This made me think about the really sad segment in Ken Burns’s “Civil War” about how deeply his son Willie’s death impacted Lincoln for the rest of his life.
i don’t think years of popping mercury pills helped his condition.
He should have outlawed the Crap party when the CW ended. Here we are 2019 still dealing with their bullsht.
I thought it was Mary Todd Lincoln who had depression.
Lincoln had lots of problems in his life.
His wife was a big spender.
The Civil War was awful.
Most of his generals were incompetent.
He couldn’t free the slaves fast enough.
If that doesn't craze you I don't know what will. I lost one and it changes your psyche and your brain forever.
What a thoughtful and thorough article. Thank you so much for posting it. I knew nothing of his life long struggle with depression. Without intention, it was this heaviness that became part of his character. I built his strength and his thoughts. There’s a part in the article that talks about those with depression are more realistic than those who are joyful. Thanks again.
The last paragraph
“Many popular philosophies propose that suffering can be beaten simply, quickly, and clearly. Popular biographies often express the same view. Many writers, faced with the unhappiness of a heroic figure, make sure to find some crucible in which that bad feeling is melted into something new. “Biographies tend conventionally to be structured as crisis-and-recovery narratives,” the critic Louis Menand writes, “in which the subject undergoes a period of disillusionment or adversity, and then has a ‘breakthrough’ or arrives at a ‘turning point’ before going on to achieve whatever sort of greatness obtains.” Lincoln’s melancholy doesn’t lend itself to such a narrative. No point exists after which the melancholy dissolved—not in January of 1841; not during his middle age; and not at his political resurgence, beginning in 1854. Whatever greatness Lincoln achieved cannot be explained as a triumph over personal suffering. Rather, it must be accounted an outgrowth of the same system that produced that suffering. This is a story not of transformation but of integration. Lincoln didn’t do great work because he solved the problem of his melancholy; the problem of his melancholy was all the more fuel for the fire of his great work.”
So did Winston Churchill. He called it his "black dog".
His namesake only lived 175 years.
The pseudoscientific claptrap from the shrinks never stops.
Yeah I’m sure Lincoln would have been much better off on SSRIs. Then ha could have just murdered his family and blown his own brains out.
If only the tyrant Lincoln had committed suicide early on. It would have saved a lot of lives.