“I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.”

“I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‘There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.’ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.”

In many biographies, interviews and her own writings, Marilyn Monroe expressed a wide range of feelings and insights on being an actor that can still be meaningful for performers and other artists.

[Photo: Portrait of Actress Marilyn Monroe on Patio of Her Home, by Alfred Eisenstaedt.]

That first quote, about ‘Marilyn’ being a ‘veil’ she wore over her earlier identity, comes from a Vanity Fair article: The Lost Marilyn Monroe Nudes: Outtakes from Her Last On-Set Shoot Revealed in June’s V.F. (May 1 2012), which includes excerpts from Lawrence Schiller’s memoir Marilyn & Me: A Photographer’s Memories.

Acclaimed for her portrayal of Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn,” based on extensive research, Michelle Williams commented: “The biggest discovery I made was that Marilyn Monroe was a character she played.”

[From my post Michelle Williams on Interpreting Marilyn Monroe.]

Also see quotes by other actors in my related post Actors on building identity.

During a photography session, Marilyn Monroe told writer Schiller, “I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.”

Schiller asked, “So, do you pose for the photographer or for the mirror?” “The mirror,” she replied without hesitating. “I can always find Marilyn in the mirror.”

But, the article continues, “Marilyn’s attitude about her sex-symbol status fluctuated wildly. While she was at times boastful of her looks and what they procured for her, she was also by turns insecure and angry.

“It’s still about nudity. Is that all I’m good for?” she demanded of Schiller. “I’d like to show that I can get publicity without using my ass or getting fired from a picture,” she continued.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

[Photo from webpage: Norma Jean Dougherty before Marilyn Monroe [has quotes with multiple photos - some nudes].

An earlier article, Marilyn and Her Monsters, by Sam Kashner (Vanity Fair, Nov 2010) includes many quotes from the book Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters – by Marilyn Monroe, edited by Stanley Buchthal and Bernard Comment.

Kashner writes about her shyness or insecurity as an acting student.

“She was always late for class, usually arriving just before they closed the doors. The teacher was strict about not entering in the middle of an exercise or, God forbid, in the middle of a scene. Slipping in without makeup, her luminous hair hidden under a scarf, she tried to make herself inconspicuous.

“She usually took a seat in the back of one of the dingy rooms in the Malin Studios, on 46th Street, smack in the middle of the theater district. When she raised her hand to speak, it was in a tiny wisp of a voice. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, but it was hard for the other students not to know that the most famous movie star in the world was in their acting class.

“A few blocks away, above Loew’s State Theater, at 45th and Broadway, there was the other Marilyn—the one everyone knew—52 feet tall, in that infamous billboard advertising Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch, a hot blast from the subway grating causing her white dress to billow up around her thighs, her face an explosion of joy.”

Monroe “began working with Lee Strasberg and embarked upon the psychoanalysis that was de rigueur for taking classes at the Actors Studio.”

Mental health and challenging relationships

Her mother, Gladys Monroe Baker, “was a schizophrenic who spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals… Marilyn was virtually abandoned, raised by various foster families and by Grace Goddard, a close friend of her mother’s.”

When she was just 16, the article notes, she married James Dougherty.

“My relationship with him was basically insecure from the first night I spent alone with him,” she wrote in a long, undated, somewhat rambling memoir of that marriage, probably written by hand after undergoing analysis…”

She wrote, “I was greatly attracted to him as one of the [“only” is crossed out] few young men I had no sexual repulsion for besides which it gave me a false sense of security to feel that he was endowed with more overwelming qualities which I did not possess—on paper it all begins to sound terribly logical but the secret midnight meetings the fugetive glance stolen in others company the sharing of the ocean, moon & stars and air aloneness made it a romantic adventure which a young, rather shy girl who didn’t always give that impression because of her desire to belong & develope can thrive on—I had always felt a need to live up to that expectation of my elders.”

In one of her notebooks, the article notes, Monroe wrote about being punished by her great-aunt Ida Martin, a strict, evangelical Christian paid by Grace Goddard to look after Norma Jeane for several months from 1937 to 1938.

Marilyn wrote,

Ida—I have still
been obeying her—
it’s not only harmful
for me to do so
but unrealality because
life starts from Now

And later:

working (doing my tasks that I
have set for myself)
On the stage—I will
not be punished for it
or be whipped
or be threatened
or not be loved
or sent to hell to burn with bad people
feeling that I am also bad.
or be afraid of my [genitals] being
or ashamed
exposed known and seen—?so what
or ashamed of my
sensitive feelings—

~ ~

Do you relate to some of Marilyn Monroe’s struggles with identity and esteem?

I certainly do. One of the challenges many of us share is in developing healthy self concept and esteem.

I am not a clinical psychologist or analyst, and am not attempting here to “explain” her complex inner life.

The majority of actors and other artists may not have had a schizophrenic parent and the level of abusive, traumatic childhood Monroe had, but many of the talented actors and other artists I have researched (over the past 15 years and more) talk about at least some of the same kinds of feelings, personality traits and mental health challenges.

Even highly talented and accomplished people have insecurities around self esteem issues, and sometimes difficult experiences dealing with parents, caregivers and other authority figures – like movie directors.

Here are a couple of my related posts:
‘I’m a Fraud’: Gifted and talented with insecurity
Artistic confidence – Insecurity and acting

Most of us have felt insecure to some degree, and have developed beliefs about our worth based on our early lives.

Many psychologists and others provide at least some helpful explanations for how these self perceptions and feelings develop, and what to do about changing them.

George Pratt, PhD and Peter Lambrou, PhD developed an approach called Emotional Self-Management for overcoming limiting feelings and beliefs. In their book “Code to Joy” they provide insights on their contributions to the new field of energy psychology, and provide strategies.

