jimnyc
12-14-2017, 01:29 PM
Do they really think this crap is going to work? It's as if some of the democrats got together and planned this, but it's going to fail, sorry. His only "emotional problems" are that of posting weird shit on twitter. And not just because I have it and have stated as much many times, but just a matter of discussion. Bipolar is something that USA Presidents have had, and succeeded with (as well as athletes, artists, writers...). Apparently John Adams had Bipolar II disorder. James Madison as well. John Quincy Adams. Abraham Lincoln, and they say he displayed more symptoms of the disorder than any other. Theodore Roosevelt had Bipolar I. Also Dwight Eisenhower. This isn't something I just made up, these are all easily researched, but that's for another thread I suppose. I'll put what I have quickly down the bottom... Don't even get me started with the amount of successful people in total.
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Sanders: Trump ‘Should Resign’ – He Has ‘Very Serious Emotional Problems’
During an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “AC360,” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called for President Trump to resign over the sexual assault allegations against him and argued the president “has some very serious emotional problems.”
Sanders reacted to Trump’s tweet about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) by stating, “I think you’ve got a president who has some very serious emotional problems. To say that about a female United States senator is obscene. It is absurd. Everyone knows exactly what he meant.”
Sanders added, “You’ve got a president who has been accused, by many, many women of harassment, to say the least. This is a guy who was on a tape seen by everybody in America essentially bragging about his sexual assault of women. Do I think under those considerations of Al Franken resigned, do I think the president should resign? I do. Do I think he will? I don’t. But, yes, I do think he should resign.”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/12/13/sanders-trump-should-resign-he-has-very-serious-emotional-problems/
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#1 John Adams (1797—1801)
Adams served as the second president and the first vice president (1789—1797). Due to a history of “irrational behavior and emotional instability,” historians labeled Adams as “manic-depressive,” “slightly paranoid,” and “a man consumed by an irrepressible urge to master the world.” After using guidelines to assess for psychiatric disorders, researchers concluded this Founding Father met the criteria for bipolar II disorder.
#2 James Madison (1809—1817)
A founding father, Madison was hailed as the “Father of the Constitution for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” The fourth president battled major depressive disorder.
#3 John Quincy Adams (1825—1829)
Aside from serving as the sixth president, Adams also served as a diplomat, a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. He was portrayed “as the exemplar and moral leader in an era of modernization.” Adams suffered from major depressive disorder.
#4 Franklin Pierce (1853—1857)
A lawyer by profession, Pierce was the youngest man to be elected president to that point. The study found he suffered from alcohol dependence and major depressive disorder. It was known at the time that Pierce’s wife also suffered from depression for much of her life. All of the couple’s children died young. Pierce died of severe cirrhosis of the liver in 1869.
#5 Abraham Lincoln (1861—1865)
Served as the 16th president of the United States until his assassination in April 1865. Researchers believe he suffered from “major depressive disorder, recurrent, with psychotic features.” In a letter to his first law partner, Lincoln writes: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
#6 Rutherford B. Hayes (1877—1881)
The election of Hayes in 1876 was one of the most contentious in national history. He lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden but won “an intensely disputed” Electoral College vote. Duke University’s psychiatrists diagnosed Hayes as having major depressive disorder.
#7 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1901—1909)
The statesman, author, soldier, explorer and reformer lived with bipolar I disorder. Renowned clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison said the 26th president “came into the world a full-blown exuberant. In a 2002 talk, she characterized Roosevelt as “hypomanic on a mild day. He wrote 40 books, and read a book a day, even as president. He also went into an extended depression that saw him reinvent himself as a cowboy.”
#8 Woodrow Wilson (1913—1921)
Wilson was said to suffer with both anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. Biographer Edwin A. Weinstein writes that Wilson went through a “severe reactive depression” following his wife’s death. He felt his life was over, writes Weinstein, and said Wilson even expressed the wish that someone would take his life. “God has stricken me almost beyond what I can bear,” Wilson once wrote.
#9 Calvin Coolidge (1923—1929)
Biographer Robert E. Gilbert calls Coolidge “the most misunderstood chief executive in American history.” And while he’s often referred to as a ”do nothing president,” Coolidge. Suffered from major depressive disorder, presumably brought on by the tragic death of his son. More serious, notes Gilbert, was the fact Coolidge essentially abdicated his presidential responsibilities while in this ongoing state of depression.
