The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry to bring it up but all the recent publicity is stirring up the "now what's wrong" stuff again from people that know I'm a lifelong fan. "He has some mental issues" I respond. People seem to get it when I explain that he's always talked out of his mouth corner thing, or that he hates interviews so he barley even phones it in anymore. But when it comes to what clinically he has been diagnosed with I'm never quite clear myself. Much of what has been written or speculated upon was Landy type driven B.S. as far as I'm concerned. It would be nice to have a simple truthful answer when people press me on this stuff.

My apologies in advance for those who are tired of these topics. However, the question from the casual fan is legit. Most people just want an understanding of what's going on with Brian, a compassionate frame of reference so to speak.

Tell them he has a set of lingering neurological symptoms from having been over-medicated with heavy psych drugs in the 80s.  Is that concise enough?

Pick one:

1. Schizoaffective disorder
2. Manic-depressive
3. Tardive dyskinesia

What Mikie said. The second probably expressed itself first, then shaded into the first as the years wore by (mental illness definitions are oftentimes more for the convenience of doctors than a reflection of what actually happens to real people). The third was a byproduct of overmedication and has largely receded.

So it's all of the above, and factual based on......?

Not trying to be a jerk, but this stuff ALWAYS comes up when the Boys start getting some heavy media attention. I've had my sister and a co-worker ask just since the Sunday morning thing aired the other day. I'm as tired of it as anyone, despite bringing it up. I'd just like my response's from this point forward to be the truth and not speculation or misinformation.

I don't know if its easily explained or not, but it seems Landy's chemical abuse of Brian in the early 90's did more damage than anything else. Find an interview of Brian from '76-77 and compare it to almost anything from the 90's. Brian seemed lucid and very self-aware during his first "comback", but there are some heartbreaking interviews from the 90's that makes Brian's current state almost a miracle. If Landy had continued his "treatment", Brian might not even be here today. I don't even want to legitimize Landy with derogatory terms.

Brian is a true survivor.

Paul,

There have been a couple of good responses already.  And there is some interesting info here on Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson

I understand the reasons for the questions, but the answer is complicated.

At this point though, how much is age factored into Brian's current state?  He's nearing 70...surely, that has a lot to do with his current behavior/appearance in addition to the conditions (as mentioned above) that he still continues to fight?

we can compare him to other 70 year olds without Brian's issues to see if age has "a lot do with it"
(http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Entertainment/gty_beach_boys_grammy_thg_120212_wg.jpg)
(http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120211&t=2&i=569467395&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CDEE81A0MNG00)
(http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/replicate/EXID5590/images/harrison_ford_cowboysandaliens.jpg)

Han Solo looks good for his age

I think after 2 days off Brian may do better at the next couple of shows. He's never looked thrilled on stage so maybe a lot of this is over-played. some of these photos show a pretty happy fellow. Hell if we all walked around with a bigass smile all the time we'd be locked up. :o

I've often wondered if Brian has undiagnosed Asperger's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergers

he's indiana jones first in my book

I'd recommend the documentary on Roky Erickson of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators for people interested in Brian's saga, because Roky's life was somewhat similar, though Roky had far less money (which was both a bad and good thing).  Roky had similar problems to Brian (mental illness and drug use), though I think his were at least somewhat worse.  Roky also spent time in state mental hospitals where he was medicated heavily.  His brother had to fight to get control of his treatment and weaned him off the heavy medications he was given for his schizoaffective illness.  Roky actually improved when he got off the medications.  Age is also a factor, because in many cases, people with those types of problems get better over the years naturally.  Roky now tours when for years he was not doing anything.  He's still eccentric but seems to be doing okay now. 

Read this: It's Brian and Melinda on Larry King about eight years ago.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/20/lkl.00.html

Basically, what Melinda and Brian say outright is that he has severe, ongoing depression that occasionally manifests as auditory hallucinations.

The actual story is probably a bit more complicated (Brian's constant tales of 20-minute songwriting binges finishing entire songs in 20 minute bursts seem a bit manic, and the tardive dykensia thing has been covered at length) but that's something simple to tell people.

"Brian and his wife said he has severe depression and hears voices. He takes a few drugs to level out the symptoms."

20 minute songwriting binges? That doesnt sound too manic, to be honest.

Sorry, will edit. I meant that he constantly claims to have finished an entire song, "like that," in 20 minutes.

i always saw this as just him feeding his legend.  Not for his ego, but because that's what people like to hear.  Carl used to do it for him too.

I remember an interview back in the 90's, I think it was with Diane Sawyer, where his face got real contorted. He told her that sometimes he saw the Devil in the showerhead.

I think that's actually precisely backwards...His brother was fighting to get him away from their mother, who was preventing him from seeing any doctors or being medicated in any way.  It's generally thought that his return to music has a lot to do with his getting back into medical and psychiatric treatment and getting on to a medication regime that works for him.

Roky's institutionalization in the 70s may have messed him up pretty badly as well, but it was also somewhat seperate from what he was going through later in life with his mom.

There's nothing that strange about that. It's just inspiration. Some artists draft and redraft at great length, some just run right through a song in a few moments. Schubert could write down upwards of 10 songs in a single day with few if any revisions needed along the way.

It does when all 20 minute binges are about finishing different versions of 'Shortenin' Bread', it does.

Well, supposedly he was talking about the past in that interview.

There is a follow-up story in the DVD in which Roky's brother Sumner said he no longer believed in the concept of mental illness or psychiatry.  He had Roky taken off of medications (that was elaborated on in some interviews that were given around the time of the DVD release).  When the brother first got a conservatorship of Roky, he brought him in for medical care, including getting him on medications.  After living with Roky for a couple of years, he decided Roky would be better off without the meds.  I'm not sure what made him change his mind, whether it was the side effects outweighing the benefits of the meds or maybe Sumner got into some religion like Scientology.  In any case, Sumner also had himself removed as conservator, after Roky stopped taking medications, learned to drive again, and began living independently.

 :)

No, he was talking about what he was experiencing at the time. In the early 90's, when he was still with Landy.

Thanks for bringing this up, Mcg -
It is largely a matter of semantics. Psychiatry is the knowledge about causes for, and treatment of the disorders  of our minds, for millennia thought to be quite independent of our bodily matter.
That is no longer the case. Depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders, to name two, have been unequivocally shown to be caused by, or at the very least strongly linked to, abnormalities in distinct brain regions, and hence may with good reason be seen as no different in this respect (I emphasize the ‘in this respect’) to Parkinson’s or Korsakov’s, and thus also be seen as neurological disorders. It is just historical happenstance and lack of technological expertise in brain research that neurology and psychiatry came into being as separate medical disciplines.
Which frees us from a lot of gobbledygook about ‘being possessed’, ‘being a simulator’, ‘being in need of an exorcist’, and so on and so forth. I for one, and I don’t do that as an amateur, know that the mere act of getting a mentally ill person rid of pills will cure his pains is an erroneous assumption.
The other side of this coin is what Landy did: using truckloads of wrong and obsolete types of pills and solutions (which he did, as far as I know, to control Brian for his own ends, one of these being insidiously availing himself of 70% of Brian’s changed last will and testament).\


I hope you follow my argument here. Take depression: it is known by now that putting a person under severe and chronic stress will, in all probability, make him/her depressed. That happens because, amongst other things, a brain area called the ‘hippocampus’ gets damaged or deteriorated in the process. Nerve cells get ‘pruned’, they lose a lot of their mutual contacts, and also the development of new nerve cells in that hippocampus decreases.

