Part VII Depression Bipolar Suicide

Becoming One's Own: The Powerful Words of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, born in England in 1882, is considered one of the greatest modernist and early feminist writers of the 20th century.
Her most famous works include Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928) and A Room of One’s Own (1929).
Woolf also struggled with bipolar disorder and died from suicide in 1941.
She experienced her first depressive episode at age 15, after the death of her mother and then her half-sister two years later. In 1904, after her father died, she experienced her second episode of depression and was briefly hospitalized. Sexual abuse from half-brothers also contributed to her mental illness.
Throughout Woolf’s life, mood swings often resulted in periods of convalescence that compromised her creativity. Episodes would begin with migraine headaches and sleeplessness and eventually lead to her hearing voices and experiencing visual hallucinations. In 1932 she wrote in a letter: “My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring, diving and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?”
Woolf’s passion was for modernism in the arts—reaction to industrialization, urbanization and the horrors of World War I. It rejected traditional (realist) art forms in favor of radical reassessments and innovations, not only in style but also in considering the human condition and value of technological progress. Woolf experimented with stream-of consciousness narratives in her novels which revealed psychological and emotional motives of characters and other untraditional forms. In Flush: A Biography, for example, a semi-fictional biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the narrator is Browning’s cocker spaniel, Flush.
Ironically, the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf (1962) by Edward Albee, has nothing to do with Woolf the writer—except for the title. It reflects Woolf’s modernist perspective and is intended to ask “Who is afraid to live without illusion?” (i.e., peeling back social pretensions until raw motives and emotions are exposed).
Woolf’s greatest novel, Mrs. Dalloway, includes criticism of the medical establishment of the 1920s in its treatment of mental illness. One level, it is about a woman in London on a single day, preparing to host a party that night. But parallel chapters told from the perspective of a “shell-shocked” World War I veteran, who today would be referred to as living with posttraumatic stress disorder. Like Woolf, in her own experience with bipolar disorder, the character isolates himself, hears birds singing in Greek and ultimately dies from suicide.
In 1941 after finishing her last novel, Between the Acts, Woolf fell again into depression, which also coincided with the onset of World War II and destruction of her London home by a German bomb. In a note she left for her husband before she died, she wrote: “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I don’t think two people could have been happier ‘til this terrible disease came.” (NAMI)

Part IV Bipolar Disorder

Theodore Roosevelt: As Strong as a Bull Moose

Born in 1858, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was not blessed with strength—at least not physical strength. He was an asthmatic and sickly child, who had to be home schooled and was frequently confined. However, he would not let his physical limitations hinder his thirst for knowledge. He became an enthusiastic student of nature, including taking up taxidermy at the age of 7.
Encouraged by his father, he began a determined search to improve his strength and health. As a result, Roosevelt transformed himself from a weak child into a strong, manly adult; his body finally followed the might and intelligence of his mind.
As Teddy Roosevelt grew so did the number of activities he engaged in: he was a hunter, a naturalist, a conservationist, an explorer, a soldier and, of course, a politician. Prior to becoming president, Roosevelt formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, more commonly known as the Rough Riders at the beginning of the Spanish-American War. The Rough Riders consisted of cowboys and Ivy League friends of Roosevelt from when he attended college and law school.

While campaigning in Milwaukee, an assassination attempt was made on Roosevelt. He was shot in the chest, but the bullet was slowed down after passing through his eyeglass case and a copy of a speech he was about to deliver...

Upon leaving the Army, Roosevelt was elected governor of New York in 1898. Because of his desire to eradicate corruption in politics he was chosen as William McKinley’s vice-presidential running mate for the 1901 presidential election.
However, Roosevelt was thrown into presidency much sooner than expected. On Sept. 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot. Eight days later he died and Roosevelt became the youngest president in United States history, at the age of 42. In 1904, he was elected president in his own right.
While in office, Roosevelt helped complete the Panama Canal and negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Four presidents have won the award, three while in office—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Barack Obama—and one who was not, Jimmy Carter, who won the award in 2002.

...whether it was related to his job or leisure activities. He would often read more than a book every day—even as president—and wrote an estimated 150,000 letters.