#10 Herbert Hoover (1929—1933)
Hoover gained two reputations in his lifetime: first was that he “twiddled his thumbs” while the Great Depression set in and in contrast he became known internationally as “the great humanitarian” during World War I for relief efforts in wartime Belgium. A successful mining engineer by trade, Hoover battled major depressive disorder.
#11 Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953—1961)
Eisenhower had a series of medical issues while in office, including a heart attack, a bowel obstruction and a stroke. He is said to have also battled major depressive disorder. Prior to his presidency, Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.
#12 Lyndon B. Johnson (1963—1969)
Johnson is said to have displayed manic episodes, an indicator of bipolar disorder as well as anxiety purportedly caused by the escalation of the Vietnam War. “It was a pronounced, prolonged depression,” Johnson’s press secretary Bill Moyers said. “He would just go within himself, just disappear—morose, self-pitying, angry. … he was a tormented man.”
https://www.bphope.com/bipolar-buzz/the-surprising-link-between-american-presidents-and-mental-illness/
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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, who followed John Adams, as our third president also experienced what we would call clinical depression today. Jefferson suffered from physical ailments such as back problems and headaches which contributed to his melancholy. Financial woes and personal loss deepened Jefferson’s depression. His wife, Martha, died after her last pregnancy at the early age of 33. It is said that following his wife’s death that he stayed in his room for three weeks and ventured out only to join his daughter Patsy on all-day rides on horseback.
James Madison
James Madison has been described as one of the smallest and frailest of our presidents. As a young man he is said to have felt insecure about himself and had difficulty becoming independent from his family. Madison developed a depression characterized by inertia and wish for an early death. The death of his college roommate and best friend deepened his depression. Following his friend’s death he wrote to a friend: “As to myself, I am too dull and infirm now to look out for any extraordinary things in this world, for I think my sensations for many months have intimated to me not to expect a long or a healthy life . . . therefore have little spirit or elasticity to set about anything that is difficult in acquiring, and useless in possessing after one has exchanged time for eternity.”
In the days when physicians attempted to cure "melancholia"¯ by blood -letting, Madison’s doctor prescribed physical exercise including horseback riding and walking.
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, became our 6th president. Adams was said to have brain diseases such as essential tremor, cerebrovascular disease, and depression. Alcoholism and depression seemed to run in Adam’s family. Two of his sons died early from alcohol abuse. Adams, plagued by internal conflicts, was often described as dour, aloof, and angry. His son Charles described him as hiding behind an iron mask because he didn’t show his feelings. Adams is said to have found relief in attending church, walking, poetry, and astronomy. He also found swimming to be calming and took daily excursions to the Potomac River at 5 a.m. to swim in the nude.
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was a president who experienced great loss. All three of his sons died before adulthood. Tragedy would besiege Pierce right before his inauguration when his last living son who was only 11-years old died during a train wreck. Pierce and his wife survived but were in a state of grief and depression when he entered the presidency. Later in life Pierce was condemned by society for his denunciation of Lincoln’s policies including the Emancipation Proclamation. Political controversy, poor health, the death of his wife, and the death of his good friend, author Nathaniel Hawthorne caused Pierce to fall into a deep and entrenched depression.
Abraham Lincoln
Abe Lincoln is probably the president most people think of when you talk about depression among our nation’s leaders. Lincoln was said to have suffered from not only severe bouts of depression but also suicidal ideation. Author Michael Burlingame, in his book, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, depicts Lincoln as a man who suffered multiple losses leading to his depression. Before the age of twenty, Lincoln had lost his newborn younger brother, his mother, aunt, uncle, and sister. Today we know that early losses, especially of a parent, can lead to depression later in life. Lincoln’s depression was visible and remarked upon by those who knew him such as his law partner William Herndon who described Lincoln in this way: “His melancholy dripped from him as he walked.”
Lincoln’s "melancholy"¯ has generated much interest in writers and scholars today. Some authors believe that what may be considered a liability or character flaw for a president of today was essential for Lincoln to lead the country. Writer Joshua Wolf remarks in The Atlantic that: " 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."¯
Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge was another president who suffered from multiple losses in his family. He lost his mother when he was only 12 and then subsequently lost his sister Abigail five years later. His father was left to rule the home with an iron hand. It may have been resentment for his father’s ways that Coolidge dropped his first name of John (his father’s name) and simply kept his middle name, Calvin. Coolidge would be described by some as a bitter and angry man.
During Coolidge’s presidency he would experience yet another loss, that of his favorite son Calvin. Following his son’s death Coolidge showed extreme symptoms of depression including fatigue, guilt, loss of appetite, and spent much of his time sleeping or napping. He was best described as a very unproductive President for the next four years, avoiding decision making and interactions with both his cabinet and Congress. His depression was so extreme that he was prone to making angry outbursts to his staff and family.
There are some writers who speculate that depression may have contributed to his death four years after Coolidge left office but this theory remains speculative at best.
In addition to these leaders there have been other presidents who have been depicted by scholars and historians as likely to have suffered from a mood disorder including: Rutherford B Hayes (depression), Theodore Roosevelt (bipolar), Woodrow Wilson (depression), Herbert Hoover (depression), Dwight Eisenhower (depression), and Lyndon Johnson (bipolar).
It shows that people can achieve great things despite mental illness including depression. Depression knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you are rich, poor, young, old, or even the president. Anyone can be vulnerable to the depths of depression. But what some of our leaders did not know many years ago is that depression could someday be successfully treated. It makes one wonder if history would have been altered in any way if presidents like Lincoln, for example, could have found relief from his chronic and persistent "melancholy."
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/7-presidents-who-battled-depression
---
List Of U.S. Presidents That Suffered Poor Mental Health
Abraham Lincoln
Historians speculate that Abraham Lincoln endured his presidency while living with depression. He likely talked about suicide more than once when he was younger — a major warning sign of major depressive disorder. Those who knew him called it his “melancholy,” because he would often shift in and out of spells of sadness and despair.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan died from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease in June 2004. Dementia is technically considered a brain disorder and not a mental illness. However, if Reagan did show signs of the disorder while he was president, it severely impacted his mental health and ability to perform his job. Many members of his staff worried that he was unfit to lead the country.
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy suffered a number of physical ailments that he tried to hide from the public while president. Unfortunately, many believe this led to what could be considered long-term prescription drug abuse. This likely impacted his ability to perform as president.
Teddy Roosevelt
Experts estimate that Teddy Roosevelt lived with the type of bipolar disorder associated with alternating episodes of mania and depression. Those who knew him never failed to mention his tendency to gravitate toward reckless behavior. The example most often cited is his decision to embark on an expedition into unexplored territory, during which most of those accompanying him died.
Richard Nixon
It’s not easy to hide an addiction when you’re the president of the United States. According to sources, Nixon tended to abuse alcohol and other drugs even while sitting as president. He didn’t manage his relationships well, often isolating himself amidst an already lonely occupation.
William Howard Taft
America’s heaviest president to date, William Howard Taft weighed over 300 pounds while in office. His body mass index hovered around 46, which would have classified him as morbidly obese by today’s standards. Taft also likely had a sleep disorder, dozing off during official meetings.
John Adams
As is the case with many former U.S. presidents, most of what we know about Adams’ mental state, we’ve gathered from anecdotal evidence. According to Live Science, the second president of the United States most likely lived with the second major type of bipolar disorder, characterized mostly by depressive episodes and milder stretches of mania.
Woodrow Wilson
In 1919, Wilson suffered a stroke, which left him mentally unfit to finish out his term. Officials tried to keep this quiet for as long as possible. Before this, however, the president likely lived with depression and other health conditions.
Bill Clinton
America’s more popular presidents tend to display higher rates of narcissism — which can be both good and bad. A little bit of narcissism makes leaders more confident and persuasive, says Psychology Today. Unfortunately, former leaders like Bill Clinton fell to the dark side of narcissism, engaging in unethical behaviors while sitting as president.
Warren Harding
The exact cause of Warren Harding’s death and the events leading up to it remain a mystery. However, experts believe his many years of mental illness affected him physically, making him weak and likely increasing his risk of fatal infections and other conditions.
Franklin Pierce
According to the New England Historical Society, Pierce dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as he entered his term in office. His final surviving son died in a train accident, and historians believe he never truly recovered from the tragic loss. He apparently struggled to perform his expected duties as president as a result of his mental illness.
Calvin Coolidge
Sometimes, symptoms of mental illness turn one tragedy into a lifetime of suffering. Like Pierce, Calvin Coolidgealso lost a son unexpectedly, and suffered extreme mental and emotional distress as a result. Coolidge lost his son while serving as president, and reports describe spells of insomnia, indecisiveness, and irritability, all telltale signs of grief and depression.
Lyndon Johnson
Despite his many accomplishments in a short amount of time, Lyndon B. Johnson often displayed terrible mood swings he couldn’t hide. He exhibited paranoid behavior, spoke erratically in public, and did not respond appropriately to criticism.
Andrew Jackson
Aside from Jackson’s many physical ailments, the emotional trauma he endured likely made for a difficult presidency. His wife died of a heart attack before he became president, and he carried his grief with him for a long time following. He had few surviving blood relatives.
Martin Van Buren
Some of the most popular U.S. presidents have had psychopathic tendencies, including Martin Van Buren. According to an article in Fortune, it’s the presidents who were least popular that tend to rank lower on a theoretical psychopathic scale. Many experts have noted that psychopaths often hold professional positions of power — such as CEO, or commander-in-chief.
https://quad7capital.com/2017/11/16/list-u-s-presidents-suffered-poor-mental-health/
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Even U.S. Presidents Suffer Mental Illness
What comes to mind when you think about the first 37 U.S. presidents? Perhaps it’s Honest Abe’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address, or the story of the portly William Howard Taft getting stuck in the White House bathtub. Or maybe it’s Lyndon B. Johnson’s passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s likely, however, that you don’t equate these historical figures with anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, social phobia and alcoholism. But, as it turns out, mental illness is a significant part of presidential history.
Nearly half of American presidents from 1789 to 1974 — and this includes two of the four U.S. leaders featured on the iconic Mount Rushmore — met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder as set forth by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the leading reference manual for mental health professionals. That’s according to an analysis of presidential biographies conducted by psychiatrists at Duke University Medical Center.
.....
Here’s a look at some of the presidents and the mental disorders they were, or may have been, affected by:
-Depression: James Madison (4th), John Quincy Adams (6th), Franklin Pierce (14th). Abraham Lincoln (16th) suffered a depression so severe that friends feared he’d commit suicide. Calvin Coolidge (30th) fell into a bout of depression after the loss of his teenage son, who died suddenly of sepsis, a fatal condition caused by a staph infection.
-Social Phobia: Thomas Jefferson (3rd), Grant and Calvin Coolidge (30th). Grant also retreated into alcohol.
-Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Woodrow Wilson (28th)
-Mania: Theodore Roosevelt (26th) and Lyndon B. Johnson (36th) displayed manic energy, an indicator of bipolar disorder.
https://www.addiction.com/6154/even-u-s-presidents-suffer-mental-illness/
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Sanders: Trump ‘Should Resign’ – He Has ‘Very Serious Emotional Problems’
During an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “AC360,” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called for President Trump to resign over the sexual assault allegations against him and argued the president “has some very serious emotional problems.”
Sanders reacted to Trump’s tweet about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) by stating, “I think you’ve got a president who has some very serious emotional problems. To say that about a female United States senator is obscene. It is absurd. Everyone knows exactly what he meant.”
Sanders added, “You’ve got a president who has been accused, by many, many women of harassment, to say the least. This is a guy who was on a tape seen by everybody in America essentially bragging about his sexual assault of women. Do I think under those considerations of Al Franken resigned, do I think the president should resign? I do. Do I think he will? I don’t. But, yes, I do think he should resign.”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/12/13/sanders-trump-should-resign-he-has-very-serious-emotional-problems/
---
#1 John Adams (1797—1801)
Adams served as the second president and the first vice president (1789—1797). Due to a history of “irrational behavior and emotional instability,” historians labeled Adams as “manic-depressive,” “slightly paranoid,” and “a man consumed by an irrepressible urge to master the world.” After using guidelines to assess for psychiatric disorders, researchers concluded this Founding Father met the criteria for bipolar II disorder.
#2 James Madison (1809—1817)
A founding father, Madison was hailed as the “Father of the Constitution for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” The fourth president battled major depressive disorder.
#3 John Quincy Adams (1825—1829)
Aside from serving as the sixth president, Adams also served as a diplomat, a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. He was portrayed “as the exemplar and moral leader in an era of modernization.” Adams suffered from major depressive disorder.
#4 Franklin Pierce (1853—1857)
A lawyer by profession, Pierce was the youngest man to be elected president to that point. The study found he suffered from alcohol dependence and major depressive disorder. It was known at the time that Pierce’s wife also suffered from depression for much of her life. All of the couple’s children died young. Pierce died of severe cirrhosis of the liver in 1869.
