Brian Wilson insane or is he???/

[monkee knutz]

Not insane. Just drunk. We're all buttholes to him, but Van Dyke is the biggest butthole in the wor-rold.

[pavlos brenos]

Suga, it is generally accepted that Brian has schizo-affective disorder which sits somewhere between bi-polar disorder (which itself comes in various forms) and paranoid schizophrenia. Brian's frenetic work-pace, family/business pressures and indiscriminate drug use all combined and acted in synergy in '67 and galvanised pre-existing problems. That's the concise answer to your question!
Try this link:
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/psychoticfeatures/a/bl_paranoia.htm

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

Brian self-diagnosed :

He just wasn't made for these times. Make what you will of it.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

Luther:  Prescriptive grammarian or descriptive, are you?  I'm not sure why that reads like Yoda.  Well, I know why, but not why I chose to phrase it that way, but more interestingly why I chose to include what could have simply been an inner dialog leading to me rewording the question.

Anyhow, to the topic of the thread, I think sanity is generally over-rated.

[SurferGirl7]

In my book there is so such thing as being insane. Eccentric, maybe. But in a good way.

[the captain]

In my book there is so such thing as being insane. Eccentric, maybe. But in a good way.

That strikes me as a pleasant, head-in-the-sand kind of thought. No such thing?

[SurferGirl7]

In my book there is so such thing as being insane. Eccentric, maybe. But in a good way.

That strikes me as a pleasant, head-in-the-sand kind of thought. No such thing?

You don't burn your face at least 

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

In my book there is so such thing as being insane. Eccentric, maybe. But in a good way.

So a person who flies off the wall and starts on a killing spree with a can opener is perfectly sane?

Or just eccentric..in a good way?

[the captain]

In Minnesota, in January, that's the least of my worries.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

I love the cold weather. It's the greatest time for fashion also. All those big puffy coats. Great stuff.

[the captain]

I went three years without wearing a coat, living in Minneapolis the entire time. Fact. Idiotic fact, but fact.

[SurferGirl7]

I hate cold weather... one of my friends is going to Hawaii for four weeks and then Arizona. I'm so jealous  

[monkee knutz]

Stuck in Michigan. It was 50 degrees this fine late January afternoon. Sumptin's wrong with our weather.
Oh, by the way... Brian is insane. Sweet Insanity. The weather's insane, too. A butthole, just like Van Dyke parks.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

2005 was something like the warmest year since 1898.

Just showing Global Warming and its delightful little changes.

It's been really warm where I am all year. Only had one snow storm and it was nothing worth noting.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

In my book there is so such thing as being insane. Eccentric, maybe. But in a good way.

Two words: Michael. Jackson.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

Brian seems to have done alot of stuff that MJ would approve of.

................
Jungle Gym in doorway.

Business meetings in pool.

Gym assembled in living room, never to be used properly.

[I. Spaceman]

Don't forget underage love!

[Ron]

Personally, I would term Brian as insane.  I'm not a doctor, so ultimately it doesn't matter what my personal opinion is in the slightest.   Any way you look at it, though, Brian lost the ability to cope with his life, started a long road of self-destructive behavior, isolated himself from his friends and his family, had irrational fears like the previously mentioned bugs in his house... has audible hallucinations, offered his daughter lsd, for periods of time didn't take care of things like personal hygeine, etc. etc.

I'm not beating the guy up but if anybody was insane, Brian Wilson was.  Luckily he's pretty much a teddy bear and would never hurt anybody but himself, so it's not that big of a deal. 

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

As the saying goes, he's much better now

[Aegir]

In my opinion, Brian is a little off. More so in times past than now.

A paragraph from the Holland promo booklet will always be in my memory:

As if things weren't hair-raising enough, there was the ticklish business of Brian. Brian had not budged in seven years, ever since he gave up touring with the band. His hearing is difficult and painful and he is intensely shy - perhaps the more so for having been dubbed "brilliant" or "genius" by various admirers. Any description of him as a homebody or private person would still fall short of the truth. He once retired to his room, somewhere in the rambling Edgar Rice Burroughs house in Bel Air, for six solid months. To further avoid even local travel, he constructed a substantial studio in the living room of this same house (a 30's Gothic affair, right down to the secret panels). With their passion for technological improvement, the group gradually made this studio obsolete by their own standards, and besides, Brian's wife thought it was about time to do some living in the living room. The studio was duly dismantled.   Getting Brian to Amsterdam was every bit as touch-and-go as getting Bobby Fischer to Reykjavik. A miasma of false starts and silences. His wife, kids and housekeeper went over first. Twice Brian got as far as the airport and turned back. The third time he appeared to get on the plane. A phone call went through to Amsterdam to confirm it. But three hours after the plane landed there was still no sign of him. A search of the aircraft yielded Brian's ticket and passport, abandoned on his seat. Oblivious to the panic was Brian who had shuffled off the plane and fallen asleep on a couch in the duty-free lounge, where he eventually was found.

[Peter Reum]

I have been following this thread off and on, and I have to ask what we mean by insane? Insanity is a legal judgment, not a clinical judgment. From that standpoint, Brian was adjudicated as needing a financial conservatorship for several years.

The book most therapists use is the DSM-IV TR, and it is mostly a tool we use to help third party payers understand what is being addressed in treatment. There are certainly more than enough labels in that book to keep people busy.

Insanity is probably best defined as a social role connoting a type of inability to function according to accepted dominant cultural and social mores. I think that Brian's behavior would probably fit that definition in some domains of his life. But he certainly has shown some qualities that are far sane than most people too.

From a medical model, there are several forms of mental illness that would cause one to have trouble dealing with accepted cultural mores. The first would be schizoaffective or type II bipolar disorders. The second would be serious, long term addiction. Both of these fors of mental illness are very debilitating.

So, this is not a simple question, and I think it deserves some serious examination. It is not as easy to answer as it first appears. 



 

[sugarandspice]

first appear?!?!?!!?
sheeyot mang,
what would a good thread be,
if it didnt end in a plus and add up to a negative?
insane? sh*t man, i think its pretty vague as far as brian is concerned...i love him...
i think we all ask ourselves the question....
    are we insane? 
nobody knows but me,
nobody knows but me,
who am i?
nobody else can see
JUST YOU AND ME, but
who are we?
OH MY LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Peter Reum]

People with mental illness are very loveable...and loving. What ever may be wrong, they are still people first. Labels aside, they are so much more than their illness.

[LaurieBiagini]

People with mental illness are very loveable...and loving. What ever may be wrong, they are still people first. Labels aside, they are so much more than their illness.

So true.   

[Jason]

People with mental illness are very loveable...and loving. What ever may be wrong, they are still people first. Labels aside, they are so much more than their illness.

Post of the year.