GENE TIERNEY

I have obsessed over the breathtaking beauty of Gene Tierney for many years and often wondered about her . . . . . Wiki is useful but I found this about her struggles with being manic depressive or Bi-Polar as we would now say . . . . . 

Following her emotional breakdown and diagnosis with bipolar affective disorder in the mid-1950s, Gene Tierney was committed to three psychiatric clinics and the victim of various archaic psychiatric treatments (including ice baths, solitary confinement in a strait-jacket–which left her walking around for a period afterwards with her arms bent at the sides and sticking out in reaction to the restraints—and 35 shock treatments, the latter of which caused Gene to lose large portions of her memory and which she was outspoken against later in life). Believing she was cured, Gene made a comeback attempt in Hollywood in 1958. Feeling herself once again spiraling out of control very quickly after arriving in Los Angeles, Tierney voluntarily checked herself into The Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas on Christmas Day, 1958 for a prolonged and intense stay. Determined to conquer her emotional disorder once and for all, Gene took up knitting to ease her mind. Admirably candid and honest about her struggle with mental health issues decades before it was acceptable to talk about openly, Gene wrote about how knitting helped her in her 1979 autobiography “Self Portrait”: “Long before my mind returned, I was able to occupy my hands. I took up needlework. Once involved, I couldn’t stop. Over the next several months I turned out two large rugs, five pillows, forty sweaters, three full length knit dresses. In a dim way, I was able to assess my situation and found it bearable, even acceptable. An interesting process began to take place. I stopped worrying about whether I would ever get out, or even if I was crazy. I assumed I was or I wouldn’t be there. From that point on, without realizing it, I had begun the journey back to becoming a whole person.”