This post is part of Celebrity Health Week at the b5media Health & Wellness Channel. For more information about Celebrity Health Week posts here at Mental Health Notes, visit Introducing Celebrity Health Week: Celebrities And Mental Illness.

In this Celebrity Health Week post, we’ll take a look at some celebrities who have either reportedly attempted suicide, or who have completed suicide.

Please note that I am not an authority on celebrities and mental illness, nor am I an authority on celebrities who have committed suicide. For a celebrity to be on this list, he or she or a spouse or reliable family member must have publicly discussed – verbally or otherwise – his or her suicide attempt or completion, or, in the case of the deceased, professionals must have addressed it later on.

Read on.

Halle Berry, actress, discussed her attempt at suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning with Parade.

Drew Carey, comedian, actor, and game show host, discussed his depression and two suicide attempts – one at the age of 18 and another in his 20s – with Nancy O’Dell of Access Hollywood.

Robert Van Winkle, aka Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby!), reportedly attempted suicide twice in 1994 after struggles with drug abuse, depression, and being dropped from his record label.

Drew Barrymore, former seriously troubled child star turned seriously successful actress and producer, attempted suicide during her early teenage years.

Gary Coleman, actor, disclosed two suicide attempts by sleeping pills in a 1993 Geraldo interview.

Brigitte Bardot, actress, reportedly attempted suicide twice.

Johnny Cash, country music singer, attempted suicide in 1967.

Walt Disney, Academy Award-winning film producer, screenwriter, director, animator, voice actor, and entrepreneur, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1930s.

Eminem, aka Marshall Mathers, rapper, reportedly attempted suicide in the mid 1990s.

Kim Mathers, Eminem’s two-time ex, reportedly attempted suicide in 2000.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, author, reportedly attempted suicide.

Judy Garland, actress, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1950s. Some speculate her accidental death by overdose was actually suicide.

Billy Joel, musician, reportedly attempted suicide in the early 1970s.

John McCain, the potential next President of the United States, reportedly attempted suicide during Vietnam.

Mindy McCready, country music singer, reportedly attempted suicide twice.

Sinead O’Connor, musician, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1990s.

Yoko Ono, artist, musician, and John Lennon’s widow, reportedly attempted suicide in the 1960s.

Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of F@&*#%g Darkness!, reportedly attempted suicide several times as a teenager.

Jack Osbourne, the Prince’s son, frankly discusses his depression, alcohol and substance abuse, and suicide attempt in his book 21 Years Gone: The Autobiography.

Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin, reportedly attempted suicide when he failed to gain Soviet citizenship.

Edgar Allan Poe, writer and poet, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1840s.

Lou Reed, musician whose parents confined to a mental hospital to “ward off” homosexual behavior, reportedly attempted suicide.

Donna Summer, singer, reportedly attempted suicide.

Elizabeth Taylor, actress, reportedly attempted suicide.

Tina Turner, singer, reportedly attempted suicide in the late 1960s.

Sid Vicious, former Sex Pistols bassist, reportedly attempted suicide in 1978. Vicious died of a drug overdose in 1979.

Hank Williams, Jr., singer and son of Hank Williams, Sr., reportedly attempted suicide in the 1970s.

Owen Wilson, actor, reportedly attempted suicide in 2007.

Sadly, the following celebrities completed their suicides:

• Kurt Cobain, musician and lead singer of Nirvana.
• Ernest Hemingway, writer.
• Margaux Hemingway, actress and Ernest’s granddaughter.
• Terry L. Long, Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman.
• Marilyn Monroe, actress. (Though this is speculated.)
• Sylvia Plath, poet.
• Freddie Prinze, actor and father of Freddie Prinze, Jr.
• Anne Sexton, poet.
• Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author.
• Vincent van Gogh, artist.
• Virginia Woolf, writer.

For more detailed lists, check out the NNDB’s lists of suicide attempts and suicide as causes of deaths.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information about suicide, as well as my letters to a few of the people discussed during Celebrity Health Week.

Image: Newscom

Post from: Blisstree

Celebrities And Suicide

This post is part of Celebrity Health Week at the b5media Health & Wellness Channel. For more information about Celebrity Health Week posts here at Mental Health Notes, visit Introducing Celebrity Health Week: Celebrities And Mental Illness.

