What The Life Of Marilyn Monroe Teaches Us About Mental Health And Success Against All Odds

The name Norma Jeane Mortenson wouldn’t mean much to most Americans, but that was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe, who is still one of the most recognized names in Hollywood and considered one of the most beautiful women and greatest actresses of all time in the United States. During her stellar career, Monroe won numerous awards and earned herself a posthumous star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

However, the journey from Norma Jeane to Marilyn Monroe was not easy and was fraught with many obstacles; the obstacles that Monroe had to overcome have made her life a great topic of discussion since she tragically passed in 1962. Hollywood has always been a difficult place for women to succeed, much less in Monroe’s time, but Monroe is one of those whose career will always be remembered as having paved the way for women in the industry.

Marilyn’s Early Life: Abandonment and Adoption

Marilyn’s mother, Gladys Baker, was mentally unstable and financially incapable of caring for her, so Marilyn lived in foster care from early childhood until she was about seven years old before eventually entering the system and becoming a ward of the state.

After a short while in the system, Gladys Baker’s best friend Grace McKee became Marilyn’s legal Guardian for a few years before Marilyn was sent to Hollygrove orphanage in LA and bounced around foster homes before returning to Grace McKee’s home as a teenager.

When Marilyn turned 16, Grace and her husband relocated to the east coast and couldn’t take Marilyn with them. To avoid her returning to foster care, she was married off to a neighbor, James Dougherty.

According to Sun Yong Kim-Manzolini, a women’s advocate, options trader, and founder of Lush Enterprises, LLC, “Some people’s lives just don’t start on an even keel. These people have to fight to find balance in their souls and to experience the positive parts of life without being limited by their past trauma. Marilyn’s story is one that resonates with women like myself, who have found a way to rise in their industry and find balance against tremendously unfair odds.”

“All things being equal, women like us never rise to prominence,” Kim-Manzolini opines, “The weight of abandonment can weigh on the soul so heavily that you almost cannot move, let alone dream.”

Kim-Manzolini recalls growing up in an orphanage for the disabled in South Korea, where she was born at home. Born with a minor hairlip and crooked legs, she was abandoned by her parents and didn’t even learn to walk till she was seven years old. By age fourteen, she was adopted by an American couple with six biological children and one adopted child. She became the 8th child and was brought to America, where she struggled with her self-esteem, not knowing the language, and adapting to a new culture.

She insists: “The ability to dream and to work hard can take anyone to any height, even if you were dealt the wrong cards early in life.”

Marilyn and Abuse

Hollywood allowed sexual abuse and sexual crimes to flourish in the industry for decades. According to veteran actress Joan Collins, Marilyn Monroe had warned her many years ago to; “Watch out for the wolves in Hollywood.” Marilyn herself had also been abused in the industry by powerful men. It wasn’t until the #metoo movement that these sexual crimes became exposed in the industry.

Unfortunately for Ms Monroe, her abuse didn’t start in Hollywood; it started in one of the numerous orphanages she had grown up in. Marilyn admitted later in life to being raped at age 11, an experience that stayed with her for life and one that many psychologists suspect contributed to her subsequent divorce from all three of her husbands. Against all these horrible odds, Marilyn Monroe still achieved so many astounding feats in life that have kept her relevant to this day.

Marilyn’s Career and Success

Monroe always had dreams of the glitz and glam of Hollywood. When her soldier-husband, Mr Dougherty, was sent to South Pacific, she started working at a munitions factory. At this factory, a photographer discovered her as strikingly beautiful and started taking pictures of her. This initially shocked her because she had never considered herself pretty.

By the time Mr Dougherty returned, Marilyn’s face was on hundreds of magazine covers, and he wanted her to stop. Marilyn was not willing to give up on her dream, and this disagreement eventually led to their divorce.

After the divorce, Norma Jean changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, dyed her brunette hair blonde as a signal of a new beginning, and began transitioning from modeling to acting.

Monroe was not initially considered star material. She was released from many film contracts and had to settle for many roles as a bumbling blonde. Marilyn’s determination to succeed made her move to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors’ Studio, a decision that refined her into one of Hollywood’s finest actresses of all time.

Kim-Manzolini recalls her similar journey. She secured a scholarship to study nursing, decided to take a shortcut and became a Certified Medical Assistant, due to the language barrier, graduated, and worked as a CMA (which consists of nurse duties at doctor’s offices) and clinics for 33 years, but was still working odd jobs to make ends meet. As a CMA, she wasn’t making her dream income, so she decided to become an entrepreneur.

She took up real estate and options trading despite her hate for technology and computers. “In my first year of options trading, I set out to make $100,000, but I made $178,000 instead. I instantly knew that this was something I could devote more time to.”

Years later Kim-Manzolini is coaching others on options trading and entrepreneurship. “Similar to Marilyn’s story, if you have a bad start, you need to have an intense work ethic to catch up.”

Adversity and Mental Health

If there is one dent in Monroe’s story of victory and success, it is her death by overdose in 1962. In the end, Marilyn’s life’s success was not enough to deal with the demons she battled with within. Marilyn’s life became one of Hollywood’s earliest catalysts for the mental health discussion.

“I have had to do a lot of counseling in my lifetime,” Mrs Kim-Manzolini admits, “I had to get help for PTSD and my self-esteem issues. I didn’t have self-confidence and boundaries, I wanted to please my parents all the time, and didn’t know how to say no. My mindset always said, ‘Why me?’ why should I get the good things in life? But I soon changed that to a ‘Why Not Me?’ mindset. Even with my second marriage to Mike, I have to fight for it, it was really tough considering all the abuse in the first. We had to go to Celebrate Recovery for 27 months. It’s a Christian counseling relationship group that essentially saved my marriage. Mental health issues should never be left unattended, or it will eventually ruin all the hard work.”

Kim-Manzolini is passionate about the elderly, single parents, and people born with a disadvantage. She believes that the Monroe model can be replicated to help anyone achieve their dream life.