10 facts about famous writers with mental disabilities

The life of a gifted writer (especially if we are talking about literature) is always associated with a greater risk for the most vulnerable in man - his consciousness. A rise to fame of the great writer, no matter how smooth it seems, almost always accompanied by a dangerous flirtation with an unknown, forbidden or insane.

1. Lion Tolstoy



The author of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" famous complex scenes with lengthy philosophical and historical digressions. By creating its many characters (and they number more than one hundred) Tolstoy was trying to escape from the anguish and fear, which is experiencing painful quest for answers to the deepest questions of human existence.

The writer suffered from frequent, deep and lengthy bouts of depression. On the 83 th year of life, Tolstoy decided to become a wandering ascetic. Unfortunately, this last trip was short-lived. Leo fell ill with pneumonia, was forced to make a stop at a small station Astapovo, where he soon died.

2. Jonathan Svift



Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift, famous for, among other things, fantastic tetralogy "Gulliver's Travels" and satirical pamphlet "A Modest Proposal».

For a long time Swift led a life that is slowly but surely it sank into madness. Although, according to the writer Will Durant, "certain symptoms of mental disorder appeared in 1738," no one knows when it was passed the "point of no return».

We only know that in 1742 the state of mind of the writer was already far from rationality and stability. Durant describes, for example, the episode in which "five people held Swift, who tried to snatch his inflamed eyes." After this incident, the writer paused for a whole year did not say a single word.

3. Philip K. Dik



In late February 1974, when the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, who suffers from dependence on amphetamine, resting at his home after the removal of wisdom teeth, he had experienced a series of vivid hallucinations.

They repeated over the next few months - clearly geometric figures superimposed on the scene of religious content and seemed to Dick, gave new deep understanding of church history and literature.

"It seemed to me that I was mad all my life and suddenly gained the mind" - Dick described the offensive attack. He assured that since then began to live a double life, in which one half belonged to himself, and the other - Christian persecuted for their faith in ancient Rome. In this period it was written the novel "Radio Free Albemuth" trilogy and "Valis».

4. Howard Phillips Lavkraft



Fiction, Mystery and horror entwined in the works of HP Lovecraft in one bizarre piece. The writer suffered a severe sleep disorder. In the night visions of the writer creatures with webbed wings, which he called "night animals", lifted him into the air and carried on the "ugly plateau Lang." Lovecraft woke up in a completely crazy state.

However, danger to the fragile psyche of the writer not only lurked inside. The financial affairs of the family of the writer suddenly and rapidly rolled down the standard of living has deteriorated sharply, which was one of the causes of major depression; the matter is almost came to suicide. Later, in the torment of life Lovecraft added bowel cancer and inflammation of the kidneys, the pain of which was accompanied by the rest of the writer's life.

5. Jack Keruak



Jack Kerouac conceived his most famous work, "On the Road" conventional novel in ten chapters. What happened as a result, is the length of 36 meters, with a scroll written on it a continuous stream of consciousness (author, ending one typewritten page, stuck her tape to the previous).

This unique approach to literature do not seem quite so surprising, when you consider that Kerouac supported his creative powers detonating cocktail of alcohol, marijuana and Benzedrine.

Written off from the ranks of the US Navy with the wording "schizoid personality" Kerouac plunged into a life of jazz, drugs and traveling the world.

6. Ernest Heminguey



The psychological state of the "lump" of American literature, too, was far from being. A significant part of the life of Hemingway, as well as many other great artists who suffered from alcohol dependence. But there were other diagnoses - from bipolar disorder and traumatic brain injury to a narcissistic personality disorder.

As a result, the writer was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where, after fifteen sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, it does lose the memory, and the ability to formulate thoughts. And soon after discharge, in July 1961, he shot himself with his favorite gun.

7. The Marquis de Sad



Name the Marquis de Sade is associated with some kind of ... a way of life. His glorified revolutionary for its time, the idea of ​​sexual and moral freedom that Marquis recounted in numerous literary opus. A "sadistic" came to be called sexual satisfaction obtained by causing another person pain and humiliation.

In 1803, on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Marquis without trial he was first taken into custody, and then declared insane and placed in a psychiatric hospital Charenton. But there Sade managed to write plays and keep everything the same dissolute life until his death in 1814.

8. Sylvia Plat



In the famous novel "The Bell Jar" Sylvia Plath described his first suicide attempt. This happened in 1953. Clinical depression, which suffered Sylvia tried to treat relatively new and untested methods including electric shocks.

After the course of such therapy writer felt worse and tried to commit suicide. At the time, the attempt failed, and psychiatric intervention became even more intense.

There followed several unsuccessful attempts to settle accounts with life, until one day, thirty Sylvia Plath have not found dead in his apartment. Head of a woman lying in the oven, from which gas still went.

9. Edgar Allan Po



Consciousness is the author of "gloomy" stories of Edgar Allan Poe, it was full of the same demons that inhabited his work. After the death of his wife confessed to the writer: "By his bodily characteristics I impressionable - the nerves in a very extraordinary degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrific sanity ».

In October 1849 Poe shaky found in the streets of Baltimore delirious. He was unable to explain how he got there, and in general to say anything intelligible. The next day, he died at a local hospital.

10. Virginia Vulf



For searing prose of Virginia Woolf is not only a unique creative spirit and meandering turns of fate writer. Having lost in early adolescence, mother and sister Stella, and she suffered more sexual abuse by stepbrothers.

Throughout her life Virginia struggled with bouts of deep depression. She was not allowed to headaches, voices, visions, there were several serious nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts. March 28, 1941 Virginia stones filled the pockets of his coat and drowned in the river.

Source: www.daypic.ru

via factroom.ru