We covered female celebrities with mental illnesses yesterday, and in this Celebrity Health Week post we’ll take a look at some male celebrities who have a mental illness – or had, in the case of the deceased. We’ll look at actors, singers, and other well-known male figures.

Please note that I am not an authority on celebrities and mental illness. For a celebrity to be on this list, either he or a spouse or reliable family member must have publicly discussed – verbally or otherwise – his mental illness, or, in the case of the deceased, professionals must have addressed it later on.

Read on.

In addition to the various male celebrities and well-known figures listed in yesterday’s Celebrities And Depression (including Owen Wilson, Mike Wallace, Rod Steiger, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dick Cavett, Buzz Aldrin, Frederic Chopin, Abraham Lincoln, Eugene O’Neill, and Tennessee Williams), the following popular male figures have battled mental illness:

Dave Matthews, whose music has helped me numerous times through my own depression and who cannot marry me because he’s already married (and because Wenti simply would not go for it), has spoken about being depressed in his life.

Barret Robbins, formerly of the Raiders, has battled bipolar disorder and alcoholism.

John Nash, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994 and the subject of A Beautiful Mind, lives with schizophrenia.

Earl Campbell, former football pro and current founder and president of Earl Campbell Meat Products, Inc., manages panic disorder and documented his life with panic disorder in The Earl Campbell Story: A Football Great’s Battle With Panic Disorder.

Willard Scott, former weather reporter for The Today Show, also deals with panic attacks.

Francis Ford Coppola, a world renowned filmmaker, is included in many directories of celebrities who have bipolar disorder.

Anthony Hopkins, a well-known actor, talked about his struggles with depression and alcoholism in a New York Times interview.

Sting, aka Gordon Sumner, has spoken of being manic depressive.

James Taylor, another brilliant musician, has spoken of depression.

Axel Rose, frontman of Guns N’ Roses and the singer of many of the songs on the soundtrack of my childhood, admitted to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has dealt with both depression and social anxiety disorder.

Freddie Prinze, Jr., actor, has spoken of his depression.

DMX, aka Earl Simmons, has admitted to having bipolar disorder.

Ben Stiller, hilarious actor, is pretty open about his bipolar disorder from what I gather.

Note that this is not a comprehensive list of male celebrities who have mental illness; it’s merely a list of the celebrities for whom I’ve found information. If you know of any others – and can provide credible sources – feel free to leave them in the comments.

Note, too, that many male political figures have been linked to mental illness (including Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Sen. Thomas Eagleton), as well as famous writers (such as James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway) but we’ll cover political figures and mental illness on Thursday and famous writers with mental illness on Friday.

Images: Newscom

Post from: Blisstree

Male Celebrities And Mental Illness

In this Celebrity Health Week post, we’ll take a look at some celebrities who have suffered from depression – or had, in the case of the deceased. We’ll look at actors and actresses, musicians, writers, political figures, and other well-known figures.

Please note that I am not an authority on celebrities and mental illness. For a celebrity to be on this list, either she or a spouse or reliable family member must have publicly discussed – verbally or otherwise – her mental illness, or, in the case of the deceased, professionals must have addressed it later on.

Many of the women from today’s earlier list of female celebrities and mental illness also make this list of celebrities and depression: Brooke Shields, Drew Barrymore, Halle Berry, Lorraine Bracco, Roseanne, Naomi Judd, Ashley Judd, Alanis Morissette, Natalie Cole, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn.

Read on for more.

Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore and once a First Lady-hopeful, spoke publicly about her depression with CBS News an has advocated against stigma, including holding the first ever White House Conference on Mental Health.

Kitty Dukakis, wife of Michael Dukakis and another one-time First Lady-hopeful, struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and documented her battles with depression and her success with electroconvulsive therapy in her book Shock.

Mike Wallace, correspondent for 60 Minutes on CBS, has spoken publicly about his battles with depression, including a suicide attempt, through various outlets including 60 Minutes and Larry King Live, and has even advocated for the fight against depression before the Senate. Read this CBS interview with Mike Wallace.

