When I think about unchecked mental health issues, which begin almost benignly, masquerading as a person traversing areas of interest, testimony, theory, but which slowly begin to turn into somewhat untenable abstract ideation, moving into baseless territory, blasting past checkpoints and stop signs (factual data) directly to absurdity and then finally to extremism and fanaticism, my mind searches for an image.

One image has recently come to light, and that is Russian artist Ilya Repin's famous painting of Ivan the Terrible, the notorious Tsar of Russia, who committed a heinous act when he killed his son, Ivan Ivanovich, in a fit of rage.

Ivan the Terrible had a dark side characterized by paranoia, rage, and bouts of mental instability that worsened with age, such that everyone "became a detractor"--even his son. He also exemplifies this process I'm talking about.
I've been so devoutly curious about this process, how it comes about, and what connection it has with belief systems.
It begins with closing the door on factual data and debate, alongside removal of checks and balances on off-kilter ideation and somehow becomes self-perpetuating into a solipsistic dogma that assures the sufferer they have come into a "Truth" that cannot be contradicted by anyone--not by scholars, theologians, vast amounts of socio-political history, you name it.
I'm also quite interested in how someone gets to a position where they no longer respond to societal consequences, let alone factual data. Even grave ones. In the painting, Repin's interpretation is of the emotional torture that ensued after the fatal encounter. I'm stunned when I take this work in, just as stunned as I am when I see it play out in today's world.