At the conclusion of his second term, Roosevelt left to tour Africa and Europe. Part of his goal was to bring back specimens for the American Museum of Natural History (one of the elephants he shot remains on display to this day).
Upon his return, Roosevelt tried to instill more progressive ideas into the Republican party, including women’s suffrage and social insurance. His friend, William Howard Taft, who he had promoted for the Republican nomination differed in the direction he believed the party should head. After failing to block Taft’s nomination, Roosevelt launched the Progressive party (nicknamed “the Bull Moose Party”) to have a platform to run for president. Presidents were not limited to serve two terms until the passage of the 22nd Amendment in 1947.
While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wis., an assassination attempt was made on Roosevelt. He was shot in the chest, but the bullet was slowed down after passing through his eyeglass case and a copy of a speech he was about to deliver and did not puncture his lung. Instead of allowing himself to be taken to a doctor, he went on to give his speech that day. Ultimately, however, he lost his bid for a third term to Woodrow Wilson.

Roosevelt is depicted on Mount Rushmore, meaning that at least half of the presidents—Lincoln being the other—featured on the iconic memorial lived with a mental illness.

Theodore Roosevelt’s days were routinely jammed with undertakings, whether it was related to his job or leisure activities. He would often read more than a book every day—even as president—and wrote an estimated 150,000 letters. It is this, along with his extreme high energy that some historians believed that Roosevelt exhibited signs of hypomania and may have had bipolar disorder. However, unlike the majority of individuals with bipolar disorder, Roosevelt may not have experienced the other end of bipolar disorder: depression. In her book Exuberance: The Passion for Life, Kay Redfield Jamison suggests that 15 percent of individuals with bipolar disorder do not become depressed.
Theodore Roosevelt was able to channel his bipolar disorder and as a consequence, the nation prospered. Historians credit Roosevelt with changing the way the office of president is viewed by making character as important as the issues. Along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, Roosevelt is depicted on Mount Rushmore, meaning that at least half of the presidents—Lincoln being the other—featured on the iconic memorial lived with a mental illness. Roosevelt died on Jan. 6, 1919 from a heart attack. (NAMI)

Part III Black Dog Depression Bipolar Disorder

Winston Churchill and his “Black Dog” that Helped Win World War II

On Nov. 30, 1874, Winston Churchill was born into a family already of political prominence. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, the eighth Duke of Marlborough, had become Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 30s, a role similar to that of Secretary of the Treasury in the United States.
Winston Churchill was also born into a family with a history of mental illness. Although it isn’t clear whether it was the consequence of neurosyphilis or schizophrenia, his father had displayed psychotic symptoms in his life and Winston’s daughter Diana, who had a major depressive episode in 1952, would ultimately die by suicide in 1963.

Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation . . . could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940

However, it was Winston Churchill’s own illness, which he referred to as his “black dog,” that played a major role in World War II and Churchill’s career development. Some suspect that it was Churchill’s recurrent episodes of depression that allowed him to realistically assess the threat of Germany. Because of his depression he may have understood that simply conciliating Hitler would not stop Germany from advancing across Europe.
In the years leading up to the war, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and many British leaders did not see, or wish to acknowledge, Hitler’s true motives and did not want to confront Germany’s advances with force. Churchill though was convinced that Hitler had sinister intentions. After Chamberlain’s resignation in 1940, Churchill was appointed prime minister and changed Britain’s political strategy from one of appeasement to one of active resistance.

In addition to serving as prime minister for decades, he wrote 43 books and had an extensive amount of correspondence.

Psychiatrist Anthony Storr described how Churchill used his experiences of depression to inform his political decisions: “Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation, whose courage was beyond reason and whose aggressive spirit burned at its fiercest when he was hemmed in and surrounded by enemies, could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940.”
It was Churchill’s experience with mental illness that ultimately allowed him to be successful leader. Looking back at Churchill’s life, it also becomes clear that he experienced symptoms of hypomania. His friend Lord Beaverbrook described Churchill as always either “at the top of the wheel of confidence or at the bottom of an intense depression.” During those periods when he wasn’t depressed, Churchill produced an incredible amount of work. In addition to serving as prime minister for decades, he wrote 43 books and had an extensive amount of correspondence. This has led many to suspect that Churchill may have lived with bipolar disorder.
Churchill’s depressive realism helped change the course of world history. He not only refused to submit to his black dog, he was able to use it to his advantage. If it were not for Churchill being influenced by his mental illness, the war in Europe might have ended in defeat for Britain, the U.S. and the rest of the Allies. Winston Churchill died in 1965 at the age of 90 after experiencing a stroke. (NAMI)