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Beethoven suffered from Bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorder is a brain disorder that causes shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to do every day tasks. Beethoven was deaf which may have led to depression because he couldn't hear his own work. He didn't allow it to get the best of him because he was usually in a pleasant mood. One day though he was found in a very angry mood. People called him either passionate or ill-tempered. Bipolar disorder may have had an effect on his creativity.

http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/tlc/publications/soundings/soundings-2008/philip-dehm.pdf

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Darwin and munch. Darwin had

Agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is the fear of social situations. Darwin's case got so bad he even avoided talking with his kids. He also had many other illnesses he was afraid to be alone and only left the house with his wife.

Munch had a case of panic attacks. He called his paintings his children. He once said that "air turned to blood" and  “faces of my comrades became a garish yellow-white.” and he even heard a "scream through nature". He made two paintings of this scene. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edvard-munch-beyond-the-scream-111810150/ From what I've seen so far its been proven there is no connection between geniuses and mental disorders, but it also says the theory seems  to have evidence this might be. (a connection)Also   “There is no genius without having a touch of madness.” was once said by   Aristoteles so there probability a connection     http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/major-depressive-disorder/association-between-major-mental-disorders-and-geniuses

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by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.
Download Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health PDF
Darwin's many lifelong and serious illnesses have been the subject of much speculation and study for over a century. Darwin stated that his health problems began as early as 1825 when he was only sixteen years old, and became incapacitating around age 28 (Barloon and Noyes, 1997, p. 138). Horan (1979, p. ix) concluded that Darwin was "ill and reclusively confined to his home in Kent for forty years." Darwinian scholar Michael Ruse even concluded that "Darwin himself was an invalid from the age of 30" (2003, p. 1523). And medical doctor George Pickering, in an extensive study of Darwin's illness, concluded that in his early thirties, Darwin became an "invalid recluse" (1974, p. 34). UCLA School of Medicine Professor Dr. Robert Pasnau (1990, p. 123) noted that Darwin also "remained ill almost continually" for the entire five years that he was on his HMS Beagle trip.

Dozens of scholarly articles and at least three books have been penned on the question of Darwin's illness. The current conclusion is that Darwin suffered from several serious and incapacitating psychiatric disorders, including agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is characterized by fear of panic attacks (or actual panic attacks) when not in a psychologically safe environment, such as at home. Darwin, as is common among agoraphobiacs, also developed many additional phobias-being in crowds, being alone, or leaving home unless accompanied by his wife (Kaplan and Sadock, 1990, pp. 958-959).

Agoraphobia is also frequently associated with depersonalization (a feeling of being detached from, and outside of, one's own body), a malady that Darwin also suffered (Barloon and Noyes, 1997, p. 138). A study of Darwin's mental condition by Barloon and Noyes concluded that Darwin suffered from anxiety disorders that so severely impaired his functioning that it limited his ability to leave his home, even just to meet with colleagues or other friends. This diagnosis likely explains his very secluded, hermit-like lifestyle (1997, p. 138). It also helps to explain the title of Desmond and Moore's 1991 biography of Darwin: Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist.

Other Psychiatric and Medical Problems

Colp (1977, p. 97) concluded that "much of Darwin's daily life was lived on a rack which consisted of fluctuating degrees of pain" that was sometimes so severe that Darwin called it "distressingly great." Darwin's many psychological or psychologically influenced physical health symptoms included severe depression, insomnia, hysterical crying, dying sensations, shaking, fainting spells, muscle twitches, shortness of breath, trembling, nausea, vomiting, severe anxiety, depersonalization, seeing spots, treading on air and vision, and other visual hallucinations (Barloon and Noyes, 1997, p. 139; Picover, 1998, p. 290; Colp, 1977, p. 97; Bean, 1978, p. 573). The physical symptoms included headaches, cardiac palpitations, ringing in ears (possibly tinnitus), painful flatulence, and gastric upsets-all of which commonly have a psychological origin (Pasnau, 1990). Colp noted that "behind these symptoms there was always a core of anxiety and depression" (1977, p. 97). Some speculate that part of Darwin's mental problems were due to his nagging, gnawing fear that he had devoted his "life to a fantasy"-and a "dangerous one" at that (Desmond and Moore, 1991, p. 477). This fear was that his theory was false and there was, in fact, a divine Creator.