The book notes: “There’s hardly a child alive who hasn’t been told that he or she has been ‘bad’ by someone he or she trusts and respects. For a young child, still struggling to carve a sense of identity out of the welter of everyday experiences, simply being told ‘No!’ or ‘Don’t do that!’ can be received as the message, ‘You are wrong!’ ‘You are bad!’ That’s normal; it happens to all of us. For some, though, the accusation sticks.”

[Photo: Emily Browning, Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (2004) - from article Why Does The World Suffer From An Epidemic Of Low Self-Esteem? by Morty Lefkoe.]

In another article of his, How To Change “Human Nature, Lefkoe describes some of the common sources of negative self-esteem beliefs of the kind Marilyn Monroe expressed, that grow out of relationships with parents or caregivers.

Maybe you can relate to some of these ideas on how we can develop self esteem issues:

If I trust my parents and they must know what they are doing, and if they are angry with me, it must be my fault. I’m not good enough.

If I can’t get them to spend the time with me that I want or if they are physically around but not paying attention to me, it must be my fault. I’m not important.

If I can’t get them to give me what I want most of the time, it must be my fault. I’m not worthy or deserving.

Morty Lefkoe is president and founder of the Lefkoe Institute, which teaches and publishes methods to “help people free themselves from their self-imposed limitations” and self-limiting beliefs.

You can try the Lefkoe Method free at ReCreateYourLife.

~ ~

At her death at age 36, acting teacher Lee Strasberg noted in his eloquent eulogy:

“In her eyes and mine, her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage.”

A Wikipedia page states: “In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the years and decades following her death, Monroe has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol.”

The Wikipedia article also says: “The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a “probable suicide”, the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as of homicide, have not been ruled out.”

