m in the middle of Werner Herzog’s documentary “My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski” and hoo boy, did Mr. Kinski have ISSUES. Yeesh. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/51 "2016-02-22T06:06:28Z")
Michael Jackson had more than his fair share. ETA - what about Prince? He’s obviously nutty as a fruitcake, but is he mentally ill? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/52 "2016-02-22T07:08:09Z")
In my decidedly non-professional opinion, Ted Nugent is way beyond eccentric and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a Robert Blake/Phil Spector waiting to happen. Erin Moran from _Happy Days_ is a sad and pitiful shell of a person due to obvious mental issues and substance abuse. Per entertainment sites Henry Winkler tried to help her out by getting her a role on the revival of _Arrested Development_ but she couldn’t pull it together enough to do it. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/53 "2016-02-22T07:55:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > He had a great understanding of emotions for a sociopath. His rival Gore Vidal, on the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. He was a bastard’s bastard and unable of expressing warmth or compassion even in his fiction. Vidal could be a prick but that assessment is still rather harsh. He wasn’t incapable of expressing warmth or compassion so much as good at concealing it. Vidal’s reputation was that of a vitriolic cynical gadfly and overtly displaying warmth and compassion would be a sign of vulnerability that his many enemies could easily exploit. I do think toward the end of his life he do go down some weird rabbit holes (e.g., the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing was an inside job and Timothy McVeigh was a martyr) but that was due to age-related mental problems. ---
**Author:** ![Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waltzes_with_Cacti)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/54 "2016-02-22T12:34:56Z")
There’s been speculation in the press that Keanu Reeves is on the autism spectrum because he avoids eye contact. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/55 "2016-02-22T22:10:26Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Are you referring to electro-convulsive therapy (ECT)? It could be a very brutal treatment back in the day; it’s much less so now and is only used when less drastic measures don’t work. That and [insulin shock therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_shock_therapy). It sounds a lot worse than ECT. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/56 "2016-02-22T22:27:27Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I don’t like posting this, since I am a huge fan of hers. But it’s pretty obvious Joni Mitchell suffers from at least one mental disorder. 😕 Why are you reluctant to post it, and why are you calling it “obvious” as though it’s something you personally deduced rather than something that Mitchell has publicly discussed? Mitchell has long acknowledged that she suffers from Morgellons syndrome, which is a mental illness. AFAICT it’s not definitively determined what **kind** of a mental illness Morgellons is: the mainstream opinion at present seems to be that it’s a psychosomatic disorder, whereas some researchers think it can be connected to detectable neurologic impairments. But acting as though such conditions are shameful or that mentioning them somehow counts as disparagement is counterproductive for all mental illness sufferers. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/57 "2016-02-23T19:08:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Mitchell has long acknowledged that she suffers from Morgellons syndrome, which is a mental illness. But does she herself characterize her Morgellons as a mental illness? Because that would be kind of a paradox, since the point of Morgellons is that suffers think they really are infected/infested with a disease/parasite that the medical establishment has yet to recognize, whereas medical specialists think they are physically healthy and all manifestations are the result of some sort of mental disorder. BTW, great post, I applaud and affirm your progressive views on mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/58 "2016-02-23T19:39:41Z")
Phil Ochs fell apart pretty spectacularly in the last years of his life, including taking on the alternate persona of “John Train” for several months… he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Jaco Pastorius, a hugely talented jazz bassist who was in Weather Report from 1976 to 1981, was destroyed by his bipolar disorder. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/59 "2016-02-23T20:48:47Z")
I’ve read that Drew Carey and Wayne Brady both suffer from depression. Comedian Richard Jeni was diagnosed with severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of insomnia and psychotic paranoia. I don’t remember seeing Kim Basinger mentioned. She is agoraphobic. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571/60 "2016-02-23T21:35:06Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > I remember those chapters, but didn’t know it was Vivien Leigh. For some reason I thought he was talking about Marilyn Monroe. I had thought it might be Judy Garland, but certain details didn’t seem to fit for her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stars-with-mental-disorders/746571.md?page=4)