Darwin's behavior also indicates that he suffered from a mental disorder. Although devoted to his wife and daughters, he "treated them as children" even after his daughters were fully grown (Picover, 1998, p. 289). Some of Darwin's statements to others also cast doubt on his mental stability. For example, in 1875 he wrote the following words to fellow scientist Robert Hooker:

You ask about my book, & all that I can say is that I am ready to commit suicide: I thought it was decently written, but find so much wants rewriting. . . . I begin to think that every one who publishes a book is a fool (quoted in Colp, 1977, p. 228).

Colp noted that Darwin's son Leonard claimed that his father's illness even interfered with his feelings for his children. For example, Leonard once noted that

As a young lad I went up to my father when strolling about the lawn, and he . . . turned away as if quite incapable of carrying on any conversation. Then there suddenly shot through my mind the conviction that he wished he was no longer alive (quoted in Colp, 1977, p. 100).

Darwin's mental problems were considered so severe that Picover (1998, p. 289) included Darwin in his collection of historical persons that he calls "strange brains . . . eccentric scientists, and madmen." That Darwin suffered from several severely disabling maladies is not debated; the only debate is what caused them (Pasnau, 1990, p. 121).

Other Possible Causes of Darwin's Condition

Others, including Darwin's own wife, argued that his mental problem stemmed from guilt over his life's goal to refute the argument for God from design (Bean, 1978,
p. 574; p. 28; Pasnau, 1990, p. 126). Most of the psychoanalytic studies have argued that his problems were a result of his repressed anger toward his tyrannical father and "the slaying of his heavenly father" by his theory (Pasnau, 1990, p. 122).

Diagnosis of the cause of Darwin's mental and physical disorders include parasitic disease (Chaga's disease-caused by an insect common in South America), arsenic poisoning, and possibly even an inner ear disorder (Picover, 1998, p. 290; Pasnau, 1990). All of these causes have largely been refuted. Many persons conclude he had a classic, essential mental disturbance bordering on psychosis (a severe, incapacitating mental disorder). Regardless of the diagnosis, Darwin's condition was clearly incapacitating, often for months at a time, and rendered him an invalid for much of his life, especially in the prime of his life.

Arnold Sorsby concluded that Darwin was also an obsessive-compulsive and gives the following evidence:

If Chagas's disease did not cause Darwin's symptoms what did? My personal diagnosis would be an anxiety state with obsessive features and psychosomatic manifestations. Anxiety clearly precipitated much of his physical trouble, and regarding the obsessive component there are several important points. . . .

Darwin exhibited the obsessional's trait of having everything "just so"; he kept meticulous records of his health and symptoms like many obsessional hypochondriacs. Everything had to be in its place; he even had a special drawer for the sponge which he used in bathing . . . Then there is the health diary he kept. Days and nights were given a score according to how good they were; the score was added up at the end of each week, and there is evidence of frequent changing of mind in deciding whether a night was very good or just good (1974, p. 228).

Darwin's Own Words about His Condition

In addition to the diary on his health problems and complaints (Colp, 1977, p. 136), he frequently discussed his health problems in his letters and his autobiography. Darwin's own description of his condition included the following: "I am forced to live, . . . very quietly and am able to see scarcely anybody and cannot even talk long with my nearest relations" (quoted in Bowlby, 1990, p. 240). Darwin once complained that speaking for only "a few minutes" to the Linnean Society "brought on 24 hours vomiting" (Darwin, 1994, pp. 98-99). At another time, Darwin had a "house full of guests" and after he visited the parish church for a christening, he was "back to square one" and his good health "had vanished `like a flash of lightning'" and sickness (including the vomiting) returned (Desmond and Moore, 1991, p. 456). The suddenness of his illness, as illustrated by these incidents, indicates that his incapacitating episodes were psychological in origin.