#5 Abraham Lincoln (1861—1865)
Served as the 16th president of the United States until his assassination in April 1865. Researchers believe he suffered from “major depressive disorder, recurrent, with psychotic features.” In a letter to his first law partner, Lincoln writes: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
#6 Rutherford B. Hayes (1877—1881)
The election of Hayes in 1876 was one of the most contentious in national history. He lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden but won “an intensely disputed” Electoral College vote. Duke University’s psychiatrists diagnosed Hayes as having major depressive disorder.
#7 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1901—1909)
The statesman, author, soldier, explorer and reformer lived with bipolar I disorder. Renowned clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison said the 26th president “came into the world a full-blown exuberant. In a 2002 talk, she characterized Roosevelt as “hypomanic on a mild day. He wrote 40 books, and read a book a day, even as president. He also went into an extended depression that saw him reinvent himself as a cowboy.”
#8 Woodrow Wilson (1913—1921)
Wilson was said to suffer with both anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. Biographer Edwin A. Weinstein writes that Wilson went through a “severe reactive depression” following his wife’s death. He felt his life was over, writes Weinstein, and said Wilson even expressed the wish that someone would take his life. “God has stricken me almost beyond what I can bear,” Wilson once wrote.
#9 Calvin Coolidge (1923—1929)
Biographer Robert E. Gilbert calls Coolidge “the most misunderstood chief executive in American history.” And while he’s often referred to as a ”do nothing president,” Coolidge. Suffered from major depressive disorder, presumably brought on by the tragic death of his son. More serious, notes Gilbert, was the fact Coolidge essentially abdicated his presidential responsibilities while in this ongoing state of depression.
#10 Herbert Hoover (1929—1933)
Hoover gained two reputations in his lifetime: first was that he “twiddled his thumbs” while the Great Depression set in and in contrast he became known internationally as “the great humanitarian” during World War I for relief efforts in wartime Belgium. A successful mining engineer by trade, Hoover battled major depressive disorder.
#11 Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953—1961)
Eisenhower had a series of medical issues while in office, including a heart attack, a bowel obstruction and a stroke. He is said to have also battled major depressive disorder. Prior to his presidency, Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.
#12 Lyndon B. Johnson (1963—1969)
Johnson is said to have displayed manic episodes, an indicator of bipolar disorder as well as anxiety purportedly caused by the escalation of the Vietnam War. “It was a pronounced, prolonged depression,” Johnson’s press secretary Bill Moyers said. “He would just go within himself, just disappear—morose, self-pitying, angry. … he was a tormented man.”
https://www.bphope.com/bipolar-buzz/the-surprising-link-between-american-presidents-and-mental-illness/
----
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, who followed John Adams, as our third president also experienced what we would call clinical depression today. Jefferson suffered from physical ailments such as back problems and headaches which contributed to his melancholy. Financial woes and personal loss deepened Jefferson’s depression. His wife, Martha, died after her last pregnancy at the early age of 33. It is said that following his wife’s death that he stayed in his room for three weeks and ventured out only to join his daughter Patsy on all-day rides on horseback.
James Madison
James Madison has been described as one of the smallest and frailest of our presidents. As a young man he is said to have felt insecure about himself and had difficulty becoming independent from his family. Madison developed a depression characterized by inertia and wish for an early death. The death of his college roommate and best friend deepened his depression. Following his friend’s death he wrote to a friend: “As to myself, I am too dull and infirm now to look out for any extraordinary things in this world, for I think my sensations for many months have intimated to me not to expect a long or a healthy life . . . therefore have little spirit or elasticity to set about anything that is difficult in acquiring, and useless in possessing after one has exchanged time for eternity.”
In the days when physicians attempted to cure "melancholia"¯ by blood -letting, Madison’s doctor prescribed physical exercise including horseback riding and walking.
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, became our 6th president. Adams was said to have brain diseases such as essential tremor, cerebrovascular disease, and depression. Alcoholism and depression seemed to run in Adam’s family. Two of his sons died early from alcohol abuse. Adams, plagued by internal conflicts, was often described as dour, aloof, and angry. His son Charles described him as hiding behind an iron mask because he didn’t show his feelings. Adams is said to have found relief in attending church, walking, poetry, and astronomy. He also found swimming to be calming and took daily excursions to the Potomac River at 5 a.m. to swim in the nude.