~ ~

Article continued: Marilyn Monroe: Her complex Inner Life – Part 2

~~~

“This is a ridiculous thing to say,” she admits, “but I never liked being a teenager. I never felt comfortable being in a group of giggly girls. I always felt embarrassed and frightened by it.

“I couldn’t quite handle the high school thing, and I wanted to leave as soon as I could. So I suppose I never really wanted to explore it, whereas I did want to be a woman. Some of the teen flicks can be great, but it wasn’t the story I wanted to live in.”

She added, “Apart from Natalie Wood’s character in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ [1955], where she plays a teenager, I just couldn’t imagine doing it. I wish I could have. I think I would have been a much better person for it.”

[Interview mag., Dec/Jan 2008; photo from 'Atonement']

Many other talented and creative people “couldn’t quite handle the high school thing” and felt like outsiders, finding their teen years to be difficult and emotionally challenging.

“The passage through adolescence was a lonely, involuted time for me,” said writer Maxine Kumin. “I had no one to eat lunch with, and took my sandwich to the locker room, where I pretended to be busy writing an article… I took refuge in scholarship…

“At Radcliffe, epithets with which I had been branded — bookworm, greasy grind, brain trust — became a badge of honor.”

[From book: Jane Piirto. My Teeming Brain: Understanding Creative Writers.]

“Maxine Kumin (born June 6, 1925) is an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981-1982.” [Wikipedia]

Anthony Hopkins was dyslexic and hated rugby, and so was treated as an outcast in his native land – but he claims the treatment from his peers gave him just what he needed to become a movie star:

“It gave me the fire and anger to become an actor. I wasn’t afraid of anything. The acting covered up the loneliness.” [imdb.com 1.30.01]

As a teen, Nicole Kidman towered above most of the others in her class and has said she thought of herself as “the ugliest person alive on earth.”

On weekends, when most kids were at the beach, Kidman was often alone on the stage of the school theater. “I would just lock myself in there,” she says.

“I thought it was fantastic having that stage all to myself. I’d be teased about going off to the theater instead of the beach with everyone else. I felt like an outsider, but it is character building not to be a pretty child who just bats her eyes and gets her way.”

[Cosmopolitan, Jul 1991]

One of a number of my posts about her: Nicole Kidman on fame, and actors as highly sensitive people.

~~

“At twenty-five, I was a television literary agent.. I had an office with a view, an assistant, an expense account, power lunches, clients, and business cards… From the outside, my life looked great… There was just one problem: I was absolutely miserable.” Christine Hassler

The big questions of vocation, identity, relationships, how we use our talents for ourselves and the world, how we define and nurture authentic happiness – we may never “solve” those questions permanently, but they can be particularly intense in our twenties.

Perhaps especially for people who are the most capable and talented.

That period of life can be the best time to passionately and honestly explore what you want to do, and what you want your life to mean.

The quote by Christine Hassler is from her book 20-Something, 20-Everything: A Quarter-life Woman’s Guide to Balance and Direction, for which she interviewed more than 300 women.

[Her more recent book is 20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It.]

She also talks about undergoing her twenty-something crisis: “I’ve always been an overachiever who put a ton of pressure on myself.

“I graduated from a top-ten university after spending three and a half years stressing myself out to get A’s, a double major, and a few jobs under my belt.”

Being “absolutely miserable” with her life and job, she realized, “I had two choices: I could throw in the towel, move home, and try to forget about the life I had failed at; or I could dig in, look at my life, and try to figure out who I really was, what I really wanted, and how I was going to get it.”

She said in a newspaper interview that the most challenging of those three big questions was the identity one: Who am I?

“Because so much of that had been constructed on external things. I was a straight-A student. I was a good girl. I was cute. I was smart. I let other people define my identity for me, and if it was negative in any way, I was more likely to believe it than the compliments.”

Being exceptional

In my article Gifted Women: Identity and Expression, I note that a wide range of personal characteristics may accompany being exceptional – qualities that impact how gifted people see themselves, how others respond to them, and how fully they are able to realize and express their talents.

Qualities may include wanting to move fluidly from one pursuit or interest to the next; having impatience toward those who are less gifted; engaging in self-critical labeling as “scattered,” having unusual excitability, high energy level, emotional reactivity, relentless curiosity, and other characteristics.

A concern with using our intellectual capabilities “fully” and in a “respected” talent domain may stand in the way of finding an ultimately more satisfying life path.

Tama J. Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her increasingly successful practice with a large corporate law firm to honor her inner calling to make a more authentic life.

In her book This Time I Dance!: Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love, she encourages honoring our intuitive wisdom, and releasing constraints based too much on reason alone: “Trust the process. A calling calls to remind you to enter the mystery of instinct and the metamorphosis of an inspired life. Honor your passion to emerge.”

She admits, “For years, I chased success and comfort and found only emptiness and ache. I was afraid of my true desires. They seemed dangerous, unrealistic, infantile, and ill-defined.”

But now, she coaches and leads workshops nationally on reaching meaningful self-expression.

Being multi-talented

Part of the dilemma for multi-talented people is the culturally promoted assumption that we need to choose a defined career path, train for it and follow it exclusively.

But Barbara Sher writes in her book Refuse to Choose! about people who don’t want to – or really feel they can’t – come “down to earth” enough to settle into one path – people she identifies as Scanners.

[Photograph: Self Portrait Suspended 5, by Sam Taylor-Wood, from the page Photography.]

In her article What is a Scanner?, Sher notes that in school “no one objected to their many interests, because every hour of every student’s school day is devoted to a different subject.

“But at some point in high school or soon after, everyone was expected to make a choice, and that’s when Scanners ran into trouble. While some people happily narrowed down to one subject, Scanners simply couldn’t.

“The conventional wisdom was overwhelming and seemed indisputable: If you’re a jack-of-all-trades, you’ll always be a master of none. You’ll become a dilettante, a dabbler, a superficial person — and you’ll never have a decent career.”

The myth of a single career path

But, Sher argues, that is really a myth: “With the exception of learning project management techniques, the only thing Scanners needed was to reject conventional wisdom that said they were doing something wrong and claim their true identity.”

Christine Hassler, for example, is doing that very well, noting she is “a survivor of a twenty-something crisis” and has re-defined herself to become a “Life Coach with a counseling emphasis specializing in relationships, career, and self-identity.. centered on the twenty something years of life.”

[From her site christinehassler.com - also the source of her book excerpts.]

Multipotentialites

Emilie Wapnick notes, “My resume reads like it belongs to ten different people. Music, film, web design, law, business, personal development, writing, dance, sexuality, education– all of these are or have been interests of mine. They come and go (and sometimes come again).

“I remember being a little kid, not knowing what I would be when I grew up. I wondered the same thing in my teen years, and again in college. Sure, all of my interests would make for wonderful careers– just not on their own.

“Would I have to settle on a ‘practical job’ and pursue my various passions on the side or choose among my interests and just commit to one thing?”

She adds, “Both options made me my heart ache… I knew I could be doing more– that I had more to offer the world.”

She designed a program “Specifically for the Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur” – Renaissance Business.

The Productivity for Multipotentialites Course

“Ah, isn’t it lovely having so many different interests? Being a multipotentialite is wonderful, except when it comes to actually getting all of those great projects done.”

Productivity for Multipotentialites is a video course developed by Emilie Wapnick, with Michelle Nickolaisen: “a complete productivity system for multipotentialites. Throughout the classes, you will be introduced to a number of practices and rituals to help you integrate all of your passions into your life, without the stress.”

Learn more at their site: Productivity for Multipotentialites.

Also see info about my book Developing Multiple Talents.

Life on purpose

In his post Life on Purpose [on his "Personal Development for Smart People" site], Steve Pavlina praises the book Life on Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life, by Brad Swift: “This is a truly excellent book on how to discover your life purpose. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain clarity with respect to their core reason for being here. What I liked most about this book is that it presents the concept of a life purpose as an unfolding path rather than some fixed idea like a mission statement.”

Also see Brad Swift’s site Life on Purpose.

Another source of writing and workshops on purpose is Guy Finley and his Life of Learning Foundation.

The free ebook “A Life on Fire – Living Your Life with Passion, Balance & Abundance” is a collection of interviews “with some of the most successful, brilliant authors and speakers, with knowledge and inspiration for living a life of balanced abundance.”

Also take the free Passion Test Profile by Janet and Chris Attwood.

Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, says their related book – The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose – “has given me incredible insight into what was missing in my life, where I was not 100% spot on in pursuing my passions.”

Canfield is also author of the book The Success Principles.

Valerie Young abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the “Dreamer in Residence” and “off the beaten path career counselor” at her company Changing Course.

In her article Are You Settling?, she writes about finding herself at fifty feeling “happier, healthier, and in the ways that really count, more attractive than at any other time in my life.. with a profound sense of clarity about who I am and what I want. And I have every intention of getting it.”

But, she adds, “When you’re younger, I find, you’re more apt to settle. We settle in relationships (“It’s better than being alone”), we settle for high-stress, low-satisfaction jobs (“It could be worse”), we settle for all kinds of things that later in life would be simply unacceptable.

“Settling is not the same as compromise. Healthy relationships require a certain degree of compromise from both partners. And while I think you can get darned close, no job is perfect. There are times I’d rather curl up in the big chair in my living room and nap — or do just about anything else than hustle to meet some deadline. But life is all about trade-offs.

“Settling is different. When you settle, you unwittingly or wittingly check your true needs, desires, feelings, and gifts at the door.”

~~

Envy is an insult to oneself.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Envy is human nature.
Monica Bellucci

A simple dictionary definition of envy is “a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.”

In this famous shot of Sophia Loren (left) and Jayne Mansfield at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1957, Loren may or may not be feeling envy – but I like the photo.

Reportedly, Mansfield’s extravagant cleavage was a publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in Loren’s honor.

Envy can be an insidious feeling, with a collection of attitudes and beliefs that impact our creative energy and motivation.

In his book Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality, and Career, creativity coach and writer Eric Maisel, PhD gives a concrete example:

“An artist’s envy may manifest itself in any number of ways. In the past she may have loved to read; now she avoids contemporary fiction completely. All living authors have become her rivals. Or she may avidly read contemporary fiction, but only to assure herself that it’s bad. Or she may read only the works of an author she knows is an alcoholic or or near death — a rival she can pity or feel superior to.”

> Continued: Envy and Your Creative Life

~~~

He has portrayed many powerful and intriguing characters, including Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. In this video about Deathly Hallows: Part 2, he acknowledges author J.K. Rowling for “laying out such a kind of sure roadmap” with her writing of Snape. “You know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Loving the language

In his article Alan Rickman: Truly, deeply appealing (Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2011), Patrick Pacheco says “What really excites Rickman is the English language.”

