Glenn Close on overcoming Mental Illness’ Stigma of Silence: “It’s just the beginning. Words are very powerful.”
Sunday, October 25th, 2009Filed under: Themes, The UpDown Report, Irked Videos
Glenn Close is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award winning actress. Over the last year, she has worked with some visionary groups to start BringChange2Mind.org, an organization that strives to inspire people to start talking openly about mental illness.
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Mental illness and I are no strangers.
From Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction to Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire to Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Sunset Boulevard, I’ve had the challenge — and the privilege — of playing characters who have deep psychological wounds. Some people think that Alex is a borderline personality. I think Blanche suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and everyone knows that Norma is delusional.
I also have the challenge of confronting the far less entertaining reality of mental illness in my own family. As I’ve written and spoken about before, my sister suffers from a bipolar disorder and my nephew from schizoaffective disorder. There has, in fact, been a lot of depression and alcoholism in my family and, traditionally, no one ever spoke about it. It just wasn’t done. The stigma is toxic. And, like millions of others who live with mental illness in their families, I’ve seen what they endure: the struggle of just getting through the day, and the hurt caused every time someone casually describes someone as “crazy,” “nuts,” or “psycho”.
Even as the medicine and therapy for mental health disorders have made remarkable progress, the ancient social stigma of psychological illness remains largely intact. Families are loath to talk about it and, in movies and the media, stereotypes about the mentally ill still reign. [Continue reading Glenn's beautiful thoughts...]
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Watch this full-of-love-and-life video of Glenn and Jessie Close. They embody the term “sisterhood”:
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Visit BringChange2Mind.org
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Watch BringChange2Mind’s YouTube channel
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Watch Glenn & Jessie on Good Morning America
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Jessie’s son Calen Pick, a brilliant painter, has schizo-affective disorder
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Read all Irked posts tagged “mental illness”
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Part of Tom Wootton’s standard opening to his talks on mental illness is to pause, scan the audience and call for a show of hands. ”How many of you have a condition such as bipolar, schizophrenia or depression?” he’ll ask and then do a quick count. “Quite a few. That’s wonderful.” Wonderful? Personality disorders, often debilitating and source of much heartache, are rarely spoken of in such glowing terms. Yet, Wootton, 53, is not your average advocate for the mentally ill. Diagnosed with all three conditions in 2002, the former Silicon Valley high-tech executive has made it his calling to point out the positives that come with the illness. As he wrote in his 2005 memoir, “The Bipolar Advantage,” controlled episodes of manic behavior and hallucinations, and even the flip side, depression, can be harnessed to one’s betterment. His new book, “Bipolar in Order,” is slated to be published in late September. The Sacramento Bee talked recently to Wootton. Here are the highlights:
