Understanding the Mentally Ill

The essay by the anonymous author (“Save the Mind Before It Goes to Pieces,” Commentary, May 26) pleads for compassion and understanding for us crazy people who are the victims of mental disorders. Who needs that? Though he refers to his own disorder, schizophrenia, those with epilepsy could be considered crazy, mad and insane as well.

The book “Epilepsy and Related Disorders,” from accounts furnished through other sources, mention the names of such historic figures as Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Alfred Nobel, Newton, Tolstoy, Dante, Moliere, Van Gogh, Maria Malibran, Charles Dickens, Handel, Beethoven and St. Cecelia among others of repute who were possibly epileptics. There’s no proof of this but if they were they exhibited a behavior once considered crazy. But were they victims?

The flight from consciousness into the unconscious subconscious mind, which a seizure produces, in some way can work to enrich life in spite of its drawbacks, I’ve found from my experience with seizures.

Should science find that there are areas within the brain that when stimulated reveal to its recipients a more complete picture about the nature of their humanity, those of us with mental disorders should not be seen as victims because there may be unknown benefits that a bout with madness offers yet to be discovered where those sparks of genius within each of us might rest.

BRENDAN RICE

Los Angeles