“It’s so rich and cruel and beautiful, like a fireworks display, and yet it can be so subtle and so crude,” says the 65-year-old classical actor and director. “Marry that to the stage and something mysterious happens. Don’t ask me what. It’s magical.”

He is currently playing Leonard, “the caustic and embittered novelist at the center of Theresa Rebeck’s new play, ‘Seminar,’ on Broadway.

“Theresa’s writing is incredibly demanding,” he says in silky tones that belie his British working-class roots. “She’s like a Restoration comedy writer. It’s high style. The words are extremely well chosen, and sometimes you wish that word had not been chosen right next to that word because the equipment’s a bit rusty.” …

~ ~

In this video about the play, Rickman comments, “You’re throwing yourself into a bear pit being a writer.”

~ ~

The article continues:

“I can only see my limitations,” he says with a resigned laugh. “That’s just who I am. I was working with [director] Peter Brook once on Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ with Glenda Jackson, and he said, ‘The thing is, you’ll never be as good as the text.’ And that came as a kind of relief, really. I’m fascinated by my friends in the acting profession who can’t wait to get out there. I’m not on that list.”

Rickman’s wry insecurity is all the more surprising given his professional image as an assured, sexy and often enigmatic figure with a penetrating gaze and the ability to deliver the most innocuous phrase with sneering contempt. “I don’t see it at all like that. They [his characters] are just people to me,” Rickman says. “I’m a lot less serious than people think.”

Sam Gold, the director of “Seminar,” says: “Alan obviously has the ability to play imposing and intimidating characters, but what makes him special is his deep, deep well of empathy. You see the humanity.”

Emma Thompson wrote in an email that during her frequent collaborations with Rickman, “It’s very difficult not to giggle, we laugh a lot, often in the wrong places.” Their most recent one is the BBC teleplay “The Song of Lunch,” which aired recently on PBS, in which Rickman plays an alcoholic poet trying to rekindle a love affair.

The actress, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Sense and Sensibility” and starred with Rickman in that movie, noted that his performance in that film as Col. Brandon “… was everything I wanted for the role — virile yet sensitive, powerful yet quietly, slightly dangerous and miles more interesting than he is in the book…. There’s no one like Alan for a rich, mysterious inner life.” …

But whether he is playing Hans Gruber, Le Vicomte de Valmont, Severus Snape or John Gabriel Borkman, Rickman sees his primary duty as that of “storyteller.”

“I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word” — here he pauses before adding with a roll of the eyes — “a jouuuuuurney.

“It might not be great, it might not be perfect, but it does answer the human need to sit there together and to be told a story.”

Rickman discovered just how powerful a story can be with the Harry Potter films.

He’s especially grateful for their youthful following. “I suppose if I plan to work well into my 80s, I’ll need them,” he quips.

Daniel Radcliffe, the movies’ Harry Potter, is now appearing on Broadway in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He calls Rickman “an invaluable and incredibly generous” mentor.

“When I first met Alan, I was completely intimidated by him,” he says. “We had some very intense scenes together. At times, he’d actually scare me. But while he was always so strong and powerful, I also came to know him as self-deprecating, vulnerable and silly.”

Watching him onstage, says Radcliffe, is to see a “virtuoso” in action. “He’s taught me that acting onstage demands a ruthless honesty, listening very carefully in a way that you lose your self-consciousness. When I was in ‘Equus,’ Alan actually cut short a vacation in Canada to return to see me for a second time and then took me out and gave me some simple, practical and yet profound advice. I’ve a very self-effacing attitude toward what I do, probably from a place of guilt for having so much success so young, but Alan has a deeply felt respect for the importance of acting.”

Rickman says the Potter epic provided a novel acting challenge. “It was tricky, because only three of the books had been written when we started. Though I had a clue about what his final story might be, it was only the smallest clue, and therefore there was a sense of playing two things at once, just in case you have to shift. ” Asked whether he was happy with the evolution of his character, Rickman said he thought that “Potter” author J.K. Rowling got it “dead right.”

Now, he is looking forward to the release of the comic film caper “Gambit,” in which he costars with Cameron Diaz and Colin Firth. “God knows, we put ourselves out on the line with that, comedically,” he says a bit nervously. “It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out on the screen.”

He hopes to do more comedy, seeing the ridiculous as a reflection of the human condition. “I think there should be laughs in everything,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.”

For Rickman, it’s all part of the job description. The accompanying fame, money and acclaim all strike him as rather “obscene.”

“Our abilities are nothing we can really take credit for,” he says. “Yes, there’s training. But I’ve worked with some great actors who didn’t train at all. You do your job, push your abilities as far as you can take them and hopefully, you can actually do something with this” — here he again pauses before adding — “this accident.”

That’s an appealing thought, isn’t it? – “Push your abilities as far as you can take them.”

~ ~

[From my post Gifted and talented but with insecurity and low self esteem, and a longer quote in the post The Self-Esteem Supercharger.]

In his article I work to build self-confidence in myself and others, entrepreneur Stephen Pierce points out that self-confidence is “extremely valuable. Because I believe in myself, I can show others how to have faith in what they can accomplish.

“I see my dreams realized because I have the self-confidence to pursue them without giving up.

“I avoid surrendering my dreams. Even if I feel sad or afraid, I know that those emotions are only temporary. I can do anything I put my mind to. Belief in myself helps me to move forward in life.”

He also notes that “By showing others that they can be self-assured and brave, I learn a great deal. When I help others, I help myself.

