Studies have shown that there are much higher instances of mental disorder in political leaders and creative geniuses than in the general population.
And while it’s impossible to be completely sure of a correct diagnosis of a historical figure, that hasn’t stopped researchers from making educated guesses.
Here’s a speculative look at the mental health of 11 of history’s big thinkers.
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Abraham Lincoln – Depression?
The Great Emancipator managed to lead the country through one of its more trying times, despite suffering from severe depression most of his life. According to one Lincoln biographer, letters left by the president’s friends referred to him as “the most depressed person they’ve ever seen.”
On at least one occasion, he was so overcome with “melancholy” that he collapsed. Both his mother and numerous members of his father’s family exhibited similar symptoms of severe depression, indicating he was probably biologically susceptible to the illness. Lincoln is even assumed to be the author of a poem published in 1838, “The Suicide’s Soliloquy,” which contains the lines:
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
Ludwig von Beethoven – Bipolar Disorder?
When the composer died of liver failure in 1827, he had been self-medicating his many health problems with alcohol for decades. Sadly, much of what he may have suffered from probably could have been managed with today’s medications, including a serious case of bipolar disorder.
Beethoven’s fits of mania were well known in his circle of friends, and when he was on a high he could compose numerous works at once. It was during his down periods that many of his most celebrated works were written. Sadly, that was also when he contemplated suicide, as he told his brothers in letters throughout his life.
During the early part of 1813 he went through such a depressive period that he stopped caring about his appearance, and would fly into rages during dinner parties. He also stopped composing almost completely during that time.
Edvard Munch – Panic Attacks?
The world’s most famous panic attack occurred in Olso during January 1892. Munch recorded the episode in his diary:
“One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord — the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature.”
This experience affected the artist so deeply he returned to the moment again and again, eventually making two paintings, two pastels, and a lithograph based on his experience, as well as penning a poem derived from the diary entry.
While it isn’t known if Munch had any more panic attacks, mental illness did run in his family; at the time of his episode, his bipolar sister was in an asylum.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider