The Chipmunka Foundation is publishing books in English by Amanda Eliasch.

The English paperback HERE .




The Chipmunka Foundation

In August 2004 The Chipmunka Foundation was set up to empower people with mental illness. In May 2006 we were granted charitable status. Our charity registration number is 1109537.

Know Your Rights

Did you know that mental health patients are being alienated by society and need to be given a voice? We want you to have your voice heard, you may be able to find a friend or even help someone else overcome their mental health issues. We want you to realise that you are not on your own and you can get better and lead an extraordinary life. You can also help empower others in the process.

The role of the Chipmunka Foundation is to empower people with mental illness. The Foundation aims to reduce the humiliation of sufferers of mental illness. For years the voices of mental health sufferers have not been heard but now there is an opportunity to not only be proud of a mental illness but to show that having a mental illness can be and is a positive. Having a mental illness makes an individual more sensitive as a human being and people who can get better are positive role models to other people with issues and a great example to the whole of society as to what can be achieved by struggling and conquering adversity.

The Chipmunka Foundation uses supporting business and enterprise, education and improving access to information to empower sufferers of mental illness. As long as people with mental health problems are leading the vision and promoting a positive image then the revolution of breaking down mental health as a taboo in society and equality will occur.

Professional Advice

The Chipmunka foundation believes that the real professional is you the service user. We are inspiring a generation of service users to be the real mental health practitioners of tomorrow.

You Are Not Alone

Many of the greatest minds in history and many of the most successful people alive today have had depression and "mental health issues". You are not alone anymore. Read the list of people below. We would like to thank KPMG for doing this research for us.

Famous People With Depression

KEY: H = Asylum or psychiatric hospital S = Suicide SA = Suicide attempt

• Louie Anderson - comedian, actor • Pete Doherty- musician • Stephen Fry - actor, writer, film maker • Robbie Williams - singer • Oksana Baiul - ice skater • Rona Barrett - reporter, author • Samuel Becket d. - writer • Menachem Begin d. - Prime Minister (Israel) • Clara Bow d. - actress • Cheyenne Brando d. - actress • Marlon Brando - actor • Barbara Bush - former First Lady (US) • Truman Capote d. - writer • Drew Carey - actor, comedian • Jim Carrey - actor, comedian • Lawton Chiles d. - US Senator, Florida Governor • Winston Churchill d. - Prime Minister (UK) • Dick Clark - TV personality (US) • Kurt Cobain d. - musician • Ty Cobb d. - pro baseball player • Calvin Coolidge d. - US President • Billy Corgan - musician • Dennis Crosby d. - actor • Sheryl Crow - musician • Rodney Dangerfield - comedian, actor • Sandra Dee - actress • Ellen DeGeneres - comedienne, actress • John Denver d. - musician • Tony Dow - actor, producer, director • Harrison Ford - actor • Judy Garland d. - singer, actress • James Garner - actor • Mariette Hartley - actress • Juliana Hatfield - musician • Hampton Hawes d. - musician • Ernest Hemingway d. - writer • Margaux Hemingway d. - actress • Audrey Hepburn d. - actress • Anthony Hopkins - actor • Janet Jackson - musician • Billy Joel - musician • Elton John - musician • Franz Kafka d. - writer • Danny Kaye d. - actor, comedian • Jessica Lange - actress • John Lennon d. - musician, artist • Jack London d. - writer • Greg Louganis - Olympic diver • Courtney Love - musician • Rod McKuen - writer • Carmen Miranda d. - dancer, actress • Claude Monet d. - artist • Marilyn Monroe d. - actress, singer • Alanis Morissette - musician • Vaslov Nijinksy d. - dancer, choreographer • Richard M. Nixon d. - US President • Deborah Norville - TV journalist (US) • Sinead O'Connor - musician • Laurence Olivier d. - actor • Eugene O'Neill d. - writer • Donny Osmond - musician • Dorothy Parker d. - writer, poet • Dolly Parton - musician • General George S. Patton d. - US Army • Teddy Pendergrass - musician • Sylvia Plath d. - writer • Jackson Pollock d. - artist • Cole Porter d. - composer • Bonnie Raitt - musician • Lou Reed - musician • Joan Rivers - comedienne • Roseanne (Barr, Arnold) - actress, comedienne • Amelia Rosselli d. - poet • Mark Rothko d. - artist • Yves Saint Laurent - fashion designer • Monica Seles - pro tennis player • Paul Simon - musician • Phil Spector - music producer • Diana Spencer d. - Princess of Wales • Rod Steiger - actor • James Taylor - musician • Toulouse-Lautrec d. - artist • Spencer Tracy d. - actor • Hunter Tylo - actress • Vivian Vance d. - actress • Kurt Vonnegut - writer • Mike Wallace - TV journalist (US) • Damon Wayans - actor, comedian • Tennessee Williams d. - writer • Hugo Wolf d. - composer • Tom Wolfe - writer • Ed Wood d. - movie director • Natalie Wood d. - actress • Tammy Wynette d. - musician • Boris Yeltsin - former Russian President • Robert Young d. - actor Famous People With Depressive "Disorders"