With:

(a)   Taking away the stress and providing the patient with a safe and warm environment;
(b)   Stimulating his/her creative activity;
(c)   Getting him/her to do physical activity;
(d)   …and administering, if needed, the right types of medication –
                the depression can be combated successfully.
                All of this has to be done on a fashion tailored to the individual.


And therefore it is all not a matter or: yes/or no pills, and yes/or no gurus at hand. The majority of psychiatrists nowadays is highly trained as ‘biological/biochemical psychiatrist’ and cannot be compared in any sense to the nerve doctors of the 19th century.


If I am rightfully informed, Brian changed, in the course of the Nineties of the 20th century, from someone put on levels of old-fashioned meds that could have served half the population of NYC to someone now using a very moderate quantum of one of the newer anti-depressant – and the other requirements I jotted down above were given to him in abundance.
The results are there for all of us to see.

Pardon my ignorance on the subject but the "shower demons" story is something that seems to get brought up a lot even by people I know that aren't Brian Wilson or Beach Boys fans.  I guess my question is since this story has become so widespread, is it believed that the hallucinations are consequences of the massive amounts of LSD that Wilson took in the sixties?  The reason being is because I'm under the impression that a great deal of people think that Brian's problems lie in the fact that he was essentially an acid casualty and still experiences mental issues that other acid users experience long after abandoning taking the drug.

I'll look into the Roky story, looks interesting, thanks!  However re: "people with those types of problems get better over the years naturally", no, no, this is almost never, ever, ever true.  I am speaking from very long experience with my father (and others) who was diagnosed with "mental illness" (schizophrenia/paranoia) way back in the '60's.  (This was long before the use of the term "bipolar".)

The problem with "mental illness" is finding the right set of treatments that work; it's a very long, and often sad road.  We know a lot more now that we did in the 60's but we still don't know enough.  If you read up on it, people who are really diagnosed with a mental illness will almost always get worse with age, unless they have found some successful treatment.  Anyway, I have a lot of experience w/ this and I am not meaning to "rant" about it.

That's nonsense. According to folks who would know, BW only dropped acid a handful of times in the 60s. His worst mental symptoms didn't occur until the 1970s, when be was primarily taking cocaine and some heroin.

The Roky story definitely has a lot in common -- hearing voices, supportive family and bands. I caught his act recently and the love that poured out from the audience and band towards this guy was infectious and SUPER FAMILIAR:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=500Rz37nsQc

Right down to the security blanket sporadically played instrument for added comfort level, aw. For the encore he gives it up with a big smile and has a ball:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1PGimmFto

Roky Erickson is an especially sad case because by all accounts he was OK to start with, but pled insanity to avoid a ludicrously long jail term for marijuana possession (he would have got ten years under Texas law at the time), and was committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was given electroshock treatment that left him brain-damaged and ill. (As he sings on his most recent, rather lovely, album, "Electricity hammered me through my head/Till nothing at all was backward instead")

As for people getting better with age, it depends (going on my experience of a few years working on a psychiatric ward, plus family members with various problems). A lot of schizophrenia at the moment is at least partly drug-related -- if the patient can be persuaded just not to take the drug, it can often be improved (if never completely repaired).  The ward I worked on had more cases of cannabis-related psychosis than of anything else.

Other illnesses are stress-related - and these *can* often get better with age, either because one's hormones settle down, one's life becomes less stressful, or both.

And finally there are those cases which are due to a fundamental problem with the brain, If this is caused by organic damage, it can sometimes get better (the brain's quite good at rewiring itself to route round problem areas) but if it's a chemical imbalance, where your body doesn't produce enough of one type or another of neurotransmitter, you're basically stuck with it, and the illness will, even if treated, be more likely to deteriorate than get better.

Of course, the problem is trying to figure out which of these is the cause, especially since having one makes the others more likely (if you're having hallucinations, you're likely to be having quite a stressful life, and may well want to calm yourself down by smoking too much dope...)

John, I'm not an expert on the subject. Everything I know is what I've read in books on Brian (i.e. The Wilson Project) and from guys like Peter Reum who have posted about it on message boards through the years. Surprised you've heard about the "Shower head demons" outside of Brian's world. This is the only time I've read/heard about that. It sounds like a symptom of schizophrenia. He also has Auditory Hallucinations (hears Murry and Spector talking to him) and I always thought it was the result of taking undiluted acid in the 60's. But after watching the Sawyer interview (among others) in the 90's. I started to wonder - this DEFINITELY was not the same Brian I met in 1976, who seemed MUCH more normal and lucid then and was completely void of the slurring speech, facial contortions, anti-social behavior, and zoning off into La La Land.

I stuck up for Landy in the 90's as he really did save Brian's life. But then I read more and more and more about the over-use of drugs he prescribed Brian and I started to wonder if that did more damage than the acid. I've known a couple of people who did acid (and a lot of coke) in the 70's and 80's they're still alive and well and very productive and it hasn't seemed to have taken a permanent toll on them.
But again, we're talking about more potent drugs that Brian took back then. Brian also did MASSIVE amounts of cocaine in the 70's. But I'm starting to wonder how often he took acid in the 60's and how much of an effect it had on him long term. A few people say that Brian didn't do very much acid at all. I know some people are more sensitive to hard drugs than others, but I'm just not real sure anymore.

Last I heard, one of the drugs he's taking is Librium. I think Melinda said Brian was taking one or two drugs now to keep him on an even keel.

Brian indicated that he tried horse once and he zoned out and went to sleep. Seems like it didn't do much for him. But he did do a LOT of coke throughout the 70's and into the early 80's. He snuck it even while under Landy's care!

Edit: I just remembered what Brian said in the "It's OK" NBC TV special in 1976.  "I took the acid and it just tore my head off!"

So who knows anymore.

The positive effect of Landy on Brian had as much to do with re-socializing him and making him live a so-called normal life and training him to ignore the voices in his head.  The medications never elimated those.  People have this great awe of medications, but they're only effective for some people.  For people with schizophrenic type symptoms, they work something like only half the time.  It may not seem like such a bad gamble to take someone off the medication if it's not eliminating their symptoms, especially if it's causing major side effects.  All the anti-schizophrenia meds have potentially dangerous side effects.  It's a trade-off with little pay-off for some people with those illnesses.  Maybe that was true in Roky's case.  His brother helped him get a better lifestyle and eliminated negative influences like Landy did for Brian.  So, Landy keeping Brian away from street drugs and making him get up in the morning and exercise and write songs was the thing that save Brian more than any meds.

Even drugs like anti-depressants are potentially dangerous.  There have been articles that say that people on those drugs long-term have heart risks. Americans take so many of those drugs and here in the States, they're often prescribed by family doctors instead of psychiatrists as mother's little helper type drugs. 

Brian and drugs are complicated because for a long time it was easier to claim that you were a drug casualty than to say you were mentally ill. It's a cultural thing, albeit one that has changed.

And it's also possible that those close to Brian and the situation have every incentive to minimize what happened to him -- both in terms of drugs and mental illness -- because no one wants to look bad in retrospect. Just remember that the fact that Brian was institutionalized in the late 60s is a relatively new piece of knowledge -- I don't think that was commonly known until the last 10 years or so. So that was a secret that was held for some 30-plus years.

I think it's difficult to know precisely anything about Brian's "true" mental state, because he's smart and crafty, the people around him have every incentive to mislead (and have for the last 40 years), and the popular entertainment media and fandom prefer compelling, emotional stories to flawed human reality.

I have no problem believing the acid that Brian took may have done permanent damage. This was '60s Owlsley acid, very fucking potent stuff..

Yes it was more potent in the '60s, and any psychedelic drug (even a mild psychedelic like pot) can trigger a schizophrenic episode in someone predisposed to it. LSD isn't the mind-wasting drug it is made out to be, although people can suffer post traumatic stress from bad trips, especially if predisposed to mental illness.

For what it's worth, from 2006 or so:

"How old were you when the voices started?

About 25... I’d taken some psychedelic drugs, and then about a week after that I started hearing voices, and they’ve never stopped."
http://abilitymagazine.com/past/brianW/brianw.html


"I take Luvox for depression, Klonopin for anxiety and Clozaril to help with the voices and help me sleep at night."

quote]"I take Luvox for depression, Klonopin for anxiety and Clozaril to help with the voices and help me sleep at night."
[/quote]

I didn't know Brian was on Clozaril, but can comment on the treatment from personal experience as a pharmacist: Clozaril is the drug of last resort for schizophrenia due to its possible serious effects on white blood cells.  Because of this, patients on Clozaril are required to be on a national registry and have to pass blood tests before any new doses are given. Patients may have to have labs done as often as every week, and their labs must stay within set levels to continue treatment. It really is a miracle drug for schizophrenia, as I have treated patients who were totally unresponsive before treatment, but after starting the medication were able to interact and lead much more fulfilling lives.

Not when he answers that question. Both question and answer are in the past tense.

Everybody but you got it, Leonard.   If you didn't, I'm really sorry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-vhRkfFgj8

4:49 proves me right  ;D

4:54 proves you right  :'(

I have good friends who work in the mental health field and their reaction - to a person - upon discovering Brian takes Clozaril is generally something like "holy fucking sh*t!"

I don't understand what you're getting at, Leonard. Brian acknowledged during the Sawyer interview that he saw the Devil in the showerhead. I said that already. The YouTube clip confirmed it. So what's your point?

There have been people up close to Brian's situation who have posted about his previous medications' side effects and their feeling that Brian would have been left disabled or worse had he continued taking those other medications.  It may have been more a matter that he needed to take a completely different type of medication due to damage from taking other meds, rather than his symptoms have gotten worse or are that severe.  He's doing well considering.  He looks way more with-it than he has in the past.  Your friends in the mental health field don't sound too compassionate for being in the mental health field, IMO. 

I'm totally against even recreational use of any drugs at all, but Brian's problems pre-exist his drug use.  I think his drug use definately caused issues, and perhaps the hallucinations started after that... but his long term issues are things he's been suffering from since childhood in my opinion.  You can't blame it on the drugs, although it certainly didn't help the situation any that he did hard drugs while suffering from a severe mental disability. 

My opinion is that he was a highly functioning individual despite the issues, and the drug use coincided with a really stressful period of his life, and was enough to push him over the cliff a bit.  Had he never done drugs he still would have crashed eventually. 

He's recovered remarkably well with the proper treatment over the last several years.  I think a lot of his strange behavior that he has today can be attributed to the medications he takes at the present. 

Nothing does "I look SO HAPPY But inside i'm dying" quite like anti-psychotic medication.  God bless the guy, we're lucky he still tours/sings/records. 

Mom: Isn't he crazy?
Me: Kinda.

story of my life talking to people about BW.

Very brave of Brian the way he keeps putting himself on display. He does seem to be aware of the fact that people are expecting, and would ever prefer, him to act differently sometimes. Still he goes on. The moments of intense clarity he shows sometimes ("It was only a lawsuit...) is common for someone who has the mental diagnosis he himself has claimed to have. But most of the time it must be very hard.

Jo/ thebeachboyspodcast.podbean.com

Interesting thoughts Wirestone. My own impression is that for whatever reasons, the public has never really been told the truth. It may not be our business and maybe it is all just too complicated to simplify. In any case this thread has helped so now I have a bit more ammo next time I'm approached with the "Brian's problems" questions.

My sister, had also just seen Glen Campbell in Milwaukee a month or two ago. She was aware of his Alzheimer's and said the crowd was very compassionate about his struggles during the performance. Not exactly apples to apples but it does make a difference if people KNOW what the situation is. With Brian it's always vague and therefore always invites speculation and false assumptions. Even the Larry King transcript only helps complicate things because as we all know what Brian says is often not reality. That interview leads one to think most of his issues are depression related. It seems obvious that it's a lot more complicated.

I think that the long-term effects of my Brian's cocaine and alcohol abuse has been underestimated by fans, simply because Brian seemed relatively fine whenever he sobered up for a few during the '70s. Some of the damage is not immediately apparent when it comes to those kinds of drugs. It's kind like how a football player can get pummeled throughout their 20s and 30s and seem fine, only to not be able to remember where their house is in their 50s.  

Though we don't know all the facts, it seems like Brian really got out of control in the late 70s and early 80s. Remember, the Brian in '76 had only been seriously abusing for a couple of years. And even then, it seemed like the old Brian was just barely hanging on - he was there, but you kind of had to squint to see it. But by 1983, he been abusing drugs and alcohol to an insane extent for over a decade.

In 1985, there's an interview with Brian during Live Aid, and he seems to be suffering from serious memory loss. He can't even remember the basic details of his day. While we can't say for sure, it seems Landy didn't start heavily over-prescribing medication to Brian until the very late '80s and early '90s, when he became desperate to maintain his control over Brian. So, what see in the mid-80s was probably damage Brian had largely done to himself.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe Landy's treatments exacerbated Brian's problems, but it seems more to have affected his mental health rather than the physical health of his brain, if you ask me.

Dr Richard Kimble

Times one million!

I can never think of Brian Wilson without thinking of all the glorious gifts he has given us!

No man, Richard Kimble was played by David Janssen. 




Is my age showing?

Interesting points there, Dada. I agree up to a point: it is not very likely that the excesses in drugs and alcohol didn’t do any harm, and that each and any problem he’s been suffering from throughout the nineties and noughties is due to Landy’s overmedication.
On the other hand, there’s a point I want to make: contrary to most heavy users of, say, cocaine and alcohol (well, those that are observed in hospital to have got permanent damage from those substances), Brian can hardly be said to have suffered from longterm vitamin deficits. Memory loss in alcohol abuse (not the retrograde amnesia, but the difficulties in coming up with names, places, years), also known as Korsakov’s, is attributable to a chronic shortage in Vitamine B, notably B12.
Well, our Brian can safely be said to have enjoyed copious amounts of food, even in his worst days, IMHO (gathering from the stories that don’t contradict each other on this issue). Steaks and salads always were within reach IIRC.
Whether his brain got some atrophy from it all, that I don’t know. I’d have to see some MRS/MRI scan for that.

True, but nutritional deficits are just one way alcohol ([url]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.1998.tb04389.x/abstract;jsessionid=986EC1579D7228D665EDE04598912054.d02t02[url]) can harm the brain. Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to be an anti-alcohol spokesperson.  I enjoy drinking. But from the little I've read, it sounds like Brian was capable of drinking crazy amounts by the late '70s. There's a difference between have 6-7 beers and 15-20 shots in a night.

Henry Turner. You know, from Regarding Henry - the one about the guy who gets shot in a convenience store and loses his memory and discovers through family love that he likes scrambled eggs. A classic.

I agree - but that is why I mentioned 'atrophy', damage to, for instance, the white matter in the brain (the sheath that insulates fibres of nerve cells), and also the result of nerve cell loss (cell death), due to chronic alcohol poisoning.

But thanks for the link, I will follow it.

Rock and roll, man.

this actually seems applicable.

(http://www.ufunk.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/harisson-ford-indiana-jones-han-solo.jpg)

 :lol

Yes it is. So were you a fan of the Marx Brothers growing up?  :)  Actually I have never seen the original. But the Harrison Ford version is one of my favorites.

Yes! That is a good one. I actually cried watching that.

 :lol  Nah.  I mean, I was a fan of the Marx Brothers, but those were old movies even when I was a kid.  The Fugitive was a weekly TV series in the ‘60s, starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, and Barry Morse as Lieutenant Philip Gerard.  It had a decent four year run on ABC  There were only four TV channels at the time, though, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Public Broadcasting, so there wasn’t a whole lot of competition,  I was 7 years old when the series started in 1963, but I didn’t start watching until a couple years later.  I liked it.

edit:   Eh, sorry for going off topic.  Ummmm, Brian probably watched the show, too.  There. 

I have heard of the 60s Fugitive actually. I just never seen it. But hey, my favorite band is from the 60s, and I was born on Aug 19 1977. The same week/day that Elvis and Groucho died.

The 60's fugitive was pretty good, you should check it out.  You like old music (Obviously!) so you'll probably like old television shows too, especially when they're actually pretty cool like the Fugitive. 

I have every ep of the Fugitive in my collection - one of the best shows ever made!

He's 70 in Paul McCartney years but 95 in Keith Richard years (or vice versa). Either way, his biological age clearly does not reflect how he aged his mind and body with drug in-take.

Plus there's the delayed effect of being whacked by dad. See also Dennis.

It's more remarkable that he's still here.

I will check it out. I have watched old shows like Columbo, Lassie, Happy Days, Dennis the Menace, Get Smart, and many more. But never The Fugitive for some reason. I've never seen it on tv. I can problem rent it at Premiere Video which has everything!

I don't know why they don't show it on t.v. anymore... I guess it always comes down to who owns the rights and the price they want to syndicate it or whatever.  You'd think it would have been given the "nick at night" treatment somewhere along the way but I can't remember the last time I saw a rerun of it anywhere. 

I can just imagine how great it must have been when it first came out, such a ridiculous premise with the one armed man, and every episode wondering if he was lying, or was crazy or imagined it.... Seeing that finale (was it a movie? or a two hour episode?  Can't remember) must have been really cool. 

I own seasons 1-3 on DVD. One of the best episodic dramas of all time, in my opinion, and better than the movie.

Since we're talking about Brian's problems: Has he ever gotten more traditional psychological therapy (minus Landy, obviously...) for his non-mental-illness issues, i.e., about Murry or his family-band? It seems like it might have (would/does?) help...

I would imagine he has, he has (or did) a team of specialists at UCLA who worked with him (maybe still do) once Melinda got involved.  I would imagine doctors of that caliber either treated him or referred him to someone. 

Whoa, I had no idea he had his very own team of specialists to help deal with his sundry problems, jeez. I suppose that says a lot right there, doesn't it? At least someone was sensible enough to do that though since he obviously seems much improved.

I may be wrong... others more knowledgeable are free to chime in.  I always heard that basically until Melinda got involved, nobody had thought to get him serious treatment, she asked around and found out that UCLA (15 miles from where he's lived and worked his whole life, basically) has one of the greatest psychiatric departments in the world, she took him by and they had him feeling much better in very short order. 

She was critical of his first wife when she talked about this in an interview on Larry King, and a usually very sedate Brian piped up quickly "She didn't know!" definding Marilyn's honor 25 years after the fact.  It was incredibly fascinating to see. 

Forever my Surfer Girl Indeed. 

Speaking of, does anyone have this video uploaded?

I had it on VHS a few years ago, but my VHS player now likes to EAT the tape as opposed to playing it.  :wall

Don't know about video, but here's the transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/20/lkl.00.html

The 60's Fugitive was one of the best, if not THE best series in the 60's!!

Very noir!

Brian had been seeing psychiatrists since 1964 when he had a nervous breakdown on a plane.  He also had been in and out of mental hospitals since 1968, including some prestigious mental hospitals, so he had been getting serious treatment.  As Brian's wife, Marilyn had to have been involved in getting him committed to hospitalization.  She also got him Dr. Landy the first time, though his family got him help the second time.  His family also had him committed a few times after he divorced Marilyn.  He saw other psychiatrists, including legit ones, besides Landy and decades before he met Melinda.

His failure to adhere to treatment that his first wife and family got for him was his own choice, though not unusual for people with histories of drug abuse and psychiatric problems.  In case you don't know it, people in the state of California have the right to refuse psychiatric treatment due to a law signed in 1968 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan.  It was partly to save taxpayer money by letting people free from state mental hospitals (saved taxpayer money in the short run) and also due to some believing that mentally ill people should have a basic human right to refuse hospitalization and medication if they chose.  Due to that, Brian's family were in no legal position to get him to accept mental health treatment beyond 72 hour observation commitments.  It was always up to Brian what he would accept, and his wife and family had minimal say if he didn't want to go in for treatment. Melinda is not exactly the white knight on a horse, other people tried long before he ever met her, and it was up to Brian to decide if he was ready to accept treatment.

Thanks for the link. Interesting that Brian says the word "nepenthe". Maybe it was him who came up with that line for the early version of "Tears In The Morning".

What's this supposed to mean?

KING: So he takes the group out called the Beach Boys.

M. WILSON: He's got some Bruce with him...

B. WILSON: Bruce Johnston.

I just read that transcript and it sounds like Melinda was trying to minimize how much she knew about the Beach Boys. She says "some Bruce" like she didn't know his last name, and mentions that she doesn't know who the other members of the Beach Boys are.  I sort of have the feeling she knew exactly who the other Beach Boys were.  Otherwise, how would "we" (as she put it) know that Mike was the person who should get the Beach Boys touring license, and they should also sue Al in addition to denying him rights to use any name using the word Beach Boys in any band he toured with?  After all, there were nine lawsuits "we" were pressing when we married, according to Melinda, and they prevailed in all of them.  It must have limited their wedding guest list to be pressing nine lawsuits at the time of the wedding.

This is true and not true. Part of getting Brian finally separated from Landy was having him declared incompetent to handle his own affairs, which means he was really no longer running his own life or making his own decisions after that point. (Of course, it could be argued that Landy had already made it impossible for BW to be independent anyway ... )

She didn't say they were pressing nine lawsuits. She said they were in the middle of nine, which suggests (as is indeed the case) that it was other people suing Brian. Largely over the autobiography, I believe.

Both Mike and Carl (at the very least) attended Brian's wedding to Melinda. As did Marilyn. And it was held on Marilyn's birthday. And Brian left before they cut the cake.

I think when you hear 'lawsuit' it's more shocking to those of us who aren't rich and famous.  Rich and famous people have several lawsuits rolling... most of the time.... so it's probably not as personal to them as it is to us.  Brian even said on one of the interviews recently "It was just a lawsuit" or something to that effect.  People who are involved with the court system (or frequently sued!) don't take it personal after a while.  Ever been involved with any of that?  The plaintiff and defense lawyers go out and eat lunch together! 

"Some Bruce"? Oh boy.  ::)

A conservatorship to handle his business affairs didn't mean anyone could force him to accept mental health treatment.  That was something he had to decide for himself.  It also didn't affect any other life decisions apart from his finances.  He was still in control of  his life, just not his money or business decisions. Melinda also wasn't his conservator until after they got married, so some judge or attorney or third party was in charge of all of that.  I'm not necessarily putting down Melinda, but give Brian some or most of the credit for being willing to subject himself to treatment and stick to it. If she's the one who found a good doctor for him, good for her, but he still had to go and do it.

"UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on Brian. Let's go surfing now. Everybody's learning how. Come on and surf safari with us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Wilson, here's your wave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I haven't waxed my board yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You should have thought of that sooner. Let's go."


Unidentified male??? Do they really not know that's Belushi and Wilson?

She's trying to block his image from her head, because otherwise she'd be overcome by lust for his short shorts. Even Dennis Wilson was jealous of Bruce's legs, and almost embarked on a solo tour after POB's release so that he could go back to being the gleam in the eyes of the girls.

I don't think the conservatorship was just over the business affairs. "A court appointed conservator over the person is responsible for managing the conservatee's placement, medical decisions, and mental health treatment." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatorship)

The third party was a guy named Jerome Billet.

Interestingly, Brian is no longer under a conservatorship. It ended a few years after his marriage, apparently.

I'd have to think the "mental health treatment" part would be trickier in the state of California due to the state law here.  That's a blanket definition for the entire United States.  Patient rights are strong here, which is part of why we have such an intractable homeless problem in cities here.  A few of those homeless people come from good backgrounds with families that could afford to help them, but the person has to want help.

[/quote]

Brian had been seeing psychiatrists since 1964 when he had a nervous breakdown on a plane.  He also had been in and out of mental hospitals since 1968, including some prestigious mental hospitals, so he had been getting serious treatment.  As Brian's wife, Marilyn had to have been involved in getting him committed to hospitalization.  She also got him Dr. Landy the first time, though his family got him help the second time.  His family also had him committed a few times after he divorced Marilyn.  He saw other psychiatrists, including legit ones, besides Landy and decades before he met Melinda.

[/quote]

Not trying to start an argument by any means, but how do you know this? You speak as though it is a fact. Is this based on something you read that may or not be true or can you elaborate?

Again, my reason for starting this tired subject is that I've never really known what the TRUTH is due to a lack of credible sources. 

Read Carlin's book. It's recent, accurate, and he interviewed all of the principals.

Brian had been seeing psychiatrists since 1964 when he had a nervous breakdown on a plane.  He also had been in and out of mental hospitals since 1968, including some prestigious mental hospitals, so he had been getting serious treatment.  As Brian's wife, Marilyn had to have been involved in getting him committed to hospitalization.  She also got him Dr. Landy the first time, though his family got him help the second time.  His family also had him committed a few times after he divorced Marilyn.  He saw other psychiatrists, including legit ones, besides Landy and decades before he met Melinda.

[/quote]

Not trying to start an argument by any means, but how do you know this? You speak as though it is a fact. Is this based on something you read that may or not be true or can you elaborate?

Again, my reason for starting this tired subject is that I've never really known what the TRUTH is due to a lack of credible sources. 
[/quote]

Interviews Brian has given over the years and bios. like most people posting here (and if you're asking a question on this board, that's all you're pretty much going to get).  Even in the transcript posted here from the LK Show, Brian mentions he had a breakdown in the mid'-60s and saw a doctor and was given medication.  All anyone knows is through bios and secondary sources.  Melinda Wilson isn't the only person who ever tried to get the guy help, and people only have her word, second-hand, in interviews where she implies his family members prior to her didn't do much to help him.  He was also in worse condition when he was married to Marilyn, but Marilyn no doubt tried the best she could.  Would Melinda have even been interested in him as he appeared in 1975, had he shown at her place of business, being 100 pounds overweight and looking and acting as he did then?  The fact she found him at least attractive enough to agree to see again, after selling him a car, is a testament to the fact that someone got him some help before he met her.

It's too bad Brian does not put out a real biography while he is still here, one that clears up fact from fiction. I'm sure he has no interest and may feel it's all too personal. I can only imagine the nonsense that will be written when he is gone.

(http://www.armchairinterviews.com/covers/1727-large.jpg)

That's the one. Best book about Brian written so far. Nearly definitive. Not great on the rest of the band, necessarily (he's definitely a pro-Brian guy), but evenhanded and empathetic. The best non-sensational examination of Brian's personality, too.

Best RELEASED book written about Brian so far :D

OK I'll pick that one up. Been meaning to pick up Stebbin's stuff as well, in particular the one on David Marks. I have not purchased a book on the Beach Boys since that rotten Landy thing. It really turned me off on the whole idea.

Going through my mind too, especially reading the "where does Brian run to" thread, but then I don't know how the other conditions which Mikie listed here are defined and suspect there's probably plenty of overlap in the symptoms. Peter might be able to add to that but the subject has been thrashed thoroughly in many many earlier threads also.

This thread caught my eye simply because a relative has recently been diagnosed with Asperger's and I recognise a few shared characteristics.

He definitely shares characteristics, but one aspect of Asperger's is the inability to participate in team/sports activities. Between his participation in the Beach Boys as a group, baseball, football, etc. it leads me to believe Asperger's probably wasn't one of his conditions.

Based on Brian's limited mobility and behavior while waiting for the plane in Tucson the day after their first show, I wonder if he is also experiencing chronic pain issues. That combined with his mental illness might make this tour more difficult than others in the past.

Yep, if he has back problems, some of them aren't helped by sitting down, or laying down, or standing up, or physical activity.  I've had a minor back thing and it seems like if you do any one thing for too long, it starts hurting.  Bless the guy for being out there with whatever problems he has, along with the other guys.  I've read that Mike has had some health problems here and there, too, not to mention Bruce having surgery a few years ago.

Hm, Aspergers are not generally inable to do sports or team sports, though it is more difficult for them. And if the Asperger guy has a band that is willing to do as he says, as were the Beach Boys, it can work. He's not really part of the team but the director of the team.

But knowing a few things about Aspergers I agree with you that Brian probably isn't one.

People with Asperger's are perfectly capable of taking part in team activities. Some have low muscle tone or bad co-ordination. so aren't very good at sports, but not all do.
It's possible Brian has Asperger's, but I doubt it. He's missing quite a few of the normal behavioural characteristics that go with Asperger's, and doesn't really look like someone with Asperger's either. If he *does* have it, it's very mild, but I think it's more likely that he's just someone who is scared, because of his upbringing, of social situations, in a way that leads to presenting with a few of the same symptoms but for a different underlying reason.

Yeah, WAAYYY better than the movie! Last time I was aware of it being on tv was circa 1990 on A&E. I'm told it never did well as a syndicated show because Kimble finally got to confront the one armed man in the last episode - people aren't interested anymore once they know how it ends. Not true for me, though, I watch the eps over and over.

Having seen Brian a dozen times over the past 13 years I should be used to his mysterious ways. Yet I must admit I was slightly...hurt, I guess...at his lack of response following the unbelieveable love and adoration heaped upon him at Saturday night's concert. The audience gave him the damnest standing ovation I'd ever witnessed and it didn't put the slightest dent in his armour of unhappiness.

Does he hear us? Does he feel the love? Or is he simply checking his watch and waiting to get the hell away from us?

And why, after all these years, do I even still bother to ask these unanswerable questions?  :-\

I noticed this as well. It was right after Do It Again, or rather the first string of songs, when the crowd gave him a minute or so standing ovation of adoration.  It was really something. Brian didn't even move a wink.  Now, later in the concert he said thank you a few times following his leads, which was nice, but that ovation was incredible and he didn't say a word.

Who 1st diagnosed Brian with schizoaffective disorder?

I don't think we will ever know. I purchased and finished the Peter Carlin book a few weeks ago, and even though it was a decent book it sort of left the reader with the impression (as did David Leaf) that Brian really needed to release Smile in order to shed a lot of his "problems". Obviously, there has been NO change in Brian's well being or stage persona since BWPS was finished. He has had off days since he started touring in '99 and he continues to do so. Brian is the way he is and nothing will change. The last solo show that I saw in 2009, he darn near looked like a mannequin. Unfortunately, since most of the info we get on him is from other people speaking for him or drawing their own assumptions or conclusions I have come to the sad reality that we will never know how Brian really feels.

Not strictly true - since he's finished Smile, he's been way more productive. Reckon the Brian of the nineties would have walked into a record company office and said 'I wanna make a Gershwin covers album?'

And he's also got better at singing - Compare where he was at the start of the decade (saying Pet Sounds live/The Roxy is a little unfair, so GIOMH) to the Gershwin album, because he cares more.

As for the reality, yes, simply finishing Smile was not going to cure Brian's mental illness. But I bet it made him feel f***ing amazing, and probably set the little gears in his head working that made him think he could do another 'suite' with TLOS. Or a Beach Boys reunion.

Yeah, we'll never know.

I always got the impression that finishing "SMiLE" in 2003 was about catharsis.  Melinda and his manager nudged him into thinking it would be a good idea to finally revisit it and it became kind of a personal cleansing for him.  The response to it was kind of a vindication for him (and Van Dyke). 

I've never seen Brian live, so I cannot comment.  But of the videos I have seen, he always bows with the band after the performance is completed.  Again, that is solely based on performances I have seen on DVD and Youtube from the last 10 years or so.

Some of the performances I have seen with the Beach Boys from this year, during the ovation, he quickly turns and jets for stage left.  I honestly take that to be that he probably is uncomfortable (for whatever reason) being involved in this reunion.  In interviews, he has been subdued and let Mike do most of the driving.  I take his body language to be 'I'm here because the guys really wanted me to be but I can't wait for this to be over so I can go back to doing whatever I want'.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13574.0.html

He leaves the stage quickly during all of his solo shows, too. I've been at shows were he was in good form and engaged during the performance, but got up and exited the stage while the band was still playing before intermission. It's not unique to these shows and I doubt it has anything to do with how he feels about the reunion. From what I've heard and observed myself, he seems to be enjoying this tour more overall than any tour he's done in a long time.

Who knows why he always leaves early; maybe he's uncomfortable getting an ovation, maybe he's being a smart ass and getting up as soon as the instructions come on his teleprompter, or maybe he really has to go to the bathroom (he is an old man, after all). If there is one thing we can say for certain about Brian Wilson, it's that you never can really tell why he does what he does or what he could be thinking at any moment.

I never bought into the part about the catharsis and "exorcising demons" and "getting the monkey off his back" by addressing SMiLE. Frankly, I never thought he wanted to do the thing; I thought he agreed to do it to please his wifeandmanagers, who were more interested in salvaging a solo career. The Beautiful Dreamer documentary did nothing to change my mind.

If I am to be totally honest, I see no change in Brian Wilson, the artist, since BWPS. Well, there is one thing; his vocals on the last two albums (Gershwin and Disney) have been very good, maybe his best in 35 years. However, I thought that had more to do with Brian finally learning how to phrase and "use" his damage voice effectively.

As far as Brian the person - the man - none of us really know. Maybe the BWPS experience was cathartic, I don't know. One thing I can SEE. Since Brian began consistently recording and performing as a solo artist, he appears to have aged significantly.

I totally agree with you, Sheriff. I think learning how to use his voice in it's current state and working in his new range has been the key to Brian's vocal success over the last 4 years or so. Finishing and touring Smile may have given him more motivation. I really do believe he is driven by success more than anything other single factor, so maybe seeing the adulation relating to BWPS pushed him to keep going. However, I don't think finishing Smile was the cure-all for Brian's demons that it was as touted at the time.

Wow... that makes PERFECT sense.

Be wary of Internet Asperger's Diagnosis Syndrome, though.

To be honest, I have some type of undignosed depression, and when I start to feel it coming on, i have a strang urge to sit at my piano and write. It's like the music is the depression, it's like... I want it to feel that way so I can write... It's very strange...

I don't think that covers a lot of Brian's apparent symptoms. It really seems like he has a type of panic disorder. Panic attacks, compulsive behaviour, agoraphobia, flashbacks and hallucinations. It's always sounded like some type of comorbid condition combining panic disorder and schizophrenia.

I don't see Asperger's syndrome in Brian at all. Asperger's generally is characterized by difficulty with social interaction and communication in childhood that improves as the child matures, whereas Brian's difficulties increased as he got older. People with Asperger's also present with very narrow/limited areas of interest. Young Brian, by all accounts, participated in normal activities. He dated and had friends and was actively engaged in school. Children with Asperger's are often clumsy, and young Brian participated in several sports.

I'm not going to look at current Brian, with his reduced affect, decreased physical ability and idiosyncratic communication and apply a diagnosis of a syndrome that should have manifested itself in childhood. Instead, I'll just accept the diagnosis we've been given: Schizoaffective Disorder, tardive dyskinesia, and a bad back.

Just get it treated, Father. You'll be glad you did. I went 37 years just slugging it out on my own, and now it sucks to think of all that time spent functioning at subpar levels.

I found that depression was a great inspiration for creativity. But I could never write while depressed. I could only write after the fact, looking back.

I still use your H&V Cantina mix in my personal Smile!

Unfortunately, it's far from a simple "just get it treated" for some. Among several other factors, the medication trial and error is just brutal. I will say I'm totally envious of you's d00ds' ability to be creatively productive/productive at all despite or in conjunction with the issues - it's greatly dulled mine about 90% of the time.

ANYWAYYZZ. Good luck to both of you. ^_^

Tell me about it. My med tryouts lasted 3 years. Good luck to all of us, with our various ailments.