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was a president who experienced great loss. All three of his sons died before adulthood. Tragedy would besiege Pierce right before his inauguration when his last living son who was only 11-years old died during a train wreck. Pierce and his wife survived but were in a state of grief and depression when he entered the presidency. Later in life Pierce was condemned by society for his denunciation of Lincoln’s policies including the Emancipation Proclamation. Political controversy, poor health, the death of his wife, and the death of his good friend, author Nathaniel Hawthorne caused Pierce to fall into a deep and entrenched depression.
Abraham Lincoln
Abe Lincoln is probably the president most people think of when you talk about depression among our nation’s leaders. Lincoln was said to have suffered from not only severe bouts of depression but also suicidal ideation. Author Michael Burlingame, in his book, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, depicts Lincoln as a man who suffered multiple losses leading to his depression. Before the age of twenty, Lincoln had lost his newborn younger brother, his mother, aunt, uncle, and sister. Today we know that early losses, especially of a parent, can lead to depression later in life. Lincoln’s depression was visible and remarked upon by those who knew him such as his law partner William Herndon who described Lincoln in this way: “His melancholy dripped from him as he walked.”
Lincoln’s "melancholy"¯ has generated much interest in writers and scholars today. Some authors believe that what may be considered a liability or character flaw for a president of today was essential for Lincoln to lead the country. Writer Joshua Wolf remarks in The Atlantic that: " 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."¯
Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge was another president who suffered from multiple losses in his family. He lost his mother when he was only 12 and then subsequently lost his sister Abigail five years later. His father was left to rule the home with an iron hand. It may have been resentment for his father’s ways that Coolidge dropped his first name of John (his father’s name) and simply kept his middle name, Calvin. Coolidge would be described by some as a bitter and angry man.
During Coolidge’s presidency he would experience yet another loss, that of his favorite son Calvin. Following his son’s death Coolidge showed extreme symptoms of depression including fatigue, guilt, loss of appetite, and spent much of his time sleeping or napping. He was best described as a very unproductive President for the next four years, avoiding decision making and interactions with both his cabinet and Congress. His depression was so extreme that he was prone to making angry outbursts to his staff and family.
There are some writers who speculate that depression may have contributed to his death four years after Coolidge left office but this theory remains speculative at best.
In addition to these leaders there have been other presidents who have been depicted by scholars and historians as likely to have suffered from a mood disorder including: Rutherford B Hayes (depression), Theodore Roosevelt (bipolar), Woodrow Wilson (depression), Herbert Hoover (depression), Dwight Eisenhower (depression), and Lyndon Johnson (bipolar).
It shows that people can achieve great things despite mental illness including depression. Depression knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you are rich, poor, young, old, or even the president. Anyone can be vulnerable to the depths of depression. But what some of our leaders did not know many years ago is that depression could someday be successfully treated. It makes one wonder if history would have been altered in any way if presidents like Lincoln, for example, could have found relief from his chronic and persistent "melancholy."
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/7-presidents-who-battled-depression
---
List Of U.S. Presidents That Suffered Poor Mental Health
Abraham Lincoln
Historians speculate that Abraham Lincoln endured his presidency while living with depression. He likely talked about suicide more than once when he was younger — a major warning sign of major depressive disorder. Those who knew him called it his “melancholy,” because he would often shift in and out of spells of sadness and despair.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan died from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease in June 2004. Dementia is technically considered a brain disorder and not a mental illness. However, if Reagan did show signs of the disorder while he was president, it severely impacted his mental health and ability to perform his job. Many members of his staff worried that he was unfit to lead the country.
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy suffered a number of physical ailments that he tried to hide from the public while president. Unfortunately, many believe this led to what could be considered long-term prescription drug abuse. This likely impacted his ability to perform as president.
Teddy Roosevelt
Experts estimate that Teddy Roosevelt lived with the type of bipolar disorder associated with alternating episodes of mania and depression. Those who knew him never failed to mention his tendency to gravitate toward reckless behavior. The example most often cited is his decision to embark on an expedition into unexplored territory, during which most of those accompanying him died.
Richard Nixon
It’s not easy to hide an addiction when you’re the president of the United States. According to sources, Nixon tended to abuse alcohol and other drugs even while sitting as president. He didn’t manage his relationships well, often isolating himself amidst an already lonely occupation.
