We're All Mad Here
161 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 438 ratingsThe history of mental illness is insane.
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Episodes
061: Watch Out for Esther
September 05, 2018 04:44 - 24 minutes - 25.6 MBIn 2004, the family of missing woman Brooke Henson were notified that Brooke’s social security number had shown up on a job application in New York City. Brooke’s family was cautiously optimistic- though they wanted their family member to be alive, none of the other information matched their Brooke. And they were right to doubt, […]
060: Catch Her if You Can
August 29, 2018 03:04 - 14 minutes - 15 MBEsther Reed was 30 years old when the law finally caught up with her. After over a decade of petty crime that escalated into multiple identity thefts, the Secret Service was after her for possible espionage and a murder. What began as Esther’s effort to escape her crippling social anxiety disorder spun out of control, […]
059: Clinically Shy
August 22, 2018 16:57 - 15 minutes - 16 MBSocial Anxiety Disorder, when it first appeared in the DSM III in 1980, wasn’t thought to have much of a negative effect on the people who had it. But as more research was done, it was discovered that social anxiety disorder could actually wreak havoc on someone’s life. From shying away from higher education to […]
058: The Axe Forgets But the Tree Remembers
August 15, 2018 19:46 - 17 minutes - 19.8 MB“I was spanked as a child, and I turned out fine,” goes the usual response to one speaking out against spanking. But is anyone who was spanked ACTUALLY fine, or are the effects of the punishment showing themselves in insidious ways? Some escape the effects, but most don’t.
057: Syndrome de Paris
August 09, 2018 04:59 - 15 minutes - 17.4 MBA 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 […]
056: The Lost Lady
August 01, 2018 02:40 - 14 minutes - 15.9 MBAthens 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, […]
055: Swear Not By the Moon
July 25, 2018 16:45 - 20 minutes - 20.6 MBNot 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 […]
054: Planes, Trains, and Americanitis
July 18, 2018 01:40 - 18 minutes - 19.6 MBIn 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 […]
053: Virgin’s Disease
July 11, 2018 17:28 - 15 minutes - 15.9 MBThe 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 […]
052: Dreams of a Life
July 04, 2018 03:02 - 20 minutes - 21.6 MBIn 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 […]
051: Silver Water
June 27, 2018 04:23 - 21 minutes - 24.8 MBIn 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 […]
050: The Lion by Its Claws
June 21, 2018 00:00 - 18 minutes - 19.3 MBSir 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 […]
049: A Shower of Sparkles: ASMR
June 14, 2018 02:41 - 20 minutes - 22.3 MBEver 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 […]
048: THE DIARIST Interview with Donna and Beth
June 06, 2018 02:15 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBFirst 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, […]
047: She Buried the Pistol (with Lydia Blaisdell)
May 31, 2018 03:44 - 18 minutes - 18.7 MBRachel 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 […]
046: Ghoster
May 24, 2018 04:38 - 21 minutes - 22.9 MBIn 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 […]
045: Children of Sin
May 16, 2018 03:12 - 14 minutes - 15.1 MBFrom 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 […]
044: Head Games
May 10, 2018 02:51 - 12 minutes - 13.6 MBChris 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’ […]
043: Jughead
May 03, 2018 03:07 - 20 minutes - 21.5 MBJustin 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 […]
042: Impact
April 26, 2018 07:11 - 26 minutes - 27.8 MBChronic 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 […]
041: The Voyeur
April 20, 2018 04:29 - 17 minutes - 18.5 MBDiane 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 […]
040: Body Integrity Identity Disorder
April 12, 2018 01:48 - 11 minutes - 12.1 MBFor 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 […]
039: The Hemingway Curse Pt 2
April 04, 2018 01:37 - 23 minutes - 25 MBErnest 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?
038: The Hemingway Curse, Pt 1
March 28, 2018 04:32 - 16 minutes - 17.2 MBErnest 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 […]
037: The Anxious Female
March 21, 2018 03:25 - 21 minutes - 21.4 MBToo often, if a man and a woman present in the ER with identical symptoms, the woman will be written off as simply “anxious” and sent home without treatment- or sometimes, being told she had been treated but was actually given a placebo. It’s not always based on gender, though- doctors are hesitant to give […]
036: Susan Lindauer and the Martha Mitchell Effect
March 14, 2018 05:53 - 23 minutes - 23.9 MBThe Martha Mitchell Effect: a clinical term for when someone (usually female) is labelled mentally ill for reporting truth stranger than fiction, with or without a history of insanity. Named for Martha Mitchell, of course, the woman notorious for drinking, gossiping… oh, and blowing the whistle on Watergate. Her life was ruined by the defamation […]
035: An Inspired Patriot
March 07, 2018 06:44 - 21 minutes - 22.3 MBFailure can be frustrating. A lot of failure can be REALLY frustrating. And Charles Guiteau failed a lot. Was it that that led him to assassinate a president? Was it a lifetime of syphilis? Or was it insanity?
