Eminem And Mental Illness

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Over at the blog Mental Health Realities, Mark Vasey writes about several songs that rapper Eminem released which circle around the musician's possible mental illness:

This past week, unreleased Eminem songs were leaked on the internet. These tracks were reportedly recorded for Relapse Two, Which was later scrapped for Recovery . I have released a post entitled Is Eminem Coming Out In His Music? that talked about Eminem possibly having Bipolar Disorder , and these new songs enforce this argument. In the song "Emulate", Eminem asks is he "clinically insane", and "am I truly Psychotic" while also saying "label me a genius". In the track "Things Get Worse", Eminem says "I'm off my f***ing Meds but I'm on an electric scooter". The most significant line is from the track "The Apple" in which Eminem states, "What's different about my brain that separates me from other players in this game." He goes on to say how he doesn't want sympathy. Is there a reason why these tracks were unreleased? Did Eminem not want these tracks to get to the ears of the public? The lyrics of these tracks along with songs off of Relapse and Recovery seem to make an almost certain argument that Eminem has Bipolar Disorder.

There's been alot written about this and Eminem has spent much of his career diving in the kiddie pool of the issue without really fully immersing himself.

It's been revealed in his song "Cleanin' Out My Closet" that Eminem's mother, Debbie, was diagnosed with Munchausen's syndrome - a disorder in which the patient seeks to diagnose various illnesses on themselves or their children. In Eminem's case, it may have been possible that he had a mental illness in addition to being shopped around to doctors by his mother. Mental illness is often hereditary and Eminem's tumultuous life - full of chronic bullying, parental abandonment, sudden, overnight fame, difficulty with the women in his life and tragedy and drama in his personal life - had to have had some sort of cognitive effect.

Likewise, Eminem's songs seem to feed off of his erraticness. His videos from "My Name Is" to "Just Lose It" all play on Dr. Dre looking at him and wondering, "What the hell is wrong with you?"