“My confidence grows when I see others succeed after I have helped them.”

Confidence exists on a continuum

In his post How to build confidence, Morty Lefkoe admits he knows very well this experience many of us (most of us?) have had:

“I had very little self-confidence for most of my life,” he writes – adding, “but now I consistently experience a high level of confidence.”

So how did he make that shift? He explains:

Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a very low to a very high belief in our own abilities, a sense we can handle whatever life throws at us.  Very few people are totally lacking in confidence and very few feel confident that they can handle almost anything.  So the issue for most people is where they currently are on the continuum and how they can improve their confidence.

This is a very helpful point – it is not a simple, binary matter of having confidence versus not having. There are levels and degrees – and changes from one situation to another, or even day to day. Lefkoe continues:

It is important to distinguish between confidence about being able to perform a specific task (such as fly a plane or speak a foreign language) and confidence in yourself. One might not be confident about being able to perform a specific task even though they have high level of self-confidence.  Such a person knows that her inability to perform a specific task means nothing about her as a person.

But that may not be so easy to realize or put to use, especially when you are in the middle of feelings of self-criticism and low confidence.

As a teen and college freshman (many decades ago), I had the ambition to “be a doctor” – but failed organic chemistry. Like many people with a certain level of intellectual ability, I had managed to get through high school with good grades, but without really trying hard.

Failing a class was devastating to my confidence. Of course, there have been other experiences in my life of confidence deflation.

Lefkoe suggests “the way to gain confidence about specific abilities is to learn those skills and practice a lot.”

The key is our beliefs:

The way to improve our internal level of confidence that we apply to life in general is to eliminate our limiting beliefs.  Every negative belief we have lowers our internal level of self-confidence – beliefs such as I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m powerless, I’m not capable, Nothing I do is good enough, and I’m not worthy.

Once you understand that a lot of negative self-esteem beliefs lowers your level of self-confidence and getting rid of them raises it, you will understand the myth that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life.

Another way limiting presumptions and beliefs can affect us is when we experience impostor or fraud feelings.

See the post Dealing with self sabotage: Getting beyond impostor feelings.

~~~

More articles by Morty Lefkoe — author of the book Re-create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and Your World.

To experience The Lefkoe Method, go to ReCreate Your Life where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

Also see his Natural Confidence program.

dealing with self-criticism, building self confidence, self esteem confidence, building self esteem, impostor feelings

~ ~

Jonathan Safran Foer – about his novel Everything Is Illuminated, which made The New York Times best-seller list.

He also commented, “The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible. Profound, bottomless self-doubt: it has no value, what’s the point? In a way, that takes up as much time as anything else.”

Do you relate to those ideas and feelings? Or these:

* Do you secretly worry that others will find out that you’re not as bright and capable as they think you are?

* Do you tend to chalk your accomplishments up to being a “fluke,” “no big deal” or the fact that people just “like” you?

* Do you hate making a mistake, being less than fully prepared or not doing things perfectly?

* Do you tend to feel crushed by even constructive criticism, seeing it as evidence of your “ineptness?”

From the longer Impostor Syndrome Quiz on the site for the Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome program.

~~~

The Psychology Today article, Field Guide to The Self-Doubter: Extra Credit, by Susan Pinker, excerpted below, brings insight into the thoughts and feelings many people have about being incompetent or impostors:

Not giving herself credit

Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own consulting firm. In other words, she’s a walking advertisement for what it takes to be successful in science: smarts, opportunity, and perseverance.

Yet when she looks back, she takes little credit for her successes. “I felt inadequate the entire time I was in graduate school. If I got a nice compliment, I just felt, ‘What? They’re trying to pull my leg! I can get kicked out at any minute.’”

Feeling like an impostor

Lang now realizes she wasn’t really an impostor. She just felt like one. Like many highly accomplished women, Lang suffered from “impostor syndrome.” On the outside, she was a star and a role model.

Secretly, though, she chalked up her successes to powers beyond her control, and meanwhile felt personally responsible for any failures—a feeling shared by 93 percent of African-American female college students, according to one study.

External success. Internal agony

According to recent studies of medical, dental, and nursing students with impostor feelings, the phenomenon is linked to perfectionism, burnout, and depression. This was true for Rosalyn Lang, whose impostor feelings drove her to work harder. “The work ethic was great. That’s the kind of focus you need to get everything done in graduate school,” she said. But “internal agony” was how she described her psychological state.

Read the full article.

Six steps for matching perceptions to reality.

• Separate your self-assessments from objective evaluations of your skills. Group-based evaluations, promotions, and letters of reference are less biased than the world seen through “impostor”-colored glasses.
• Give yourself opportunities to compete. Don’t let your self-judgment prevent you demonstrating what you know.
• Reduce your isolation. Talk about your feelings with trusted friends and colleagues. Seek out a mentor or advocate in your organization who believes in you.
• Enjoy your successes and acknowledge praise when it comes your way.
• Resist the impulse to deny and deflect compliments.
• Remember that those who project an air of confidence may not know more than you do. Research shows that most people overestimate their abilities.

See Overcoming the Impostor Syndrome for more.

Also see the Impostor syndrome page for more quotes, articles, books etc.
~~

imposter phenomenon, impostor phenomenon, dealing with self sabotage, impostor feelings, perfectionism, fraud feelings

One way many talented people can be self-critical is to judge their wide-ranging serial interests as superficial or insubstantial.

Some interests can be trivial or frivolous, of course, but many can fuel creativity.

[By the way, Milena Canonero won an Academy Award in 2007 for Best Achievement in Costume Design on "Marie Antoinette." Also see my interview with Canonero about her work on "Titus."]

In a profile article of her, Evgenia Peretz writes about Sofia Coppola: “In her later teenage years, she indulged in a variety of pursuits that struck some – including herself – as disturbingly close to those of an aimless rich girl.