034: D’Arc Matter
February 21, 2018 22:33 - 14 minutes - 14.8 MBWas Joan of Arc crazy? No one can seem to agree whether the teenager who saved France in 1429 was truly speaking to God or if she had epilepsy. Or migraines. Or tuberculosis (EVERY TIME, GUYS!) But whether she was schizophrenic, was truly speaking to God, or was just a really clever teenage girl, Joan […]
033: The Shadow Side of Faith
February 15, 2018 00:01 - 13 minutes - 14.3 MBIn the 1860s, 8% of asylum patients were admitted due to “religious excitement.” While that’s no longer a diagnosis, 24% of schizophrenic patients in psych wards today report having some form of religious delusion. But religious delusions exist outside the psych ward, too. Religious fanatics are willing to blow up buildings and murder to please […]
032: “Hey You Kids! Get Off My Meds!”
February 07, 2018 16:28 - 10 minutes - 11.4 MBWhen it comes to seniors and mental health treatment, society generally accepts that the older crowd are against it. They think it’s shameful or it’s witchcraft, right? WRONG! But, if people of a certain age are open to treatment, why aren’t they getting it?
031: Within the Devil’s Reach
January 31, 2018 20:17 - 23 minutes - 23.6 MBIn the early 1990s, Edward Gingerich was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and as an Amish man, was not allowed to treat it with medication. But after toe massages and thrice-daily molasses drinks didn’t work, he was finally allowed to take some. It worked like a charm, but the second he told his bishop he didn’t […]
030: My Meds Story
January 24, 2018 03:02 - 18 minutes - 18.9 MBRachel talks about how she made the decision to go on medication for her anxiety and depression. She also rips SSRI Stories (dot) com a new one. Love the show? Visit us at https://www.patreon.com/allmadpodcast We’re on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!
029: Miss Unknown
January 17, 2018 04:56 - 23 minutes - 23.7 MBThe Urban Asylum at Dalldorf was built in 1880s Berlin and was a comparatively good facility to be at. In 1920, a young woman was admitted who refused to reveal her identity for two whole years. The staff called her Miss Unknown. When she finally started talking, a rumor spread that Miss Unknown was actually […]
028: Sane in Insane Places
January 10, 2018 23:46 - 17 minutes - 18.5 MBIn 1973, Dr David Rosehan gathered a group of colleagues and friends to pull a Nellie Bly. They got themselves admitted to 12 different psych wards in 5 different cities to observe what life was like there. It wasn’t pretty. Hospital personnel were miffed after Dr Rosenhan published his study two years later and challenged […]
027: Nellie Bly: OG SJW
January 03, 2018 03:45 - 23 minutes - 18.8 MBElizabeth Cochran was one of the first “stunt journalists,” going where no woman had gone before. Too poor to afford much of an education, she dreamed of becoming a writer. After writing an anonymous letter to a newpaper editor, Elizabeth was hired as a freelancer for the paper, writing under the pen name “Nellie Bly.” […]
026: Not Evil, Just Sick Part 2
December 13, 2017 07:30 - 26 minutes - 28 MBDr Shirley Turner did not appreciate being broken up with by fellow doctor, Andrew Bagby… so she shot and killed him in November of 2001. It didn’t take long for the police to figure out who did it, but somehow, Shirley, who ran back to Canada, managed to avoid conviction. And then she discovered she […]
025: Not Evil, Just Sick Part 1
December 06, 2017 06:55 - 22 minutes - 22.7 MBShirley Turner made it clear that she wanted to be a psychiatrist to make money, not to help people. Usually that just makes someone seem selfish or shallow, but Dr Turner was labelled a psychopath by her coworkers, Her career wasn’t like she had pictured it, and neither was her personal life. Before she received […]
024: The Yellow Wallpaper
November 29, 2017 06:52 - 35 minutes - 40.4 MBIn 1892, early-day feminist Charlotte Perkins-Gilman published The Yellow Wallpaper in a literary journal. At first regarded as a piece of gothic fiction, the piece was soon corroborated by mental health professionals and eventually changed the way post-partum depression, among other ailments, was treated. Enjoy Rachel’s dramatization of Gilman’s piece.