 

Writers
o Hans Christian Andersen o Honore de Balzac o James Barrie o Arthur Benson (H) o E.F. Benson o James Boswell o William Faulkner (H) o F. Scott Fitzgerald (H) o Lewis Grassic Gibbon (SA) o Charlotte Perkins Gilman (H, S) o Nikolai Gogl o Maxim Gorky (SA) o Kenneth Graham o Graham Greene o Ernest Hemingway (H, S) o Henrik Ibsen o William Inge (H, S) o Henry James o William James o Charles Lamb (H) o Malcolm Lowry (H, S) o John Bunyan o Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) o Joseph Conrad (SA) o Charles Dickens o Isak Dinesen (SA) o Ralph Waldo Emerson o Herman Melville o Eugene O'Neill (H, SA) o Francis Parkman o John Ruskin (H) o Mary Shelley o Jean Stafford (H) o Robert Louis Stevenson o August Strindberg o Leo Tolstoy o Ivan Turgenev o Tennessee Williams (H) o Mary Wollstonecraft (SA) o Virginia Woolf (H, S) o Emile Zola

Composers

o Anton Arensky o Hector Berlioz (SA) o Anton Bruckner (H) o Jeremiah Clarke (S) o John Dowland o Edward Elgar o Carlo Gesualdo o Mikhail Glinka o George Frederic Handel o Gustav Holst o Charles Ives o Otto Klemperer (H) o Orlando de Lassus o Gustav Mahler o Modest Mussorgsky o Sergey Rachmaninoff o Giocchino Rossini o Robert Schumann (H, SA) o Alexander Scriagbin o Peter Tchaikovsky o Peter Warlock (S) o Hugo Wolf (H, SA) o Bernd Alois Zimmerman (S) Non Classical Music o Irving Berlin (H) o Noel Coward o Stephen Foster o Charles Parker (H, SA) o Cole Porter (H) o Charles Mingus (H) o Bud Powell (H) o Kurt Cobain, musician (Nirvana) (S 1994)

