We're All Mad Here

A strange affliction befalls a number of Japanese tourists who visit Paris, France: Paris Syndrome. Symptoms include nausea, dizziness, derealization, hallucinations, and paranoia. Some experts don’t believe it is a thing, but it’s not just restricted to the Japanese in Paris. Jerusalem Syndrome, the more extreme version of Paris Syndrome, affects all types of people […]

Athens Lunatic Asylum opened in 1874. Initially reknowned for its top-notch PTSD treatment for Civil War veterans, it took the normal turn of over population and abuse. In 1978, patient Margaret Schilling went missing. A month later, her body was found in the attic of one of the unrenovated buildings. When the body was removed, […]

Not so way back when, it was considered fact that the moon’s phases controlled human behavior. Even today, people consider the full moon the catalyst for increased crime and mental illness. In the 1800s, a criminal could be granted a lighter sentence if their crime occurred during the full moon, as they were considered less […]

In 1826, a new diagnosis of neurasthenia appeared on the medical scene. Covering everything from anxiety to headaches to fatigue, it soon gained the nickname of “Americanitis”, as Americans loved to be diagnosed with it to prove how very American they were. To be pronounced neurasthenic was exclusive to the upper classes and very much […]

The first episode in a series about ye olde diagnoses. The day a young woman got her period way back when was considered to be the day she essentially went crazy. A girl or woman who menstruated but hadn’t yet had sex was almost guaranteed to come down with the Virgin’s Disease, also known as […]

In 2006, the body of Joyce Carol Vincent, a British woman, was found abandoned in her London flat. Tragic enough, but then it was discovered that Joyce had died in 2003. Two years before, Joyce had suddenly quit her job and cut off contact with everyone she knew. No one heard from her again until […]

In a single year, Rose went from a happy teenager to an emotionally broken one. Her sister Violet watched in horror as even their psychiatrist father was at a loss for what to do, and wonders if she’ll go crazy too. “Silver Water” by Amy Bloom is read and performed with permission from Bloom’s literary […]

Sir Isaac Newton is considered one of the founding fathers of mathematics, but while he was making his amazing discoveries, he was also dealing with mental illness and had two mental breakdowns in his lifetime, No one really knows what he had- bipolar? Schizophrenia?- but back when Newton was alive, it was actually considered a […]

Ever get weird tingles when you hear a certain sound or feel a certain object? There’s a term for it: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR. The newest internet fad, people have been gleefully giving themselves “brain orgasms” to YouTube videos since about 2011. But where does it come from? Can everyone experience it? www.patreon.com/allmadpodcast […]

First released as a bonus episode, this is an interview I was invited to do with creators of the audiodrama THE DIARIST, Donna and Beth. We talk mental health treatment in the 50s, women’s rights, and Beth’s dog pops in for a visit. If you haven’t listened to THE DIARIST yet, do it! It’s well-written, […]

Rachel interviews playwright Lydia Blaisdell, who wrote her play She Buried the Pistol about her great-grandmother, Cora Blaisdell, who was committed to a California asylum when she was 36. Cora was institutionalized until her death over 30 years later. Lydia discusses the process of finding medical records, what an asylum was like in the 30s […]

In 1988, a woman tried on a new identity as Becky Sue Turner. A few months later, she changed her identity again, to Lori Erica Kennedy. Under this name, she married and had a child, only to kill herself a few years later. Upon going through her things, her former in-laws discovered that she was […]

From 1944-1959, Maurice Duplessis was Premier of Quebec, Canada. He had built a reputation for disregarding the civil liberties of Canadians, and one of his biggest moves was having 20,000 orphans (some of whom weren’t actually orphans) declared mentally deficient. Why? To make money off of them, of course! In the process, the lives of […]

Chris Nowinski’s WWE career, from debut to retirement, lasted almost exactly two years. In 2003, he received a kick to the jaw so severe that he couldn’t remember who he was directly afterward. So he dropped out of the WWE, added a PhD to the Harvard degree he already had, and tried to solve sports’ […]

Justin Strzelczyk was drafted into the NFL right out of college, where he was a standout player. Coaches loved him because he was obsessed with the game and gave his all. But giving his all may have done him in; four years after he was released, Justin got in his car took a 411 mile […]

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), under other names, has been being researched since the 1920s. In the ’50s, it was called “punch drunk syndrome” and was thought to only affect boxers. But recent research has proven that not only can CTE occur in people who have ANY extensive exposure to head trauma, whether it be sports […]

Diane Arbus took after her mother’s depression, but her photography talent was all her own. After starting a successful fashion photography business with her husband, Diane struck off on her own to take the pictures she really wanted: those of “freaks.” Circus performers, multiples, the intellectually disabled- she saw beauty and bravery in them and […]

For a fraction of the population, their greatest wish is to remove a body part. It’s not quite known what causes the phenomenon known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, but one theory is that it’s caused by the same part of the brain that is responsible for phantom limbs. But people with BIID are seen […]

Ernest Hemingway took his own life in 1961, only the second of five Hemingways to do so. Two of his siblings and his supermodel granddaughter followed his lead. Does suicide run in families? Is it learned behavior? In either case, can anything be done about it?

Ernest Hemingway ended his own life in 1961 after a lifetime of brain injuries and battling mental illness, but he was far from the only member of his family to do so. 5 people over 4 generations of Hemingways have died by suicide- and that doesn’t include all of the attempts and wives and husbands […]