William Howard Taft
America’s heaviest president to date, William Howard Taft weighed over 300 pounds while in office. His body mass index hovered around 46, which would have classified him as morbidly obese by today’s standards. Taft also likely had a sleep disorder, dozing off during official meetings.
John Adams
As is the case with many former U.S. presidents, most of what we know about Adams’ mental state, we’ve gathered from anecdotal evidence. According to Live Science, the second president of the United States most likely lived with the second major type of bipolar disorder, characterized mostly by depressive episodes and milder stretches of mania.
Woodrow Wilson
In 1919, Wilson suffered a stroke, which left him mentally unfit to finish out his term. Officials tried to keep this quiet for as long as possible. Before this, however, the president likely lived with depression and other health conditions.
Bill Clinton
America’s more popular presidents tend to display higher rates of narcissism — which can be both good and bad. A little bit of narcissism makes leaders more confident and persuasive, says Psychology Today. Unfortunately, former leaders like Bill Clinton fell to the dark side of narcissism, engaging in unethical behaviors while sitting as president.
Warren Harding
The exact cause of Warren Harding’s death and the events leading up to it remain a mystery. However, experts believe his many years of mental illness affected him physically, making him weak and likely increasing his risk of fatal infections and other conditions.
Franklin Pierce
According to the New England Historical Society, Pierce dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as he entered his term in office. His final surviving son died in a train accident, and historians believe he never truly recovered from the tragic loss. He apparently struggled to perform his expected duties as president as a result of his mental illness.
Calvin Coolidge
Sometimes, symptoms of mental illness turn one tragedy into a lifetime of suffering. Like Pierce, Calvin Coolidgealso lost a son unexpectedly, and suffered extreme mental and emotional distress as a result. Coolidge lost his son while serving as president, and reports describe spells of insomnia, indecisiveness, and irritability, all telltale signs of grief and depression.
Lyndon Johnson
Despite his many accomplishments in a short amount of time, Lyndon B. Johnson often displayed terrible mood swings he couldn’t hide. He exhibited paranoid behavior, spoke erratically in public, and did not respond appropriately to criticism.
Andrew Jackson
Aside from Jackson’s many physical ailments, the emotional trauma he endured likely made for a difficult presidency. His wife died of a heart attack before he became president, and he carried his grief with him for a long time following. He had few surviving blood relatives.
Martin Van Buren
Some of the most popular U.S. presidents have had psychopathic tendencies, including Martin Van Buren. According to an article in Fortune, it’s the presidents who were least popular that tend to rank lower on a theoretical psychopathic scale. Many experts have noted that psychopaths often hold professional positions of power — such as CEO, or commander-in-chief.
https://quad7capital.com/2017/11/16/list-u-s-presidents-suffered-poor-mental-health/
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Even U.S. Presidents Suffer Mental Illness
What comes to mind when you think about the first 37 U.S. presidents? Perhaps it’s Honest Abe’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address, or the story of the portly William Howard Taft getting stuck in the White House bathtub. Or maybe it’s Lyndon B. Johnson’s passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s likely, however, that you don’t equate these historical figures with anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, social phobia and alcoholism. But, as it turns out, mental illness is a significant part of presidential history.
Nearly half of American presidents from 1789 to 1974 — and this includes two of the four U.S. leaders featured on the iconic Mount Rushmore — met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder as set forth by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the leading reference manual for mental health professionals. That’s according to an analysis of presidential biographies conducted by psychiatrists at Duke University Medical Center.
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Here’s a look at some of the presidents and the mental disorders they were, or may have been, affected by:
-Depression: James Madison (4th), John Quincy Adams (6th), Franklin Pierce (14th). Abraham Lincoln (16th) suffered a depression so severe that friends feared he’d commit suicide. Calvin Coolidge (30th) fell into a bout of depression after the loss of his teenage son, who died suddenly of sepsis, a fatal condition caused by a staph infection.
-Social Phobia: Thomas Jefferson (3rd), Grant and Calvin Coolidge (30th). Grant also retreated into alcohol.
-Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Woodrow Wilson (28th)
-Mania: Theodore Roosevelt (26th) and Lyndon B. Johnson (36th) displayed manic energy, an indicator of bipolar disorder.
https://www.addiction.com/6154/even-u-s-presidents-suffer-mental-illness/