You'll understand when you've lived a thousand years.

I don't think so, either.  You have to remember that the Brian we see now is not the Brian that was a kid and a teenager.  I don't see the social impairment you'd expect, as Cyncie says, among other things.  There is really nothing from Brian's pre-Landy life to suggest any sort of autism, in my opinion.

Blunted affect (emotional expression) is one of the characteristics of Brian's disorder. In the BWPS interviews, Brian commented that sometimes he's smiling on the inside, but is face can't show it.

That is so sad and so true. Something horrible happened to Brian in the Landy years. Whatever medications he was being force-fed... oh man, it just makes me so incredibly angry to think about it...

As a psychologist I can say this makes the most sense to me based on my knowledge of Brian's situation.  I would also add some sort of anxiety disorder (most likely Generalized Anxiety Disorder) to account for his panic attacks and fear of touring. 

Yah, and they kept telling us that the DON"T PANIC signboards backstage at Knebworth were not meant for Brian.

And what about hearing voices (auditory hallucinations)?

Brian's life had many ups and (emotional) breakdowns, he had to deal with his father Murry, record companies, SMiLE project, the Boys, lawyers etc, and I don't know if it is interesting, but I've read somewhere about medical discoveries that hearing voices is probably caused by traumatic experiences. Guess he had a few...

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement)

Auditory hallucinations are also possible with the Schizoaffective Disorder diagnosis.

Man. Fuck the human brain.

Agreed.  I didn't just pull these out of my butt and post them here.  This is the real diagnosis for Brian Wilson.

I severely doubt it. All autism spectrum disorders present symptoms very early on, in varying degrees of intensity. Brian's parents would've noticed something in contrast with his brothers if Brian suffered from anything of the sort. From our current understanding, Brian had a relatively normal social life growing up and played on the local football team. As well, Brian has never been shown to suffer from a lack of empathy either in his songwriting or in his personal life - quite the opposite, actually.

The real clincher against a diagnosis like this, however, would be down to his voice. Those diagnosed with Asperger's almost always suffer from blunted speech, inability to control pitch and loudness to a certain point, strange intonation and so forth. Brian's voice has never shown any of these signs, even after the drug excesses of the 70s and Landy's medication regimen. If he did indeed suffer from Asperger's, it would've been almost impossible for him to sing with such vocal control and precision as he did during the 60's, not to mention the sheer beauty of the tone.

I'm not saying it's impossible - nothing is impossible in regards to the mind - but it is very, very unlikely.

Don't know if this is true, considering a few known Asperger'sy singers in the music world who, from what I can tell, have no issues with vocal control etc. I'd imagine it affects speech more so than singing.

Asperger's covers many many symptoms and has many differing levels. I don't think you can say anyone has  or hasn't got Asperger's simply because they do or don't exhibit a particular symptom. It strikes me as being a bit like saying a guy can't have cancer cos there ain't blood in his stools … sorry, grotesque example I know, but I've got Shortenin' Bread blasting from the speakers and am finding it hard to focus!

Known people with Asperger's Syndrome?

Albert Einstein, Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Elvis, Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Shakespeare?

---

Glenn Gould?

Listen first to this: Glenn Gould plays Bach - Partita #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ)

---

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould)

I guess he just wasn't made for these times

and

The yawning dog at 2:15 made me yawn.

I love Gould's recordings, especially the Bach concertos with Golschmann.  Watching him on video has always been an uncomfortably intimate and human experience, though.

I'm currently house-sitting for an elderly couple from Canada, and a piano played by Gould when staying with or visiting the wife's family is in the living room...

I don't believe most if any of that above list.  It must be from Wikipedia or some other internet source.  I know Steven Spielberg is one celeb that claims to have been an undiagnosed Asperger due to his obsession with film-making when he was a child.  Well, guess what, most kids are obsessed with something or other and all of them live in a fantasy world.  That doesn't mean they have Asperger's Syndrome.  Just the fact that Spielberg does such emotionally centered films would indicate he's interested in other people and their feelings.  Same with Shakespeare.  Tom Hanks favors emotional type material as well as comedy.  People with autism are said to be especially humor impaired.  I have a really hard time believing Elvis was even remotely autism-spectral.  It's become trendy for people to diagnose themselves or others as autism spectrum personalities.  I don't buy it.  I agree with those who note that Brian had no problems making friends throughout his life, from childhood on, so he doesn't seem to qualify, either.

There are varying degrees of this stuff, though, and not everyone has every single symptom.

Obviously it's too hard to arm-chair diagnose these things from afar.  But it is interesting to consider, I guess.  I've never been diagnosed, but I'm 95 per cent sure I fall on the spectrum somewhere.

To me, it's not down to emotions, really, or even obsessions, or the empathy stuff.  Some doctors believe that people on the autistic spectrum actually have so much empathy, that they are unable to cope with the world.  To me, what makes me feel the most "autistic" is the relative inability to live outside my own mind.

And in some ways, you can see that in Brian NOW.  But I don't know about Brian as a kid.

Asperger's Syndrome is being dropped next year from the DSM (psych diagnosis manual), according to sources on Google.  It may not even exist or be a true "disease" nor ever was (it was named and based on one German psychiatrist's casual observations and personal theories, over 50 years ago).  It was a fashionable trend, just like other diagnosis that were trendy at one time then fell out of favor.  In any case, Brian's personality changed over time and a lot of the symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar overlap with what used to be called Asperger's, which can only be diagnosed if it existed from early childhood onward.

No it isn't a "fashionable trend." I have Asperger's Syndrome. I was diagnosed as a young child as a high functioning autistic. I also am studying Educational Psychology and am currently training to be a transition specialist for those on the spectrum who are transitioning from high school to college, so I happen to know a lot about the disorder. Asperger's Syndrome is a real disorder and a real diagnosis. You are misinterpreting why it is being removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders. It is simply being removed because studies have shown that it is not a distinct condition, separate from autism, as psychologists once thought. Rather, Asperger's just encompasses the highest functioning part of the spectrum. It is not a separate diagnosis from autism, rather it is merely a part of the overall spectrum, which includes all autism spectrum diagnoses. The plan is simply to remove the diagnosis and just call them all "autism spectrum disorders." That does not mean that the disorder or the disorders are not real, just that they are really just all manifestations of the same thing.

In any case, as someone who actually has the disorder and works with other people with Asperger's I really, really doubt that Brian has the disorder.

Thank you for that reply to a rather distasteful post.  I would say it's being removed, or "moved" rather, from the DSM because it's actually become better understood and starting to be recognized better.

Props to all alone for setting the record straight :thumbsup

I don't think KittyKat's post was in particularly poor taste. Mental illnesses are notoriously poorly defined, and the DSM is a real minefield. The notion that Asperger's diagnoses are way too widespread is also not unusual -- part of an increasing and real societal trend to medicalize peculiar behavior.

Well, calling it trendy seemed to make light of the very real pain people feel because of various brain-wiring.  But I would agree that any sort of talk about what's going on in our brains and bodies is going to be limited by those same brains of ours.

Thank y'kindly for this. While there is a tendency nowadays for some folks to read about something on the internet and then think themselves into believing they have it (and some not good doctors preying on that kind of behavior), things like Asperger's shouldn't be discredited or not taken seriously just because some folks self-diagnose a bit too often.

