I hope you have enjoyed this month’s focus on human madness. We’ve looked at various insanity symptoms, famous nutters and ways to make yourself utterly mad. But no look at madness would be complete without looking at Madness — the British pop band, best known for the 1980’s hit “Our House”. (Although I see from Wikipedia that their musical genres include ska, New Wave (which really should be renamed after all this time) and 2 Tone.)
In our month-long look at madness, perhaps you didn’t want to kow about symptoms, treatment or a look at the famously insane and how they are depicted in movies. Perhaps you want tips on how you, too, can become a stark raving nuttter. There are two ways to do it — become an alcoholic and then go off the drink or fall deeply in love with someone you can never possibly talk to, let alone sleep with.
There are several adavantages to the second method, that of unrequited love. First of all, it’s free. Being an alcoholic takes a hell of a lot of money or learning how to shop lift and not get caught. And then you haveto drink like a fish for years in order to make conditions just right for the DTs. That takes way too much effort for those dedicated to the path of pereptual insanity.
With unrequited love, you don’t have anything to lose except your tiny little mind. Falling hopelessly in love happens instantaneously, so there are no skills to learn. It’s a lot like being hit by lightning, except an ambulance ride is usually not involved.
Our month-long look at madness marches on, looking now at what many feel is the biggest cause of insanity — the psychiatric profession. Granted, here’s the problem — people who are truly insane do not realize that they are insane and are a danger not only to themselves, but to others. Many claim that the psychiatric profession only strives to make people addicted to prescription drugs. However, one of the ways you know antidepressants or mood stabilizers are working as when you feel as if you don’t need to take them anymore. But many claim that “mad” people are merely differrent and should be left alone.
Last time on YouTube Digger, we began to look at history’s most notorious insane asylum, Bethlehem Royal Hospital in London (now in Kent), better known as “Bedlam”. It’s unknown how the nickname came about — since the modern word Bedlam is from the asylum’s nickname and did not exist before the asylum. Perhaps that was the best way some of the locals or unlucky inmates could pronounce it.
Conditions inside Bedlam were hopeless and despairing, very similar to a castle dungeon. The only medication you got was a thump on the back of the head and possibly a bucket of cold water. Although the original Bedlam was shut down before photographs, written letters from visitors still survive. They point out that if you weren’t mad by the time you enterred Bedlam, you definately were after a couple of days.
Our month of madness and mania would not be complete withut a peek into the world’s most famous asylum — Bethlehem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam (and, yes, the source for our word “bedlam”.)
Trying to treat the insane is baffling today — but imagine what it must have been like hundreds of years ago. Thousands of years ago, the insane would have either perished at the mouths of sabre-toothed tigers or risen to become the undisputed leader of their tribe. But hundred of years ago began the notion that everyone deserves some sort of care and that everyone can be cured.
Unfortunately, what came up was arguably not much better than letting get a person tough it out in the woods. It’s because of Bedlam that anyone is terrified of being diagnosed as having a metal illness like depression because they were scared of getting tossed in a modern equivielent of Bedlam. But there’s a big difference between a person with major depression — who still has a grip on reality — and someone who thinks the neighbor’s dog is the Devil.
In our month-long look at madness, we’ve looked at symptoms of madness, medical conditions that can be confused with madness and illnesses that can bring on madness. But, if you are an alcoholic, you can also induce madness by going off the drink. It’s worse if you stay on the drink, but in going sober you have to pass through a fun stage known as delirium tremens, or the DTs.
I’ve never gone through this, but I used to live with a career alcoholic. The first time I was able to help him through the DTs until someone could slip him a tranquilizer. That was relatively begin. He babbled about God talking to him, being shown visions about the meaning of life and having the trees talk to him. The best that it got was when he saw and heard a concert pianist and a grand piano up in the top of an oak tree. The worst that it got was when he was convinced that we were being surrounded by vampires and zombies.
But he could not stay off the sauce. Eventually, he went off again and after a few days, the DTs returned. The second time was not so good. At the end of it, I was the one who went to the hospital.
Not that you aren’t already paranoid enough about getting sick or going insane, but now we’re going to take a look at a little known illness called Huntingdon’s disease, also known as Huntingdon’s chorea. It’s a gradual disease that kills off brain cells in large numbers. It causes the victim to lose bodily coordination, the ability to take care of himself and eventually, all reason. It is not a contagious disease.
