Cultural Icons and Mental Illness

*Trigger Warning: suicide*

Looking back at some of the most influential people of our time, you can now have a better understanding of who they were as an individual out of the spotlight. With technological advances and many years spent studying them, we now are able to dig deeper and gain a more widespread understanding of some of the most impactful people to ever affect our culture. People like Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein are just some of the many cultural icons to be studied and researched in order to get a better grasp on who they really were, wondering specifically about how their mental health was.

Marilyn Monroe, an actress turned international sex symbol, took the world by storm and stole many hearts and interests. While her alluring voice and undoubtedly ridiculously attractive appearance took most of the attention, her personality and mindfulness was left in the shadows. The entire world embraced her body and good looks without ever wondering more about her (sigh - patriarchy back at it again). Scientific journalist Claudia Kalb has suggested that Marilyn more than likely suffered from borderline personality disorder, which is a mental illness.  Throughout the years after Marilyn’s suicide, people have worked endlessly trying to reach an understanding on her complex personality and obvious inner turmoil. People who worked with her left hints about her having a rather complex personality and unstable, if put lightly, love life. It is now obvious that Marilyn was dealing with extreme mental distress and probable borderline personality disorder. Could it be that one of the most sought after and beautiful woman was mentally ill?

Kalb also looked into Albert Einstein, arguably the smartest man to ever impact the science realm. Kalb thinks that is more than likely that Einstein had Asperger’s Syndrome. Studying his childhood and adulthood life, it became nearly crystal clear that he was on the autism spectrum. Asperger’s is a developmental disorder characterized by social awkwardness coupled with an extreme passion for one particular interest. Autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen concluded that there is a link between scientific genius and the Asperger’s end of the autism spectrum. Could it be that the man who we have to thank for such large scientific breakthroughs was actually mentally ill? 

Would society even accept this?  

    You may be wondering about what the point is in studying and uncovering a dead person’s mental health. It’s too late to be of some sort of help for them, but it could be a great help to all those currently living. Realizing that some of our most famous and beloved people in our history had suffered from mental illnesses can help to combat stigma and humanize mental illnesses. It makes the illnesses seem just a bit less scarier, if Einstein could achieve such historic greatness than so can another Asperger’s sufferer. Studies like these also introduce new questions and understandings. They offer new insight on diagnosing, after all how easy can it be to access a deceased person's mental health? They also lead us to discover new links between mental illnesses and creativity. Mood disorders are now known to have relations with creativity and artistic ability. The Asperger’s end of the autism spectrum is now known to be in relation to scientific genius. To see that these people weren’t held back by their illnesses (well at least not entirely) could provide hope and inspiration to others. You can still be sexy and admirable if you have a mental illness, we learned that from Marilyn. You can still be smart and important if you have a mental illness, we learned that from Einstein. These developments directly work against stigma and for the mental health community. You can be mentally ill and still achieve wonderful things. Also, realize that your illness can make other contributions, artistic or scientific, and don’t hold those sides of yourself back!