Famous People

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Famous People who have experienced an Anxiety Disorder

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Physicist, mathematician, genius. Most original & influential theorist in history of science. Co-invented calculus, discovered laws of physics, law of gravity, composition of light, planetary motion. Had 'nervous breakdown' 1677 - 1678 and again in 1693. Underwent period of severe emotional disturbance .. including severe insomnia, loss of appetite, loss of concentration, extreme sensitivity and decrease in mental acuity. Withdrew from society (housebound) until 1684. Factors involved around this were the shock of his mother's death, a fire destroyed some important papers, exhaustion following the writing of his Principia, local problems with the university at Cambridge. We thought we had it bad, he hasn't received an accurate diagnosis for a couple of centuries!!

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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

American poet . Her poems were published soon after her death. In Poems they met with instant success, and unpublished poems still continue to appear. Emily gradually withdrew herself physically from the world, confining herself to her own room, and , as her verse reveals, withdrew mentally and psychologically as well. In correspondence she stated

"I had a terror since September, I could tell to none; and so I sing ... because I am afraid... While my thought is undressed, I can make the distinction; but when I put them in the gown, they look alike and numb."

Her poetry was her way of expressing the inexpressible. A friend described her as follows

"The impression ... made on me was that of an excess of tension, and of an abnormal life. She was much too enigmatical a being for me to solve in an hour's interview, and an instinct told me that the slightest attempt at direct cross-examination would make her withdraw into her shell; I could only sit still and watch..."

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Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)

Robert Burns is regarded as Scotland's National Poet. Debts, chronic physical illness, and domestic troubles led to Burns 'nervous disease' and he addressed Alexander Cunningham thus:

"Canst thou minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give a frame, trembling alive as the tortures ..., the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries with thy inquiries after me?

For these two months I have not been able to lift a pen. My constitution .. were, ab origin, blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of late a number of domestic vexations; losses which, though trifling, were yet what I could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at time could only be envied by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition. Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart at ease would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasoning; but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept it's native incorrigibility.

Still, there are pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The ONE is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity..... gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field ..." (25 February 1794).

Robert Burns bathed in the freezing waters of the Solway Firth as part of what seems like a kill or cure remedy by his friend Dr Maxwell.

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Abraham Lincoln

The following is a story of one man's life.

His mother died when he was 9 years old. He was born the son of farmers and so received very little education. He failed in business at the age of 21. He was defeated in a legislative race at the age of 22, and failed again in business at 24. He was devastated by the death of a sweetheart when he was 26, and subsequently had a nervous breakdown when he was 27. At 34 he lost a congressional race, and lost it again two years later. He lost a senatorial race at the age of 45. After another two years, he failed in an effort to become vice president. He then went on to lose another senatorial race at the age of 49. He was often described as insecure, shy, depressed, melancholy, secretive, non-confrontational, self-doubting and preoccupied with the idea of premature death and even the possibility that he might go mad. He was uncomfortable in high-society gatherings, and his etiquette was often considered substandard. At the age of 52 .... he became the sixteenth president of the United States. The man was Abraham Lincoln.

Once Lincoln mentioned to an old friend that all the troubles and anxieties of his life could not equal the opposition and criticism he received during the Civil War. They were so great, Lincoln said, that he did not think he could possibly survive them. From all over America came cries that he was too stupid and unfit to be president or to reunite the country. But, a great man such as Abraham Lincoln is a gift to his time. He drew strength from his personal history of tragedies. He had endured the unendurable from childhood to adulthood. Thus, anchored on his personal strength, he led an entire nation through it's most trying period. If you ask an American, Who was one of your greatest leaders? the answer will be Lincoln.

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Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

Norwegian artist. Known for his "The Scream" painting and was instrumental in the development of expressionism. His brooding and anguished paintings are based on his own personal grief and obsessions.
Munch began painting at the age of 17 and won a state grant which enabled him to study briefly in Paris. Thereafter Munch worked chiefly in Paris and Berlin. He had a highly personal style which were increasingly concerned with images of illness.
Perhaps the best known of all Munch's work is The Scream. This, and the harrowing The Sick Child, reflect Munch's childhood trauma. Melancholy suffuses paintings such as The Bridge -in limp figures with featureless or hidden faces, over which loom the threatening shapes of heavy trees and brooding houses.
In 1908 Munch's anxiety became acute and he was hospitalized. Thereafter, his paintings were relatively tranquil. Although his later paintings are not as tortured as his earlier work, a return to introspection marks his late self-portraits.
Munch's considerable body of etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts is now considered a significant force in modern graphic art; the work is simple, direct, and vigorous in style, and powerful in subject matter.
Reference: 96 Encyclopedia, Funk and Wagnalls

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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

British philosopher-economist, the son of James Mill; he had a great impact on 19th-century British thought, not only in philosophy and economics but also in the areas of political science, logic, and ethics. He is probably most famous for his essay "On Liberty" (1859). John Stuart Mill suffered a nervous breakdown the moment he allowed his feelings to intrude. Brought up in the early 19th century by his utilitarian father in an ethic of strict rational calculation.

It was in the autumn of 1826.

"...At first I hoped that the cloud would pass away of itself; but it did not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy for the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I woke to a renewed consciousness of the woeful fact. I carried it with me into all companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me even a few minutes oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow thicker and thicker.... Advice, if I had known where to seek it, would have been most precious. The words of Macbeth to the physician often occurred to my thoughts.

Macbeth: Cure her of that, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff, Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient Must minister to himself.
John Stuart Mills, Autobiography (c. 1853)

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Barbara Gordon

She was an Award winning American Film maker who experienced an Anxiety Disorder for over 10 years. She was prescribed Valium and visited a Psychiatrist once a week. Barbara documented her life with an Anxiety Disorder in the bestseller "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can". In the book she describes in detail her struggle with her Anxiety Disorder, her Valium addiction and her ultimate recovery. The following is an extract of her confrontation with her Psychiatrist whom she had been seeing for the past 10 years with no noticeable improvement ...

"'Well, Miss Gordon, how are you today?' her asked.. I felt a familiar heaviness inside when he spoke those words. The man knew everything about me ... Years before when he was on vacation, I had visited a doctor he had recommended in case I needed to talk to someone. I had remarked to that doctor, You are so engaged, so immediate, I really like talking to you more than Dr Allen. You hear me. But then I had felt terrible, guilty... I was shocked to hear myself burst into a monologue of almost feverish intensity. 'What's new, Dr Allen, is that I can't walk the streets of the city I love alone. Unless I'm stoned on pills or with someone. I can't do it. I can't function without Valium. I'm growing too dependent on something other than myself to function. I'm growing too dependent on pills. Why? Tell me why!' He interrupted, 'But I've told you many times, Miss Gordon, they are not addictive. They can't hurt you.' And he crossed his legs and sat back in his chair to hear my response." Barbara Gordon "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can" (1981)

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