023: The Day Medicine Changed Forever: c/o episode with Conspiring to Argue!
November 20, 2017 05:41 - 1 hour - 88.1 MBThe reason the Libby Zion Law was created is discussed with JJ and Ted from Conspiring to Argue. 18 year old Libby should never have died on that evening in 1984- but was it murder, or simply a flawed system?
022: The Prince of Pennsylvania: Execution
November 15, 2017 06:26 - 21 minutes - 22.2 MBAfter his mother’s death in 1988, John duPont threw himself into sports. He built a training facility he called Foxcatcher Farms and opened it to athletes. His money turned the world of USA Wrestling around, and soon Foxcatcher Farms was hosting world-class wrestlers, training for the Olympics. John was on top of the world… sometimes. […]
021: The Prince of Pennsylvania: Creation
November 08, 2017 05:21 - 16 minutes - 17.4 MBJohn DuPont became a murderer in 1996. But before that, he was a boy desperate to belong. Ignored by his parents and unable to excel at his favorite thing, sports, John was a sad kid. As he grew up, his eccentricities were ignored because people loved what his money did for them, and that willful […]
020: The Silent Twins
November 01, 2017 04:45 - 20 minutes - 17 MBJune and Jennifer were the only black kids in their 1960s Welsh school, and people assumed that that was why they never grew out of their special twin language. But by eleven, they refused to even speak to their family, and when people tried to separate them, each girl grew catatonic. After dropping out at […]
019: Synonyms for Psycho
October 29, 2017 05:30 - 13 minutes - 12.8 MBWhy are so many Halloween costumes labelled with the word “psycho”, so many haunting stories start with suicide, so many haunted houses given an asylum theme? What is it about mental illness that scares people so much that even after All Hallow’s Eve, we both relish and fear stories about a deranged psych ward escapee? […]
018: Enigma
October 18, 2017 05:37 - 24 minutes - 21.9 MBAlan Turing has been called one of the most important people of the 20th century. The inventor of what would become stored-memory computers, Turing worked as a cryptanalyst during WW2. His work with his colleagues is believed to have shortened the war by years and saved millions of lives. And yet, when it was discovered […]
017: Sissy Boy
October 11, 2017 05:02 - 21 minutes - 22.4 MBPenis shocking, porn watching, Gatorade drinking- just a few of the suggested treatments to banish homosexuality from your mind and body. While being gay was once considered breaking the law, it eventually became regarded as a mental illness. Often blamed on a child’s parenting, conversion therapy became a popular way to make your kid “normal” […]
016: A Rather Small Cautiousness Organ
October 04, 2017 05:21 - 20 minutes - 19 MBIn the late 1800s, Dr. Franz Gall published his ideas on the physical human mind. He believed that the brain was divided into seven different “personality” organs, and that the size of each organ dictated the strength of the trait. He called it “phrenology.” These “findings” catapulted the Western world into a frenzy, with phrenology […]
015: Come See the Crazy Indians!
September 27, 2017 02:49 - 19 minutes - 16.6 MBAlcoholics, horse thieves, non-conformists, and yes, those with mental illnesses were all people who were committed to the Hiawatha Insane Asylum, otherwise known as the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. Run first by a clueless superintendent and then a cruel one, Canton Asylum was a mess from the start. Patients were chained to radiators and […]
014: Packard v Packard
September 20, 2017 03:29 - 18 minutes - 17 MBIn the mid 1800s, a strong-willed Elizabeth Ware married Theophilus Packard, a Calvinist minister. After moving several times due to Elizabeth expressing “outlandish” religious ideas, Theophilus conspired with two local doctors to have his wife institutionalized. Even after she was released, Elizabeth was forced to take her husband to court to keep her money, possessions, […]
013: The Last Great Disgrace
September 13, 2017 02:44 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBIn 1972, Geraldo Rivera investigated Willowbrook State School. What his cameras and microphones picked up distressed not only the Staten Island community, but people all over the country. It was discovered that for 14 years, the “students” at Willowbrook were experimented on by doctors from Yale and NYU, who gave the children hepatitis in order […]
012: Suppress Everything Suppressible
September 06, 2017 18:35 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBVivienne Haigh-Wood and Tom Eliot met in England when Eliot was studying at Oxford. Just three months after meeting, the two married, and so began one of the most tempestuous marriages in history. Vivienne is described in one of two lights: the femme fatale who led Tom down a depressive path, and the muse without […]