Mental Illness (And The Movie Black Swan)

Mercury roman GodI was beyond disturbed watching “mental illness” as it was portrayed in the movie, Black Swan.  I realize it’s just a movie but it’s a popular one and I wonder if may change people’s attitudes about mental illness.

I’ve always felt that mental health is worth working for.  If you’ve lost yours, t is worth working to regain it. If you’ve got your mental health, it’s worth making an effort to keep it. I realize that some mental illness is organic / chemical but I am talking about mental problems you can control which do exist.

Outside of Lois Rodden who wrote, Mercury Method of Chart Comparison, I am the only astrologer I know of who really gives Mercury (thinking) functions their due. Astrologer, James Braha also used a phrase I liked in one of his books, “mistake of the intellect”.   He felt an astrologer could and should re-wire the client’s thinking and there is no doubt you can spare a person a lot of mental anguish with this capacity.

Have you ever lost (a piece of) your mind and made a comeback?

27 thoughts on “Mental Illness (And The Movie Black Swan)”

  1. Yup.
    It’s not 100% yet, but it’s somewhere above 70% even on my foulest of foul-mood, “everything SUX” days.

    I can’t really talk about it now. It’s nebulous and still coalescing; I can’t see the final shape. But it’s gonna be glorious! *grins*

  2. Yes, I was at a very low point in my life, and I went all crazy! Not eating and becoming very paranoid. So out of the blue, I met a friend of my mothers and called my mother for help the next day. I went back home and she nursed me back to reality. It took 2 years to come back to life.

    This all happened right before my Saturn Return.

  3. goinghome, Lol!

    This happned when Uranus in Pisces was squaring my Sun in Gemini. I went all crazy until I came to a point where I just didn’t want to live this way anymore. By the time 2009 came around I felt better and by 2011, when Uranus left Pisces for good I was 100% sane.

  4. yes, not showering, curtains drawn, gun in the mouth depressed.

    Someone was kind to me that day while I was wandering around zoned…asked me if I was alright. It sort of snapped me into reality for a long enough time to realize whatever I was going through was visible to others and that I needed some help.

  5. Yes. I have also lost a piece of my mind and it never came back, too.

    Interesting timing Elsa–when I was searching for your psychopath video I came across a post (wish I could remember) and you were writing about how you and your then-fiancee were telling Vid stories of the past–about you being a “screaming banshee”

    and you said something like “I don’t mind thinking about it because mental illness is progressive and since I’m improving…”

    Sorry I can’t remember exactly what you said but I thought it very astute. Mental illness is indeed progressive. I do things like a daily crossword to keep my brain sharp. Reading upside down is good, too. Or writing backwards…

    Anyway. I realized summer of ’10 I was on the brink. I’m in therapy now and it helps a lot, pulls me back from the edge.

  6. I’ve had days when I felt like I was regaining my mental health, but for two weeks now, I’ve been in the hole once again. I didn’t want to get out of bed today, because of it. I shouldn’t even be on the boards, because nobody can do anything for me. I told my mother yesterday, that I had to get out pf the house, because I wanted to hurt myself – I didn’t want to be here anymore.

    I was in the process of re-wiring my brain when this happened. I’ve experienced backslides before, but this one included someone I was close to – someone who refuses to take responsibility for their side of things. they keep telling me that I’m not ‘awake’ – using whatever spiritual thing they’re following as an excuse to throw off any responsibility, because they refuse to talk about anything that led up to this. It’s only one part of what’s been wrong with me, but it’s been a big part for several reasons – one being that this person was one of the few that I really trusted and let in, and I resent the time lost, since he obviously was not worth investing in (after he kept contacting me, before I became expendable – if I told him where to go, he would be back within weeks or months. He just cut me off, because he doesn’t need me anymore, forever shifting 100% of the blame to me.) I need to get in the shower, and get out of here.

  7. that a lady had gone in to him claiming to be suicidal, and he told her, OK, then, good luck with that. (It is a pretty gossipy coffee shop).

    Like I said, he knew shit from shinola, and he really did care, if gruffly. I’ll take it… Another colleague of his, a woman, I interviewed many years ago when I was in real trouble to see if maybe she could help. Lightweight, IMHO, so I fired her before I hired her. Now, I’m in the same coffee/salon/intellectual circle as she is, and I’m laughing again. I have survived, partly because I made some good choices (like that one) and tried to stand up for myself. But I’m lucky to have survivied, for sure. It’s not a game, or a journey for the faint of heart.

