Help me find writing online about people's experiences with mental illness

November 13, 2011 5:10 PM

I'm hoping people can give me recommendations for compelling personal accounts of mental illness online - do you know of any?

It may sound like a strange or morbid question, but I'm looking for articulate blogs from people who struggle or have struggled with mental illness in various forms. If you have read insightful or compelling accounts, I would be glad for the recommendations. In the past, I have found books such as The Center Cannot Hold, Girl Interrupted, The Quiet Room, very helpful to understanding some individuals' experiences.

I thank you in advance!

posted by namesarehard to writing & language (19 answers total)

From a previous Metafilter post, The Episode. Not sure it counts because it began as drug-induced, but it's pretty harrowing.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:17 PM on November 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

"Darkness Visible" by William Styron is a pretty famous account of serious depression.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:28 PM on November 13, 2011

Of course that's not a blog sorry
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:29 PM on November 13, 2011

I've been meaning to read that - thanks for the reminder. And Devils Rancher, that looks like a very interesting link, thank you.
posted by namesarehard at 5:40 PM on November 13, 2011

Not sure that this is what you're looking for but the latest entry on Hyperbole and a Half is about depression.
posted by kat518 at 5:44 PM on November 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dooce is the obvious one, of course. She's very open about her struggles with depression and especially her post-partum experience after her first child. Her depression archive.
posted by pised at 5:53 PM on November 13, 2011

Living with Schizoaffective Disorder, by Michael Crawford. "You may be surprised to hear that I suffer from a devastating and poorly understood mental illness. I'd like to tell you what it's like to live inside my head. "
posted by Tufa at 5:56 PM on November 13, 2011

For a more scattershot approach, there's Dear Mental Illness, which publishes letters from people to their mental illnesses. No coherent narrative from one post to the other, but within each post, there's a whole lot of soul-searching and analysis of what various illnesses do to people's lives - and what they don't.
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 6:08 PM on November 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

As recently seen in Metatalk: this is about one woman's struggle coming to terms with an eating disorder. It's sequential art, rather than essay or blog, but definitely compelling.
posted by kitarra at 6:19 PM on November 13, 2011

I know this isn't writing, but In my Language is an excellent video written and created by a lady with sever autism.

As for writing e-health forums has a large number of stories written by people suffering from mental health issues.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 6:34 PM on November 13, 2011

I really liked Ask A Model Minority Suicide from Hyphen magazine.
posted by liketitanic at 6:47 PM on November 13, 2011

You might be interested in The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive.
posted by junques at 8:09 PM on November 13, 2011

Stephen Fry has written quite a bit about his own mental illness.
posted by theora55 at 8:22 PM on November 13, 2011

This isn't written, it's a video, but it has several self told accounts of their mental illness.
Voice of Hope and Recovery It was created by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.



Also have you seen the movie called Boy Interrupted? It's a documentary created by a father (who's a film maker) about his son with a mental illness. It has footage of his entire life from early childhood to later. His depression was so serious he was put on lithium for most of his life.
posted by udon at 9:44 PM on November 13, 2011

These all sound fascinating, thank you everyone so much. (If you weren't best answered, it's only because I already knew of it. Thanks!)
posted by namesarehard at 9:48 PM on November 13, 2011

Miss Banshee blogs about her mental illness sometimes (she struggles with depression and alcoholism, iirc). I found her blog through Roger Ebert awhile back.
posted by mismatched at 10:52 PM on November 13, 2011

The Mental Illness Happy Hour is a great podcast.
posted by Chenko at 5:28 AM on November 14, 2011

anything by kay redfield jamison...she's a psychiatry professor at...errr.....i forget, and is manic depressive herself
posted by sparkle55 at 8:47 PM on November 19, 2011

an unquiet mind , memoir by kay redfield jamison
posted by sparkle55 at 8:54 PM on November 19, 2011