Tragic Details About The Hemingway Family

Ernest Hemingway was world famous for his masculine image, which was built in part by photographs of the writer boxing, shooting, and fishing. His prose, too, was described as "muscular" and "taut," according to PBS. To many, Hemingway personified the "strong silent type." Yet his writing and his image belied a man tortured by serious

Ernest Hemingway was world famous for his masculine image, which was built in part by photographs of the writer boxing, shooting, and fishing. His prose, too, was described as "muscular" and "taut," according to PBS. To many, Hemingway personified the "strong silent type." Yet his writing and his image belied a man tortured by serious mental health issues. According to Dr. Howard Markel (via PBS), Hemingway suffered from "severe depression, paranoid delusions and bipolar disease exacerbated by a history of alcoholism, severe head injuries and a genetic disorder of iron metabolism known as hemochromatosis, which can also cause intense fatigue and memory loss."

By 1960, Hemingway was in a very bad place. He entered the Mayo Clinic using an alias, staying there for two months, ostensibly for hypertension. The real reason was acute depression, and he underwent electroshock convulsive therapy (ECT) some 15 times in an attempt to cure it (via PBS). Alas, the therapy failed to relieve Hemingway of his mental health issues, which were only getting worse as he entered his 60s.

The effectiveness of ECT has been questioned in recent years. According to the BBC, a study found that there was "no place" for ECT in evidence-based medicine owing to reports of brain damage. The Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry journal concluded, "The high risk of permanent memory loss and the small mortality risk means that its use should be immediately suspended."

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

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