Comments on: THE EDITOR’S DESK: Unfinished Notes On David Foster Wallace

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:31:29 +0000

I hope you never get on any meds. Your art is perfect.

By: Zak Smith

Zak Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:15:00 +0000

I’m your control group–a Gen X artist not on any meds. What’s the effect? The main things seems to be I don’t like Radiohead.

Also, a note on Nardil–apparently it stops you from dreaming.

By: Barbara Warren

Barbara Warren — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:30:24 +0000

Marie – I’m a psychotherapist with an undergraduate degree in English, equally passionate about literature and therapy. There are so many unanswered questions, so little has been revealed about this aspect of David’s death, that I have to believe/hope that the family is litigating like mad. There are a lot of questions: why was David on Nardil (a very old and difficult medication, albeit for a *few* people the only effective one) for so many years? How much did he use other substances? How many times was he hospitalized over the years and, especially in 2008? How much consultation did his mental health team do with other professionals?

This is not to say that anything treatment would have been successful. It’s also not to say that people don’t have a right to end their lives. However, aside from “First, do no harm…,” one of the first tenents of psychiatric care is that safety *always* trumps Dr./patient privilege. Those caring for David had every obligation to keep him hospitalized and upon release implement a precise plan for managing his illness.

The psychiatric profession in general has grown in ways that I could never have imagined 20 years ago when I did my training. There are psychopharmacologists who practically create chemical poetry in some patients, who can stop psychosis in its tracks, can restore those who would have been in asylums forever in the past. The vast array of medications and talk therapies now is revolutionary and will affect artists in ways we can’t see. Yet.

By: Marie

Marie — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:27:21 +0000

Every article on Wallace just makes me angrier and angrier at the psychiatric profession. Every creative person who suffers from depression and has to go on medication deals with the things that Wallace dealt with, yet few psychiatrists and psychologists know how to help with these issues. I respect Wallace’s decision to go off his meds, but he should have had much more professional support. Actually, I have no idea how much professional support he had, but whatever it was was inadequate.

In many ways Wallace, and his fans, were very lucky that he found medication that worked well enough so early in his life. Without it, we probably would not have had any of these incredible books.

I’m sorry this guy suffered so much when he gave so much joy to so many readers.

By: katherine

katherine — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:49:58 +0000

I loved this article too. The brokenness of his desk and his heart stood out, but so did the way he tidied up his final manuscript, knowing Green would find it.