Rod Steiger, actor famous for is Academy Award-winning role as a bigoted Mississippi cop in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night, struggled with depression and, in addition to sharing his own story, also narrated Depression: Voice of an Illness.

Terry Bradshaw, former Pittsburgh Steelers star quarterback, has spoken publicly about his depression as well as encouraged others who suffer from depression to seek help.

Tom Wolfe, well-known author, claims to have been able to write his character Charlotte Simmons so well because of going through depression himself.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, an important author in American history, battled depression and alcoholism.

Dick Cavett, former talk show host, openly discussed his bouts with depression (I’ve also read manic depression), praised electroconvulsive therapy in People, and was the subject of A Patient’s Perspective, a Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association film in 1993.

Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut who – hello! – walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong in 1969, battled depression and alcoholism. Read Psychology Today’s Buzz Aldrin: Down to Earth and TIME’s 10 Questions for Buzz Aldrin.

Frederic Chopin, often regarded as the greatest Polish composer (I absolutely love Nocturne and am, as a matter of fact, listening to it right now) battled depression before his death 1849.

Clara Barton, regarded as the “angel of Civil War battlefields” and founder of the American Red Cross, struggled with depression and reportedly considered suicide.

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States and the one who issued a proclamation allowing my state to secede from Virginia, suffered from depression and “breakdowns,” all of which is documented in Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness.

Eugene O’Neill, famous playwright and Nobel Prize-winner, battled depression and alcoholism.

Tennessee Williams, another major American playwright, suffered from depression, alcoholism, and substance abuse, and never forgave his parents for allowing his sister to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy to treat mental agitation – it left her incapacitated for the remainder of her life.

Note that this is not a comprehensive list of celebrities who have battled depression; it’s merely a list of the celebrities for whom I’ve found information. If you know of any others – and can provide credible sources – feel free to leave them in the comments.

Stay tuned for information about male celebrities and mental illness, athletes and mental illness, and political figures and mental illness all this week!

Images: Newscom

Post from: Blisstree

Celebrities And Depression

Depending on how well you keep up with sports news, you may or may not have heard about former England football legend Paul Gascoigne checking himself into a Roehampton rehabilitation clinic after a series of suicide threats and attempts. According to the UK’s Telegraph, Gascoigne “has struggled for years with alcoholism and depression and was detained under the Mental Health Act in February.”

I’m always just a tad bit hesitant to discuss celebrities’ mental health news in the media. On one hand, I feel these public announcements (the news stories that are just that – news stories, and not actual accounts from the celebrities themselves) are utterly disrespectful of the celebrities’ privacy. To broadcast someone else’s struggles for ratings or page views is tacky and shows serious lack of regard for your fellow human beings.

On the other hand, I realize that some news stories can actually help boost mental health advocacy and bust stigma. Many people may see their favorite singers, actors, or sports heroes going through the same things they’re going through, and feel less alone. Sometimes such stories also spark other helpful mental health tools, such as the suicide warning signs I offered after Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s suicide. (However, at the same time, there are media sources like TMZ that accomplish nothing other than promoting stigma with their ignorant stories about troubled celebrities such as Britney Spears.)

When the media first made Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt public, my heart went out to him. And when Grey’s Anatomy star Justin Chambers finally explained why he’d been in a psychiatric ward for a serious sleep disorder, I wondered how frustrated he might have been to feel he should come forward and clear up rumors.

It’s difficult enough to deal with any kind of mental health situation without having to deal with the public’s opinions, too. I expect this turns out to be even more difficult for celebrities, because unlike the regular folk who make the news simply because of their mental health issues, celebrities have to continue being in the public eye long after the news of their problems hits the press.

I know the media will probably never stop reporting this kind of “news,” and, like I said above, sometimes it could actually be helpful (especially when the celebrities themselves publicly address the issue). However, before we start sensationalizing and sending the rumors flying, we should pause, realize that these people are fellow human beings who are going through the same things many of us go through, and take note of how we’d want to be treated.

Image: Newscom

Chato B. Stewart is currently rockin’ out in the This Is Why I ROCK! series here at Mental Health Notes. If you have a mental illness and are still living the life you love, head on over the the official announcement post and enter!

Post from: Blisstree

Celebrities And Mental Health: Private Matters Or Public Domain?