BLOG ONE - Module ONE

What do you already know about mental illness? How has literature (stories, films, books) or popular culture (advertisements, television, radio, music, etc.)  shaped what you know about mental illness?

Kia's response:
I feel like I know a lot about mental illness; at the same time, I know very little. I have always been interested in reading about/exploring stories about people dealing with anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar issues, etc. I remember as a high school and college student reading not only fiction and drama about individuals with mental illness but also nonfiction written about/by people with mental illness. Some of my favorite texts as a teen included William Styron's Darkness Visible, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Go Ask Alice, and Willam Inge's Dark at the Top of the Stairs.

A lot of what I know about mental illness comes from courses I took in college as a Psychology (and English) major. Of course, that was in the eighties, and since then, many things have been reexamined, relabeled, or redefined.

Finally, I have watched many films about people with mental illness, such as Sybil, The Snake Pit, Primal Fear, and  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Other films (television) include Call Me Crazy, Strange Voices, Obsessed, The Deliberate Stranger, The Hillside Strangler, etc.

One thing I've noticed about how mental illness portrayals in recent video/television is that they are equal in terms of gender; that is, individuals who deal with psychological issues are both male and female. A recent study notes: "Men more likely to develop substance abuse, antisocial problems; women more likely to develop anxiety, depression"  http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/08/mental-illness.aspx