    Astrology has been a far site more useful than therapy, for me. Some of us get complicated. Thanks AGAIN, elsa. it’s very useful to learn to use that Jupiter (amongst other things…)

    And, @ going home…they might never be thrilled about you coming back. The past few days, I’m thinking about a former-priest/life coach I knew who had who told me to buy a knife and keep it on my dresser where I could see it to teach me that even I (a woman) could learn that it’s OK, and maybe even a good thing to sever relationships sometimes. Best to everybody!

  8. Yes and yes.

    Not completely though.I can’t watch that movie because of certain ways I feel about some of the subject matter for instance.

    I used to be pretty batshit crazy.Now I’m only marginally so :)It’s the anxiety that causes me problems now.

    The upside is that where I used to think of ridding the earth of my presence,now I just want to crawl under a rock and that’s a fair bit better than wanting to harm yourself,I think anyway.

    ((salali)) You’re anything but expendable,imo 🙂

  9. Yes. Once in my late teens, and once around Christmas of 2005. Brutal, terrible, unspeakable.

    The first one, I never contemplated suicide. I just took on someone else’s issue and considered it to be my fault – everyone knew I was messed up, but no one knew any of it.

    The second one, I would be sitting at the end of our driveway waiting to pull out and think, “This could all be over right NOW.” That was what drove me to get help, actually – my kids would have paid the price for my decision, and I refused to do that to them.

    I got help. Counseling, medication (which I had stopped taking like a year before, which was stupid with my genetics anyway)…but those two alone are never enough. The meds act like a bandaid so you can begin to function and use your brain again…and do the work the counselor sets before you to do. Much introspection, much gnashing of teeth. It’s sucky work. And more than worth it.

    {{{salali}}} Oh, honey. I feel for you! I will be sending peaceful white light your way, and holding you in my thoughts.

  10. Yes, I’ve been very crazy before. Couple times. Once quite recently, although this usually happens to me after intense trauma and not out of the blue. I’ve got a pretty wired moon and jupiter square saturn so I can get polarized if you push me too hard.

    However, speaking of Black Swan…I just didn’t even get that movie. In fact I’ll sort of go as far as to say I thought it was stupid and obvious. O, Nina, show your shadow as the Black Swan, fuck the director, or be pure and innocent; this conflict will make you either homicidal or suicidal. I thought it gave mental illness a bad name because most crazy people are just a little more nuanced than that.

  11. I with SaDiablo!

    But I will add that sometimes what’s lost is better off left lost and replaced with higher grade material.

  12. This movie for me was a perfect example of Moon and Lilith in our charts, don’t you think?

    If you repress Lilith, something could explode.. all the sark female energy could be good use to create something.

  13. Mia–I agree and thanks for the suggestion because I would’ve never looked at it like this. My Lilith is conjunct Jupiter, sextile my Chiron. It is also sextile my mother’s Saturn. My mother was a tyrant when I was young (no longer) and one result of this tyranny was a deep fear I carried for a long time about sexuality. Chiron is in my 5th so I like the idea of the possibility of creation.

    Thanks for the food for thought.

  14. Yes, and when I came back I was more than 100% – I was better than I’d ever been. And I’m still improving. 😀

  15. Yes, with my second pregnancy. It was very rough on me. It hit hard and fast, and came out of nowhere, and lasted almost until my son’s second year. I feel very lucky, because I tackled the problem while researching an issue that I thought was completely unrelated. Turned out that my emotional difficulty was a symptom of a larger problem, not a problem on its own. I wish it could be this easy for everyone to live rx-free, and fully functional, I really do.

  16. yep end of saturn return and beginning of my son’s life. my darkest days should have been my lightest. i’d never felt more alone or more desperate. i see now it was saturn’s way of teaching (4th H transit square pluto and opposite MC), but then i just felt tortured and my mind got very twisted. when i could finally refocus, i could see how to move and in which direction i would find healinbg. have been trying to apply what i learned since then.

  17. I was leaving home for no reason at all and calling my poor mother to pick me up, if that isn’t crazy I don’t know what is. I feel so sorry for what I put my mother through I want to curse the day I was born but I can’t because of the entanglements . I feel sorry for us folks. Thanks for bringing this up with compassion, I sometimes lack compassion on my illness let alone my sad life. I wish it were different but I am cursed and I sometimes even blaspheme because of this!

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