“She worked for a time in Karl Lagerfeld’s studio. She took pictures for magazines such as Paris Vogue and Interview. She went to art school, where she studied painting… took on the role of Al Pacino’s daughter in Godfather III… started a fashion line, called Milk Fed, with a friend. She and Zoe Cassavetes got their own cable talk show.

“’I wasn’t really great at any of those things, so it was kind of frustrating,’ says Sofia, ‘because I liked all those things, but didn’t have the focus.’ She entered her first period of self-doubt. ‘She said, “Oh, Dad, am I just a dilettante?” Francis [her father] recalls. ‘I thought just the opposite was happening now, and I said to her, No, you don’t have to specialize – do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.’

“The character [played by Scarlett Johansson, in Coppola’s film Lost in Translation] of Charlotte – the young, privileged girl having a breakdown about her purpose in life – was taken from Sofia’s own experiences. ‘I was just kind of coming out of that, and I was looking at that period of What do I do with my life?’ recalls Sofia.” [From “Something About Sofia,” Vanity Fair, Sep 2006]

[Photo of Coppola from set of her new movie Somewhere - she is Producer, Director, Writer.]

Serial interests and passions

In her article What is a Scanner? [from her book book Refuse to Choose!], Barbara Sher talks about an example of someone with similar experiences she calls Scanners: “Elaine doesn’t have attention deficit disorder. She checked it out with doctors long ago.

“And she knows that when she’s involved in any project, she doesn’t get distracted by irrelevant things. So what’s stopping her? Why is she so indecisive? For that matter, why is she interested in so many things?”

Sher concludes, “The conventional wisdom was overwhelming and seemed indisputable: If you’re a jack-of-all-trades, you’ll always be a master of none. You’ll become a dilettante, a dabbler, a superficial person — and you’ll never have a decent career…

“But one thought wouldn’t leave my mind: If the world had just continued to accept them as they were, Scanners wouldn’t have had any problems.

”Almost every case of low self-esteem, shame, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, indecisiveness, and inability to get into action simply disappeared the moment they understood that they were Scanners and stopped trying to be somebody else.

“It appears that Scanners are an unusual breed of human being. One reason they don’t recognize themselves is that they don’t often meet people like themselves.”

As I note in my article Being Creative and Self-critical, these are not unusual responses, according to researchers. Many people with multiple, exceptional abilities experience complex feelings including inadequacy and inferiority, and critical self-evaluation.

But thankfully, many of them, like both of the Coppolas, are able to keep exploring and expressing wide ranging interests.

Another example is actor Grace Zabriskie, who also makes sculptures and artistic furniture when she isn’t shooting movies or TV shows.

In her article about Zabriskie [Accent on 'eccentric' - "Big Love's" Grace Zabriskie has always been a person inclined to take the road, and roles, less traveled, Los Angeles Times May 21, 2006], Lynn Smith notes, “While some people might write off a person with multiple vocations, Zabriskie said she is committed to the concept of ‘the passionate amateur.’

“After a wave of gallery shows, she said she just works now at what she needs to do, making pieces for customers or friends. ‘

Zabriskie said, “I do not consider myself a dilettante, and I don’t think I spread myself too thin. You can make your life an absolute bummer out of the inevitability of death. Or you can decide to absorb this blow and figure out a way to exist with as much energy and creativity and lack of fear as you can.”

