Earnest Hemingway suffered with depression, borderline and narcissistic personality traits, bipolar disorder and, later, psychosis coalesced to create Hemingway’s personal hell. Rather than turning to physicians or therapists for help, Hemingway used alcohol, engaged in risk-taking sportsmanship activities and wrote to cope. The author’s mental and physical health deteriorated so rapidly during the last years of his life — primarily due to alcoholism — that he finally accepted electroshock treatments in 1960.
However, despite suffering from multiple psychiatric disorders, Hemingway was able to live a vibrant life until the age of 61 and within that time contribute immortal works of fiction to the literary canon. His work is loved by many and not many people know he suffered with mental illness. Here is some of his work I will take inspiration from when creating a small poem based on mental health as if from the view of a patient.
Another writer I looked at was Sylvia Plath. I am currently looking at her ex-husband in my English Literature lessons and have recently found she suffered with mental health.
While still in college, Plath plummeted into depression and was hospitalized and treated with shock therapy. She described her hospitalization as a “time of darkness, despair, and disillusion — so black only as the inferno of the human mind can be — symbolic death, and numb shock — then the painful agony of slow rebirth and psychic regeneration.”
Here is some of her work:
http://www.neuroticpoets.com/plath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath_effect#Sex_differences
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