Earlier this month, YouTube Digger looked at mania. Now, we’re going to take a look at it’s more common and less severe younger sibling, hypomania (sometimes nicknamed “mania lite”).
Hypomania is a symptom of mental illness but it doesn’t mean that ther person is dangerous or needs to be committed to an asylum. Hypomania often happens to people suffering with bipolar disorder. However, hypomania can be really disruptive in a person’s life. Even though many people with hypomania report feeling euphoric, they still may not be able to make decisions, may not remember to keep commitmits and can really tick off family and friends. Many people with hypomania can manage their condition with medications and with practices like keeping a journal or entering therapy.
People with autism aren’t insane, although the popular belief is that they are. I’m including autism in our month-long look at madness just because so many people are under the impression that autistic people are insane or psychotic.
This is because they can have several problems in communicating with others or that they have the mental capacity of an infant. Once you get to know a person with autism, there tends to be a kind of logic in the things that they do that at first seem crazy, such as flapping their arms, walking in tight circles or rocking constantly. (Actually, rocking constantly can get very soothing, no matter if you’re autistic or not.)
Have you ever heard of the expression “mad as a March hare”? And if you haven’t, why not? Well, trust me — there’s an expression that goes “mad as a March hare”. I heard it used a lot in England (although I’m not sure if it was referring to me.) No month of looking at madness would be complete without looking at March hares and why they have such a reputation for being completely bonkers.
Growing up in America, I’d assumed that hares were just large rabbits. Nope. There are quite a few differences.
Hares have longer legs, longer ears and nastier attitudes. Although rabbits have been successfully domesticated, hares are still wild and free. Rabbit babies are born naked and helpless, while hares hit the ground running (so to speak). There are various species of hares, including the jackrabbit of America, the European Hare (which look like small deer with big ears) that I got to know in England and the Arctic Hare in — well, in the Arctic.
David Berkowitz (”Son of Sam”, but his real name was Richard David Falco) killed six women and wounded countless others. He also killed countless animals just for the heck of it and comitted arsonist. He terrorized New York City — wouldn’t that make him a terrorist?
He’s still alive, and still just as dangerous as in the mid-seventies, when he went on his infamous crime spree. Only now, instead of showing his psychosis through acts of violence, he is trying to ingratiate and seduce others into caring for him because he’s been supposedly “Born Again”.
Our month-long look at insanity continues with a peek at one of the most insane people who ever lived and died — David Berkowitz, better known as Son of Sam. He is one of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century.
He also heard voices and experienced religious mania, which is are symptoms of psychosis. Although most mentally ill people are not a harm to others, Berkowitz was a major exception. It is important to note that his first symptoms of being a psychopathic killer was killing his mother’s pet parakeet. Animal abuse is always the first sign, which is is why that madness needs to be taken more seriously as it is.
The fun continues here at YouTube Digger as we continue looking at YouTube clips devoted to various aspects of madness. Today, we’ll take a look at mercury poisoning. Hey, you can’t blame all forms of madness on genetics (such as you can with some forms of mental illness that induces psychosis.)
Mercury (or quicksilver) used to be a comon element in many industries, but now it’s being phased out due to risks of mercury poisoning. Even dental fillings are starting to come in other materials other than the usual quasi-reliable mercury fillings. However, mercury is now being blamed for everything from autism to bad plot lines in soap operas.
In the first part of our look at YouTube’s look at Rasputin (the Mad Monk of Russia — not to be confused with the horrible Eddie Murphy character Rasputina), we focused mainly on how this charismatic and crazy character was portrayed in the movies. But what we do we know about the real guy? Quite a bit. People apparently loved to write about him when they met him. Rasputin was a guy you either loved or hated. There wasn’t any middle ground with him.
Our month long look at insanity turns now to look at a figure from history who was known as The Mad Monk — Grigori Efimovich Rasputin. He’s known best for helping ease the pains of hemophillia of the Tsarist family, his huge sexual appetite and that it took him seemingly forever to die (despite being shot and poisoned, it took drowing to finally do him in).
Now, one problem with looking at an historical figure commonly known to be insane is that history is always written by the winners. In this case, the winners were the communist revolutionists of 1917, Russia. But historians of all political persuations seem to agree that he was definitely a whacknoodle, albeit a really entertaining whacknoodle.
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