Related pages:
Vocation / calling
Vocation / calling resources : articles / sites
High Ability articles

~~~

gifted adults, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude, Barbara Sher, Sofia Coppola, psychology of creativity

What are some of the considerations that lead sensitive and gifted adults to take psychiatric medications?

What are some of the reasons people stop taking medications??

What are the alternatives?

• My inner life, and sometimes my outer life, is painful/chaotic/confusing. The DSM symptoms list for certain mental illnesses seem to fit me so I must be ill.

The mental suffering of sensitive, creative and divergent children and adults is real. Existential depression, loneliness, and emotional overwhelm are very real, as are the complications arising from our use of behaviors and substances to alleviate our suffering.

These experiences don’t require a diagnosis of mental illness in order to be taken seriously. And treating our suffering doesn’t need to include tampering with our highly sensitive brains.

• It is a relief to be given a psychiatric diagnosis.

When I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder I felt relieved. I thought I finally had an explanation for all the difficult relationships, mistakes and trauma in my life. And there were pills that would fix it all!

I trusted the medical professionals who interpreted my creative energy as mania and my mental energy as ‘racing thoughts,’ because they must know best.

Unaware of high sensitivity and the complex dynamics of giftedness and creativity, I was very self-critical and ashamed of myself.

I’d spent years in therapy and graduate school studying psychology, committed to understanding my mind and taking responsibility for what I thought were my failures and inability to ‘fit in.’ The bipolar diagnosis felt like a huge ‘pass.’ I had a ‘disease’ and it wasn’t my responsibility.

It’s challenging and often lonely to live in this world with a creative, sensitive brain. But it’s not a disease. I take responsibility for learning as much as possible about living a healthy, meaningful life as a gifted HSP in an often unsupportive world. Thankfully, there is much more information available to us now than in the past, and a growing community of people with similar challenges and gifts.

With the growing understanding of these issues, and the support of others with similar personality, I now have a self-concept based on my own interpretation of myself over my entire life, rather than on the opinion of psychiatric professionals who have had only brief encounters with me.

• I need relief now! There’s nothing else I can do but take medication.

When we go to a therapist or psychiatrist we are often in acute distress. Real healing of the mind and body take time, but when we’re suffering we’re especially vulnerable to doctors who may tell us that we have a disease, we need drugs and the drugs will help now.

What they are unlikely to tell us is that no disease has been proven in the case of mental illness, the drugs don’t really ‘cure’ but sedate and alter the brain, and effective alternatives exist.

Even the need for short-term drug intervention for suicidal and delusional patients might be overestimated. Studies have shown various supplemental, nutritional and alternative therapies to be as or more effective in relieving symptoms.

• My doctor must know what she’s talking about and she seems to really care about me.

The reality is that psychiatrists have no idea why and how the drugs they prescribe work, nor are they aware of their long-term effects and the data on their inefficacy.

We all need people who care about us, especially when we’re in emotional crisis, and mental health professionals are usually in that profession because of a sincere desire to alleviate suffering.

But perhaps someone trained by, and very often given perks by, drug corporations and the institutions they support, isn’t the most informed and objective resource.

• Not taking drugs to treat mental illness is as dangerous as not treating cancer or diabetes.

While not treating suicidality or other extreme states can be dangerous, the fact remains that mental illness is not like physical illness.

The question is, do psychiatric medications really treat life-threatening and severely debilitating states, or do they sedate and disable the brain, giving an illusion of improvement?

Might these drugs be even more dangerous than the ‘diseases’ they claim to treat?

• I think I have a mental illness as well as a creative/sensitive personality, so I need medications.

Sounds logical, but even if you decide you really have bipolar disorder or another mental illness, it’s a good idea to think twice before you choose how to treat it.

These drugs have many physical and psychological side effects (often discounted by psychiatrists as symptoms of the purported illness), and more or different drugs may be prescribed to deal with them.

• I just need to take drugs for a little while, then when I’m better I’ll stop.

Getting on psychiatric drugs may be easy, but getting off them can be hell.

It’s becoming clear, through the investigations of people like Robert Whitaker in Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, that the prognosis for those on psychiatric medications is grim: a 10-25 year shorter life span, and the likelihood of permanent disability.

It takes some people years to taper off psychiatric medications, and some are never able to do so successfully. I was lucky – it took me a year of slow tapering to get off multiple psychiatric medications which had caused depression, intense anxiety, sleeplessness, diabetes, tinitus, digestive problems, cognitive dysfunction and more.

Now that I’m drug-free, I sleep, dream and experience my emotions again authentically, but I continue to experience some physical side effects from the medications and may for some time. It’s a long road to recovery.

• What are the alternatives?

There are orthomolecular psychiatrists who actually do tests to determine what underlying physical conditions may be responsible for mental distress.

There are also many books and organizations, some listed below, which provide information on behavioral, nutritional and supplemental alternatives to drugs.

Although supplements can have side effects and need to be carefully chosen, many have been used for thousands of years to effectively treat emotional and mental conditions.

There is life after psychiatric drugs. For me, it’s been a better life.

Related:

Posts:

Woman interrupted: misdiagnosis and medication of sensitivity and giftedness

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

Books:

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Revised Edition: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications

Organizations:

Safe Harbor — Includes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs

Alternative to Meds Center — Residential psychiatric medication withdrawal with medical and naturopathic oversight in Sedona, Arizona

Green Mental Health — Holistically-centered mental health care system which reflects traditional environmental, humanitarian, and health conscious values

The Road Back — How to get off psychiatric drugs safely

Soteria House — Alternative and non-drug solutions for people diagnosed schizophrenic

Mind Freedom International — is a nonprofit organization that works to win human rights and provide alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights
~~

sensitivity and psychiatric drugs, sensitivity and mental illness, sensitivity and drugs, sensitivity and giftedness, high sensitivity personality, mental health books, drug books, highly sensitive books

Are psychiatrists equipped to recognize and support creativity, high sensitivity and giftedness?

Who determines where creative intensity ends and mental illness begins?

Do medications put our creativity and sensitivity at risk?

Over a year and a half ago, I asked myself these questions as I began a journey back to a drug-free life after years on anti-depressants and other medications.

Misdiagnosis and medications

A few years ago I began seeing a well-meaning psychiatric Nurse Practioner who monitored my anti-depressants. At the time, I’d been on various antidepressants for about 14 years.

She had no experience working with giftedness or Highly Sensitive Personality, like most mental health professionals.

She had a calm, conservative, scientific personality, like many in her field – very different from my intense, expressive and sensitive personality.

Although I was recovering well from PTSD after repeated traumas, which would have accounted for any distress even in the absence of giftedness and sensitivity, I was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder type II. I was taken off Effexor rapidly, an antidepressant drug now known for severe withdrawal symptoms, and put on a number of major psychiatric medications.

Within a week I was in extreme physical pain, unable to sleep, and my mind was anxious and agitated beyond belief. Rather than question the wisdom of being on these medications at all, I chose to go into the hospital for a few days so the medications could be balanced and I could get used to them.

Out of the frying pan…