I got the same sh*t from some people after being diagnosed with something a few years back. Even some very close family members didn't buy it - I had either went out of my way to tell the doctor what she wanted to hear (hint: I didn't. Who wants to be told their wiring is a little off upstairs?) or I wasn't acting exactly like the exaggerated-for-TV character on whatever show who, in a sudden rage, stabbed his wife in the ass 72 times for breathing too loudly and then moments later began a 72 hour cookie binge while watching the entire Barney The Dinosaur series or whatever. Not everyone has the exact same symptoms to the exact same degree, and everyone is going to approach their symptoms a little differently. I was given the diagnosis and, above any other possibilities, it kinda made sense to me. Still, these folks didn't buy it. The symptoms are hard enough to work through day to day, I don't need people who have a poor understanding of the subject stressing me out further and making me feel worse by telling me I'm basically making sh*t up, y'know?

Anywayz. sry about the life story, just saying, yeah - I don't care for it when people want to discredit people on these things without really knowing them. I won't deny some people are wrongly diagnosed by a doctor looking to fatten their wallet, nor am I saying some people don't put on an act or think themselves into a condition, but consider giving each individual the benefit of the doubt, getting to know them better, and then deciding if they may be putting on an act or may have a tendency to self-diagnose themselves with horrible things every other day.

You're welcome guys. There's a saying by Plato that says goes "there is only one good, which is knowledge, and one evil, which is ignorance." In the case of disability awareness, a little knowledge goes a long way.

In any case, I fail to see how Brian fits the diagnosis of Asperger's. Being a reclusive genius does not qualify one as having Asperger's Syndrome. Can anyone tell me what symptoms he has that fit the diagnosis? His social skills are fine, he has empathy. He doesn't display any tics. He's really not attached to routine as far as I can tell.

One does not have to have every symptom to have Asperger's Syndome, but those are the three big symptoms that most people with Asperger's almost always tend to display (especially the social skills thing and the lack of social and emotional reciprocity, which are the hallmarks of the disorder). He is obsessive with his music, but that alone doesn't qualify one as having Asperger's.

When I see Brian and read about him, I hear and see someone who has had a traumatic childhood (being abused by his dad), has stage fright, is occasionally prone to nervous breakdowns, has had severe substance abuse, (including probably taking some potent forms of speed), and has schizophrenia and tardive dyskinesia. These conditions have all been reported about Brian before, and I really don't see a problem with any of these diagnoses. They seem to fit the bill to me. Asperger's Syndrome is a stretch.

I meant "trendy" in the sense that there have been media people labeling celebs as possibly having Asperger's, or in the case of Steven Spielberg, labeling himself as having Asperger's.  I confess I read celebrity gossip at times, so I have seen that discussed.  Someone here cited Elvis Presley, Tom Hanks, and Bill Gates as being possible "Aspies" most likely based on such speculative articles.  I can believe maybe Bill Gates, just maybe, but Elvis and Tom Hanks? I'm a little doubtful.  It seems distasteful to me that it became a pop psychology label applied to introverted, thoughtful, socially awkward people as potentially autistic spectrum.   Some of them could be, but there are normal variations in human personality that make people who they are.   I guess Henry David Thoreau and John Muir were potentially autistic spectrum, too.

Fair enough.  I agree that diagnosing celebrities from afar is silly.

Right on runners. It is quite annoying when people quite close to me give me sh*t for taking medication or for sometimes mentioning that I have a certain condition. They'll say "oh, you own a house, have a job, have a beautiful girlfriend, stop being a whiner", but what they don't understand is these medical conditions have nothing to do with how your life is laid out. Like me for instance, I won't get too far into it, but if I go off my medication (which works quite well for me) I get horrible thoughts of dread and I become someone that I would not want to be around. It becomes hard for me to function. But some people will say "get over it, stop being a p*ssy". They don't understand that this isn't just something I can turn on and off. Someone might have it all, Brian Wilson for example, but if their coping mechanisms don't quite work right, it doesn't matter.

But on the other hand, the self diagnosis thing is QUITE out of hand. I've even had former friends who might have gotten into certain musicians we might have discuss on here, and all of the sudden they are like "hey man, I think I might be a paranoid schizophrenic" or "i've started hearing voices", or "wow, that's exactly the way I feel" after reading something about  Brian Wilson or Syd Barrett or what have you. It has gotten quite ridiculous, especially with the advent of the internet.

I don't think anyone needs to have any excuse for their emotional and psychological pain. I see the classification of psychic disorders as more of a convenience than anything else. I was diagnosed with a few problems a couple of years ago, and even though I recognize that I have those symptoms, I personally don't buy into the whole notion of mental illness to begin with. I just don't think empirical psychology, and our scientific understanding of the human mind in general, are developed enough to justify the way we presently conceptualize mental illnesses.
If you have the symptoms of autism or aspergers, you shouldn't take it personally if people question the validity of that particular diagnostic category. I'm certainly not suggesting that someone diagnosed with aspergers doesn't have real burdens to bare, only that aspergers is a pretty fuzzy classification in the first place. It's a cross section of loosely related behaviors, so I'm not particularly sold on the basic idea that someone can say "So-and-so has aspergers" in the same way that you can say "so-and-so has a fractured rib".

Saying that, I just don't think aspergers is a convincing diagnosis of Brian Wilson to begin with, even putting all my scepticism about modern clinical psychology aside. Simply acknowledging that atypical symptoms can still be consistent with a aspergers diagnosis isn't enough given the fact that there are other mental illnesses by which those atypical symptoms are better explained. And that should really be the criterion here, not "is it possible that Brian Wilson has aspergers", because I suppose that it is possible, but there's no reason to be satisfied with that diagnosis when there are better ones to be had. And in this case, panic disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and bi-polar disorder all feel like much closer fits to the actual symptoms which have been observed in Brian's case.

Fishmonk, you just made a whole lot of sense.

He might well have done, if you ignore that fact we have to call mental illnesses SOMETHING. It's necessary. It's not the medical professions fault that the public perception of mental illness is stunted.


Asperger's is a fucking ridiculous diagnosis of Brian Wilson. I should stress I'm not accusing anyone here of this IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER (and that's not sarcasm), but the culture of self-diagnosis and ensuing bitching in certain corners of the internet really gets my goat. Mental illness is fucking serious, not playing Asperger's bingo with Syd Barrett or whatever and devaluing the issue amongst other people - the 'stop being a wimp' factor someone mentioned would be pacified to some extent if it wasn't the new 'NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME' amongst teenagers - lots of kids I knew didn't, in hindsight, seem like the depressed people I know a few years later, like they were always happy, no social awkwardness, conservations peppy, hard to describe in words yet they seemed like normal bright kids with nothing 'hanging over them' (and STILL ARE). Yet they are the ones with cut marks on their wrists and thinking you're suicidally depressed (as opposed to, y'know, being suicidally depressed) and having to convince others of that fact just like I had to convince some other friends I had a passing interest in football seems profoundly f***ed up in context. Essentially, the public perception of mental illness is f***ed.

I'm probably not making much sense and have offended someone in the process *sips coffee, tries valiantly to awaken brain*