Poets

o Antonin Artaud (H) o Konstantin Batyushkov (H, SA) o Charles Baudelaire (SA) o Thomas Lovell Beddoes (S) o John Berryman (H, S) o William Blake o Aleksandr Blok o Barcroft Boake (S) o Louis Bogan (H) o Rupert Brooke o Robert Burns o George Gordon, Lord Byron o Thomas Campbell o Paul Celan (S) o Thomas Chatterton (S) o John Clare (H) o Harley Coleridge o Samuel Taylor Coleridge o William Collins (H) o William Cowper (H, SA) o Hart Crane (S) o George Darley o John Davidson (S) o Emily Dickinson o Ernest Dowson o T.S. Eliot (H) o Afanasy Fet (SA) o Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea o Edward FitzGerald o John Gould Fletcher (S) o Gustaf Froding (SA, H) o Oliver Goldsmith o Adam Lindsay Gordon (S) o Thomas Gray o Nikolai Gumilyov (SA) o Robert Stephen Hawker o Friedrich Holderlin (H) o Gerard Manley Hopkins o Victor Hugo o Samuel Johnson o John Keats o Henry Kendall (H) o Velimir Khlebnikov (H) o Heinrich Von Kleist (S) o Walter Savage Landor o Nikolaus Lenau (H) o J.M.R. Lenz (SA) o Mikhail Lermontov o Vachel Lindsay (S) o James Russell Lowell o Robert Lowell (H) o Hugh MacDiarmid (H) o Osip Mandelstam (H, SA) o Louis MacNeice o James Clarence Mangan o Alfred de Musset o Gerard de Nerval (H, S) o Boris Pasternak (H) o Cesare Pavese (S) o Sylvia Plath (H, S) o Edgar Allan Poe (SA) o Ezra Pound (H) o Alexander Pushkin o Laura Riding (SA) o Theodore Roethke (H) o Delmore Schwartz (H) o Anne Sexton (H, S) o Percy Bysshe Shelley (SA) o Christopher Smart (H) o Torquato Tasso (H) o Sara Teasdale (H, S) o Alfred, Lord Tennyson o Dylan Thomas o Edward Thomas o Francis Thompson o George Trakl (H, S) o Marina Tsvetayeva (S) o Walt Whitman

Artists

o Ralph Barton (S) o Francesco Bassano (S) o Ralph Blakelock (H) o David Bomberg o Francesco Borromini (S) o John Sell Cotman o Richard Dadd (H) o Edward Dayes (S) o Thomas Eakins o Paul Gauguin (SA) o Theodore Gericault o Hugo van der Goes o Vincent van Gogh (H, S) o Arshile Gorky (S) o Philip Guston (H) o Benjamin Haydon (S) o Carl Hill (H) o Ernst Josephson (H) o George Innes (SA) o Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (H, S) o Edwin Landseer (H) o Edward Lear o Wilhelm Lehmbruck (S) o John Martin o Charles Meryon (H) o Michelangelo o Adolphe Monticelli o Edvard Meunch (H) o Jules Pascin (S) o Georgia O'Keeffe (H) o Raphaelle Peal (H) o Jackson Pollock (H) o George Romney o Dante Gabriel Rossetti (SA) o Mark Rothko (S) o Nicolas de Stael (S) o Pietro Testa (S) o Henry Tilson (S) o George Frederic Watts o Anders Zorn Ludwig van Beethoven *** "[Manic depressives] can be happy without cause, or even in the face of misfortune It may be that Beethoven survived as a creator because he was brave or because his love of music kept him going. What he did have were his manic days of 'pure joy' that he prayed for, and manias triggered by the process of working, along with the confidence and optimism mania brings." A friend describes one Beethoven session: "He ... tore open the pianoforte ... and began to improvise marvelously ... The hours went by, but Beethoven improvised on. Supper, which he had purported to eat with us, was served, but - he would not permit himself to be disturbed."

Tchaikovsky****

His fellow composer, Edvard Grieg, said of him: "He is melancholic almost to the point of madness. He is a beautiful and good person, but an unhappy person."

Sylvia Plath (authoreventually committed suicide) Winston Churchill and his 'black dog' of depression Van Gogh (most famous 'schizophrenic') Paul Merton (comedian who had breakdown just as getting famous. Seeing self on tv fuelled paranoia) John Cleese(self confessed manic) Ernest Hemmingway (reckons ECT stole his writing gift) Joan of Arc (burned to death for hearing voices) Alistair Campbell (Blair's right hand man.