I just finished reading Sylvia Nasar’s biography of John Nash: the brilliant mathematician who did his best work in his twenties, was schizophrenic from his thirties to his fifties, and then spontaneously recovered in his sixties and went on to win the Nobel Prize.

Nasar says three things helped Nash recover – his own persistence in trying to get better, the support of his wife and friends, and the natural body changes that come with aging. He had not been taking any medicine, or in fact any kind of treatment, for his condition for the twenty years prior to his recovery.

The support of his wife and friends and no drugs: now that is something that is difficult for a lot of us to accept, and it goes against political correctness. In the film version  Nash’s character claims that newest generation of antipsychotic medicines ‘don’t cure (him), but they help.’ The real John Nash, when asked if this was true, denied it, and attributed the ‘quote’ to artistic license.

Many ‘advocacy groups’ for mental illnesses praised the film, but Nash’s real experience (as opposed to the film) goes against their current official stand on psychopharmacology - that drugs are necessary to cure mental illnesses. It seems to confirm what anti-establishment psychiatrists like Peter Breggin have said: recovery from mental illness needs a ‘healing presence’ - one element of which is love and acceptance - rather than a prescription of medicines.

Nash himself has said he was lucky he refused to take his medicines and could get away with it. Taking antipsychotic medicines over years leads to a kind of mental fog, and causes tardive dyskinesia - distressing abnormal movements and tics - that would have made his gentle reentry into normal life impossible.

Of course, love alone is not enough. You need knowledge, skills, and resources. Medicine alone is not enough either, and it can actually be harmful.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more about mental illness and recovery:

1. The need to reduce the stigma of mental illness

2. Men avoid seeking help for mental illnesses

3. Twenty million Indians have mental disorders

4. Understanding mental illness through gene-environment interactions

In the recent years  emphasis had shifted from Michael’s music to the way he looked and, of course, behaved. The world saw a nice-looking, young, black man slowly being transformed into a white woman!! And many joked that such bizarre behavior could only occur in America!

But  how did the oh-so-black MJ become white with years?

 Many blamed it on his obsession for Caucasian features (which explained why his nose resembled Pinocchio’s on a bad day!) and a fair skin. The net result was a striking resemblance to a stylish (if-u- please) ghoul!

MJ was a remarkably talented man…. ‘one-in-a-century’ kind… and hence it becomes a necessity to educate the ignorant on the root cause of his ‘white’ skin…before more blasphemies are uttered.

 MJ suffered from a little known skin condition  known as  vitiligo which destroys the  melanin – producing cells, the melanocytes, causing de- pigmentation.  The condition occurs in all races, but is definitely more visible in people with colored skin .

The net result is that the affected have botchy patches of white on their skin, rendering it an ungainly appearance.

If the patches of white are few then it can be camouflaged with brown make-up. But MJ had 80% or more of de-pigmented areas and hence he chose to make the remaining brown patches white. Little do people know that ‘the king of pop’ had this condition even during his ‘bad’ and ‘thriller’ days.

The causes are not clearly understood but a lot of experts believe that stress could trigger the onset of this condition. We have all heard of MJ’s childhood abuse and his statements on  lost childhood, haven’t we!
Vitiligo makes the sufferer sensitive to the sun (that explains the umbrella) and   often occurs alongside other autoimmune disorders. It therefore comes as no surprise that MJ  suffered from lupus, an auto immune condition that has the potential to be  fatal.

Vitiligo is definitely not a life- threatening condition but it can be a blow to the self-esteem of a person, especially for one who loved the spotlight and swore by it,  like our late pop king !

It saddens me to think of Michael Jackson……  it is easy to see why he had to take ‘pain’ killers!

Although Michael Jackson succumbed to the ‘panacea’ he took for the internal and external pain attributed directly or indirectly to these little known conditions, they in turn, stand to gain from their celebrity victim!

Dr.Reeja Tharu

Related Links

1. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

2. Vitiligo (leukoderma) skin disorder treatment