The Faces of Mental Illness: Abraham Lincoln

[merrr]

Abraham Lincoln lived with mental illness.

It ran in his family. He experienced two major depressive episodes. His friends put him on suicide watches. He also liked popcorn, oysters, and a strong cup of coffee.


For Lincoln, learning to live with depression was a process that involved not so much transformation as integration -- a distinction still relevant in how we think about recovery today.

"Hope and despondency, pleasure and pain," Lincoln wrote in a poem in the 1850s, "are mingled together in sunshine and rain."

Lincoln considered "nervous temperament" as the general cause of melancholy, serving as a "key and conductor" for specific, triggering causes -- an assessment not unlike the concept of genetic predisposition. In a letter to a friend, he identified three kinds of specific causes: exposure to bad weather, thinking too much -- as the result of disengagement from business or friends -- or a moment of great crisis and converging conflicts requiring exhaustive focus. Lincoln's life fit the formula.

Lincoln's family history is full of evidence indicating mental illness.

His father lived with periods of gloom and withdrawal. His first cousin, Mordecai, had severe mood swings, eventually becoming paranoid. Living like a hermit, he would drop by occasionally to visit relatives. Without saying a word, he would pace the room, playing a violin, while sobbing.

In 1867, Mary Jane Lincoln, the daughter of another cousin, was committed at age 39 to the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane after a trial by jury. She had been ill for 13 years and jurors found "the disease is with her hereditary." A family member called it "the Lincoln horrors."

In 1835, Lincoln experienced his first major depression. He had left home four years before, and at 26, was at an age when the onset of serious mental illness frequently occurs. Shenk acknowledges that it is difficult to identify precisely what factors may trigger a depressive episode. But Lincoln was studying law intensely and had isolated himself from friends. Fever swept the community. Death was all around. One victim was Anne Rutledge, whom some believe was the first love of Lincoln's life.

Lincoln's melancholy stayed with him throughout his life. He was permanently sad, often withdrawing into himself. But it gave him the vision to look beyond the horrors of the Civil War toward a greater good -- beyond the nation's imperfections and dangers toward progress and redemption. Depression produced "depressive realism" reflecting a painful, but accurate view of the world that may enable a person to achieve "melancholic success" and "tragic optimism." In times of great crisis, it may be the strongest character forged for leadership.

To learn more about Abraham Lincoln's struggles with mental illness, click the link below:
www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=20054&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=27041&lstid=590

[sharon]

This is very enlightening! Thank you for posting!

[merrr]

Absolutely! Thank you for taking the time to read this

[bumblebee23]

Wow so much of that sounds like what I go through. I used to write poetry too. It was a way for me to get out what I was feeling inside. I can only write when my depression is bad....it is a sign for me that I need to get help.