Today a better understanding of mental health and psychology, a person with erratic or uncharacteristic behaviours
might be diagnosed as bipolar or depressed. But decades ago they were considered downright crazy.
Historically, though,mthese are famous stories of women whose stress got the best of them, to say the least.
They went temporary or permanently insane, and their sages became part of history. Here are some women
known to the ages for going insane,
Zelda Fitzgerald
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Zelda was the wife of a famous American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald ( The Great Gastby) who once coined her
"the first American flapper." Born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1900 as Zelda Sayer, Zelda was vibrant, exciting
and the epitome of a 1920,S flapper girl.
Her life and marriage however, were rocky and heavily laden with alcoholism. It is know that Fiztgerald, used
Zelda's own writing, her journal and her stories to make up key elements. In his own works.
By the late 1920's, Zelda started to show sign of serious disturbance, in a letter to Dr. Slocum, Fiztgerald suggests
that his wife was schizophrenic.
1. Heavy alcohol abuse; both Scot and Zelda were known to consume heavy amounts of toxic alcohol during drug
prohibition.
2. Infidelity: in 1927, Scott had a public affair with Lois Moran, a young actress who. He based his character
Rosemary on in "Tender is the night". There were many affairs before and after Moran.
3. A Tempestuous social life: Scott and Zelda were the 'it' couple in the public eye, attending parties at eccentric
hours.
Some historians suggest Zelda likely experienced depression, bipolar, or schizophrenia.
Zelda was ultimately committed to Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina wher she died in a
facility fire eight years after her husbands's death.
Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author of the novel ' The Bell Jar' which was closely based on her struggle
with mental illness. She is the first person to win a posthumous Pulizer prize.
Severe depression and insomnia-plagued Plath for years and led her to attempt suicide several times. On February
11, 1963, a year after her husband Ted Hughes left her for another woman, and at the age of 30 and with small
children, Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven, turned on the gas and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Mary Todd Lincoln
First Lady and wife of President Abraham Lincoln. Mary Todd Lincoln was a smart, outgoing woman from a wealthy background. Her Lexington, Kentucky family disapproved of her match to Abraham Lincoln because he had little
formal education and came from a poor background.
On April 14, 1865, Mary Todd Lincoln was sitting next to her husband at Ford's Theater when he was shot by John
Wilkes Booth.
Mary never recovered from her husbands assassination and sank into deep depression. Six years later her youngest
son Thomas died and her only surviving son Robert took her to court on charges of insanity. The court sided with
Robert and committed Mary to an insane asylum near Chicago. Although she was released several months later,
the public now saw here as a crazy woman.
Joan of Arc
A French teenage girl with tremendous valour who dressed as a male and helped lead the French army to
benchmark victories during the Hundred Year's War. Joan claimed that at the age of 13 she saw visions of
angels and saints who told her to drive out the English History reports threat Joan was a woman with courage
in her heart and voices in her head.
Modern scholars explain the voices and visions by asserting that Joan off Arc possibly had schizophrenia,epilepsy, or
a neurological disorder that triggered hallucinations.
The strange theory of all predicts that Joan contracted bovine tuberculosis from drinking unpasteurised milk as a kid. Became a woman who sees angles is crazy.