Another side of Darwin revealed his sadistic impulses. His own words taken from his autobiography give a vivid example:

In the latter part of my school life I became passionately fond of shooting, and I do not believe that anyone could have shown more zeal for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember killing my first snipe, and my excitement was so great that I had much difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This taste long continued and I became a very good shot (1958, p. 44).

The fact that he loved killing so much that killing his first bird caused him to tremble with excitement could certainly indicate a sadistic streak in Darwin. His passion for killing birds is well known. One wonders if this "passion" for killing may have, in part, motivated his ruthless "survival of the fittest" tooth and claw theory of natural selection.

Darwin was clearly a very troubled man and suffered from severe emotional problems for most of his adult life, especially when he was in the prime of life. The exact cause of his mental and many physical problems has been much debated and may never be known for certain. Since Darwin wrote extensively about his mental and physical problems, we have much material on which to base a reasonable conclusion about this area of his life. The diagnosis of the cause of his mental and physical problems includes a variety of debilitating conditions, but agoraphobia with the addition of psychoneurosis is most probably correct.

Unfortunately, most writers have shied away from this topic, partly because Darwin is now idolized by many scientists and others. Often listed as one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century, if not the greatest scientist that ever lived, Darwin is one of the few scientists known to most Americans. To understand Darwin as a person and his motivations, one must consider his mental condition and how it affected his work and conclusions.

Barloon, Thomas and Russell Noyes, Jr. 1997. "Charles Darwin and Panic Disorder." JAMA 277(2):138-141.

Barlow, Nora, ed. 1958. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. NY: Norton.

Bean, W. B. 1978. "The Illness of Charles Darwin." The American Journal of Medicine 65(4):572-574.

Bowlby, John. 1990. Charles Darwin: A New Life. NY: Norton.

Colp, Ralph Jr. 1977. To Be an Invalid: The Illness of Charles Darwin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.

Darwin, Charles. 1994. The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University. Vol. 9.

Desmond, Adrian and James Moore. 1991. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. NY: Warner Books.

Grigg, Russell. 1995. "Darwin's Mystery Illness." Creation Ex Nihilo 17(4):28-30.

Horan, Patricia G. 1979. Foreword to The Origin of Species. NY: Gramercy Books.

Kaplan, Harold I. and Benjamin J. Sadock, ed. 1990. Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/V. Volume 1 Fifth Edition. NY: Williams and Wilkins.

Pasnau, R. O. 1990. "Darwin's Illness: A Biopsychosocial Perspective." Psychosomatics 31(2):121-128.

Pickering, George. 1974. Creative Malady. NY: Oxford University Press.

Picover, Clifford A. 1998. Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. NY: Quill William Morrow.

Ruse, Michael. 2003. "Is Evolution a Secular Religion?" Science 299:1523-1524.
*Dr. Bergman is on the Biology faculty at Northwest State College in Ohio.
Sorsby, Arnold, ed. 1974. Tenements of Clay. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Cite this article: Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. 2004. Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health. Acts & Facts. 33 (1).

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Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health

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Download Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health PDF Darwin's many lifelong and serious illnesses have been the subject of much speculation and study for over a century. Darwin stated that his health problems began as early as 1825 when he was only sixteen years old, and became incapacitating around age 28 (Barloon and Noyes, 1997, p.

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Charles Dickens
Abraham Lincoln

Charles Dickens: The 11 Historical Geniuses website Mr. Thomas gave us said that Charles Dickens was suffering from depression. I have found a few websites that said Charles Dickens was actually suffering from bipolar disorder. Charles Dickens was said to have been a "fiercely-driven," yet an often tearful man, starting from when he was a kid working in a factory when his father was thrown in jail. Simon Callow said that Charles Dickens was said to be an unhinged man and that many would have considered him bipolar. Symptoms of bipolar disease is crazy mood swings from mania to depression, therefore, getting the idea he was suffering from depression.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/why-charles-dickens-would-be-diagnosed-as-bipolar-8152375.html

Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression. Lincoln was said to have told jokes and stories at rather odd times. Lincoln said he needed the laughs for his survival. Even as a young man, Lincoln talked of suicide, thinking that the world was a dark, bitter place. Lincoln's first major episode happened when he was 26, with the death of Anne Rutledge in 1835.
http://www.mcmanweb.com/lincoln_depression.html
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It is said that achieving A grades gives you a higher risk for bipolar disorder, to a lesser extent to science subjects and more particular in humanities. "No great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness." Geniuses could have been straight A students, therefore leading to a mental illness. Geniuses are only as creative as they are because they are very smart, meaning they must have had good grades.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ending-addiction-good/201503/is-there-link-between-intelligence-and-mental-illness

http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/is-there-a-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness

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I choose Edvard Munch and Charles Dickens.
Edvard Munch: Edvard Munch is an famous painter. One of his famous paintings called the scream was inspired by one of his panic attacks. He said he felt tired and ill most of the time. His paintings was a way to get out of this feeling.
https://www.projectknow.com/six-famous-panic-attacks/

Charles Dickens:  Charles Dickens always ended up tired and sleepy and had seizures during the day. His doctors told him that he was very obese and this was the main cause of his medical problems. Due to all these symptoms this caused him not to sleep and put him in a depression .

There is some evidence which says an A grade student has an increased risk

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What does English author Charles Dickens, the man who wrote A Christmas Carol and who described marvelous characters like Tiny Tim, Scrooge, Oliver Twist and Mr. Pickwick, have to do with sleep, and why am I writing about Dickens on a blog about the science of sleep? You will be surprised to know that Dickens and his wonderful books have had a great impact on me and my career as a scientist and clinician. He had an immeasurably great impact on the world.

Most people were exposed to the writings of Charles Dickens in high school. In my case, it was A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. I loved the books. Then for about a decade, while I attended university and medical school, Dickens was totally out of my mind.

My second contact with Charles Dickens was when I was a medical resident at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. I was treating an obese patient who snored, was sleepy, and was having seizures during sleep. Now how did this patient connect me again to Dickens?

I thought I knew what was causing this patient's issues. About 16 years before then, in 1956, an article appeared in the American Journal of Medicine called, "Extreme obesity associated with alveolar hypoventilation; a Pickwickian syndrome." This was described as a disease in obese males who under-breathed ("alveolar hypoventilation") and who had severe daytime sleepiness. The authors mention that aspects of this "new" syndrome were described in a character, Joe the Fat Boy in the "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club," written by Dickens and first published in serial form in 1836-37.

As described in the 1956 article the key feature of the Pickwickian Syndrome was that the patient was under-breathing during the daytime and thus had an elevated carbon dioxide level, and that was causing the sleepiness. I had assumed that my patient had this as well, but he did not. We measured the patient's carbon dioxide level and it was normal. He did not have the Pickwickian Syndrome, he had something else. We had no clue what that something else was.

One evening I made rounds, entered the patient's room and saw that he was asleep and he was gasping and struggling to breathe. I realized that this had to be playing a role in his symptoms. I convinced a friend and colleague at the time, a neurosurgery resident, to set up equipment to monitor this patient's breathing during sleep (this was way before the existence of clinical sleep labs).

We discovered that the patient stopped breathing repeatedly, and together with the episodes of no breathing, his heart slowed or sometimes even stopped for up to 10 seconds. This was the cause of his seizures! His brain was deprived of blood when the heart stopped beating. The patient was sleepy not because his carbon dioxide level was high but because he snored and stopped breathing during sleep, and the brain awoke repeatedly in order for breathing to resume.

It was then that I read Pickwick Papers. Dickens had, in fact, described Joe as snoring! This was, at least in my mind, a new rare syndrome. I presented the case at grand rounds at The Royal Victoria Hospital and was encouraged to write it up for a medical journal.