Had I known that the psychiatric ward of the hospital had no mattresses (they used hard industrial foam pads) so sleep was almost impossible, that I’d be awakened several times a night for ‘vitals,’ that the nutritional value of the food was very low, that there was no recreation provided beyond walking in a line around the perimeter of a windowless room once a day, and that I’d be lucky to have 15 minutes every few days to speak to a doctor, I wouldn’t have put myself into the hospital.

If you aren’t already mentally ill before going in, a psych ward can make you sick in no time.

No one told me that my diagnosis would make me uninsurable, that there was no scientific evidence that my brain needed any of these drugs, no evidence that my life would improve with them, and that my life expectancy would be shortened by 10-25 years.

The assumption was that drugs were the answer. Since I was my usual compliant, self-critical self I went along. I have always been a good patient, willing to accept the theories of others.

It seemed to me that I finally had an answer to the complex challenges of my life.

Problem solved?

Having accepted that I had an incurable mental illness, I made plans to improve my life as much as possible. In a couple of years, I  moved across country and started a new life.

I began to write again and received two awards for my work at a major writers conference. I lost 40 pounds, took singing lessons and began work on a novel. But I couldn’t keep up any semblance of mental clarity or focus and my health kept deteriorating.

A couple of years later, I realized that I was in more emotional and physical distress than ever before even though I was on multiple medications. I had horrendous bouts of anxiety and agitation, along with diabetes, tinnitus, digestive problems, sleeplessness, tics and other symptoms, none of which I’d ever had before.

This made no sense. I began to do research into the psychiatric drugs I’d been prescribed and concluded that not only were they not necessary, they had actually been making me ill, in many cases giving me the very symptoms they were supposed to relieve.

Who am I really?

Initially, I sought out information on alternatives to drug treatment for bipolar disorder, still convinced the label fit.

At the same time, I began to learn more about high sensitivity, giftedness and creativity, through websites like HighlySensitive.org, HighAbility.org, and by reading the work of Elaine Aron and others. I started to look at myself in a new way.

I came to believe that my personality was normal for a gifted, creative person with high sensitivities, and I began to question the bipolar label I’d been given.

Maybe there were good reasons I have such intense emotions, and have had a hard time settling on a career and finding friends and romantic partners who fit me. I also learned that many others with personalities like mine had been caught up in the mental health system in the same way.

I began to ask the questions I’ve mentioned above, and to challenge my own negative self-concept.

Drug free

The answers I came up with led me to make a commitment to get off all psychiatric drugs, and to re-evaluate my attitude toward psychiatry and psychotherapy. As a former grad student in psychology, having studied to be a therapist, this was a big change. I had to take a hard look at my own unquestioning acceptance of the traditional approach to mental health.

Even wiith a number of supplements and good nutritional support, it took me a year to slowly withdraw from the drugs, much longer than the psychiatrist had told me to take (psychiatrists generally don’t recognize the addictive nature of psychoactive medications).

The process was difficult with lots of withdrawal symptoms, but I’m drug free and grateful to be facing life’s challenges with a mind and emotions that I can truly call my own.

Finding support

Like so many others who’ve challenged the authority of the mental health establishment, when I told my psychiatrist of my decision and asked for his help in withdrawing from the medications, I found myself in a position similar to those accused of witchcraft a few hundred years ago: everything I said was taken as further proof of my pathology.

After all, bipolar patients are notoriously non-compliant when it comes to medication, right? Supposedly, people with bipolar disorder long for mania and hate being made ‘normal.’ And how could I possible know more about myself than my doctor?

I felt it would be beneficial to see a mental health professional while I withdrew from the medications, but aside from recommending which medications to withdraw from first, my psychiatrist wasn’t interested in participating in my healing process.

I looked elsewhere and finally found a Jungian therapist who has been supportive of my taking back control over my physical and emotional health.

Most of my support has come from the growing number of organizations, authors and online communities who are working to reveal the truth about the inefficacy and dangers of psychiatric medications and psychiatry’s intimate relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and who provide information on alternative treatments.

Scientologists, and their Citizens Commission on Human Rights, aren’t the only ones concerned about psychiatry and its drug-based paradigm of care.  There is a  world-wide movement to inform the public about the dangers of psychiatric drugs.

Listed below are just a few of the organizations currently involved in advocating for patients rights, exposing the pharmaceutical industry’s role in inventing and broadening categories of mental illness, and shining a light on the long term effects of psychiatric drug use and the actual results of drug studies.

The narrowing of normal

People who are creative and gifted often don’t fit within society’s common definitions of ‘normal.’

And while some may embrace their uniqueness, others, like myself, may struggle for years trying to change themselves in order to fit in.

In Peter D. Kramer on normality and mental health, Kramer, author of  Listening to Prozac and Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind. notes the ever-diminishing concept of ‘normal.’

I have been thinking a good deal about normality lately. It’s a concern in the medical world. The complaint is that doctors are abusing [their] privilege, to define the normal.

Ordinary sadness, critics say, has been engulfed by depression. Boyishness stands in the shadow of attention deficits. Social phobia has engineered a hostile takeover of shyness.

Anatomy of an Epidemic

Another author whose work has illuminated my own road to better mental health is journalist Robert Whitaker. In his Huffington Post article, Anatomy Of An Epidemic’: Could Psychiatric Drugs Be Fuelling A Mental Illness Epidemic?, he takes a look at psychiatry’s track record:

The number of adults, ages 18 to 65, on the federal disability rolls due to mental illness jumped from 1.25 million in 1987 to four million in 2007. Roughly one in every 45 working-age adults is now on government disability due to mental illness.

This epidemic has now struck our nation’s children, too. The number of children who receive a federal payment because of a severe mental illness rose from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007, a 35-fold increase.

I wrote Anatomy of an Epidemic to investigate this epidemic, and this pursuit necessarily raises a very uncomfortable question. Although we, as a society, believe that psychiatric medications have “revolutionized” the treatment of mental illness, the disability numbers suggest a very different possibility. Could our drug-based paradigm of care, for some unforeseen reason, be fueling this epidemic?

This does not mean that antipsychotics don’t have a place in psychiatry’s toolbox. But it does mean that psychiatry’s use of these drugs needs to be rethought, and fortunately, a model of care pioneered by a Finnish group in western Lapland provides us with an example of the benefit that can come from doing so.

Twenty years ago, they began using antipsychotics in a selective, cautious manner, and today the long-term outcomes of their first-episode psychotic patients are astonishingly good. At the end of five years, 85% of their patients are either working or back in school, and only 20% are taking antipsychotics.

There is life beyond psychiatric medications. For me, it’s a better life.

Related:

Posts:

Giftedness, sensitivity and psychiatric drugs: why do we take them and why do we quit?

Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

Books:

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Revised Edition: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications

Organizations:

Safe Harbor — Includes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs

Alternative to Meds Center — Residential psychiatric medication withdrawal with medical and naturopathic oversight in Sedona, Arizona

Green Mental Health — Holistically-centered mental health care system which reflects traditional environmental, humanitarian, and health conscious values

The Road Back — How to get off psychiatric drugs safely

Soteria House — Alternative and non-drug solutions for people diagnosed schizophrenic

Mind Freedom International — is a nonprofit organization that works to win human rights and provide alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights

~~

sensitivity and psychiatric drugs, sensitivity and mental illness, sensitivity and drugs, sensitivity and giftedness, high sensitivity personality, mental health books, drug books, highly sensitive books