This report, perhaps the first description of sleep apnea in North America, is the first clinical paper I wrote from start to finish. It was accepted by the same journal, American Journal of Medicine. The article was called: "The sleep deprivation syndrome of the obese patient. A problem of periodic nocturnal upper airway obstruction." The better and now more familiar term, "obstructive sleep apnea syndrome," was not introduced until two to three years later. This was the beginning of my career in sleep medicine, and my rediscovery of Dickens. Remember that this was before the Internet, and there was no online access to the Library of Medicine. You had to use your local medical library, and McGill had an excellent one. I found that the syndrome had been described roughly 10 years before in some European journals, and in 1972, a symposium was held in Rimini, Italy, about sleep breathing disorders. The symposium was written up in a French journal which few Americans read. The journal no longer exists.

In his account of "Joe, the Fat Boy," Dickens described many of the features of my patient. What a wonderful observer Dickens was. During the next 30 years of my career, I wrote three additional articles about Dickens and his contributions to society and medicine. The last was written about a year ago on the 200th anniversary of his birth.

This great writer and social reformer had a tremendous impact on the world. Not only did he create a universe of wonderful characters such as Tiny Tim, Scrooge, Mr. Pickwick, Pip, and Madame Defarge, he also helped develop the first pediatric hospital in the world, help found the first women's shelter, was the inspiration for the creation of the first orthopedics hospital to treat "cripples" like Tiny Tim, brought the world's attention to poverty and its effect on children, and he wrote about slavery in America. He gave us wonderful descriptions of people with asthma, tuberculosis and several neurological disorders including Parkinson's, stroke, and epilepsy.

I was humbled to be informed this last article I wrote about Dickens was the highest rated history of sleep medicine article since its publication. In 1974, I could have adapted from the last line of the movie Casablanca, "Charles, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Dickens and I have been friends for a generation.

References

Extreme obesity associated with alveolar hypoventilation; a Pickwickian syndrome. 1956

The sleep deprivation syndrome of the obese patient. A problem of periodic nocturnal upper airway obstruction. 1974

Charles Dickens: Impact on Medicine and Society 2012

Snoring and Sleep Apnea. In, Chapter 12 The iGuide to Sleep. eBook. 2013

Image 1 - Courtesy of the author.

Image 2 - Courtesy of the The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Image 3 - Courtesy of the The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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What does English author Charles Dickens, the man who wrote "A Christmas Carol" and who described marvelous characters like Tiny Tim, Scrooge, Oliver Twist and Mr. Pickwick, have to do with sleep, and why am I writing about Dickens on a sleep blog?

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I choose Vaslav Nijinsky and Edvard Munch

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I choose Abraham Lincoln and Michelangelo

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I choose Abraham Lincoln and Michelangelo

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In 1917 the first signs of him having a mental problem that were going to end his career. He was diagnosed with a disease called schizophrenia and in 1919 he was sent to an asylum. Shizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects only one percent of the entire population. There is also no cure for shizophrenia. It also is not gender specific so it affects men and women the same. The symptoms are that the host of the disorder will not be able to distinguish real and non-real experiences. They will start to see symptoms in early adulthood.  During his later periods of illness Nijinsky displayed many of the disturbed behaviors so often seen in schizophrenia; recklessly jumping from windows, violence towards strangers in the street and self harming.

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Posted: Thursday, May 12th, 2016

Last month saw the anniversary of the passing of the world's greatest ballet dancer and choreographer, Nijinsky. It was also sad that despite a meteoric early career he was, during his early life, struck down by the serious mental illness that we now know of as schizophrenia and which prevented him from fulfilling his true potential.

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in St Petersburg, the son of two Polish dancers and studied dance at the Imperial Ballet School where his skills were soon evident. By the age of 18 he was already dancing with the likes of Anna Pavlova at the Maryinsky Theatre. Later he joined the Ballet Ruse, a new company formed by Russian impresario Sergei Diagelev in Paris where he danced for much of the remainder of his career and became famous the world over as the foremost male dancer of his age.

By 1917 the first signs of the mental storms that were to end his career were beginning to show through and in 1919 Nijinsky was diagnosed with the newly-described condition called schizophrenia and committed to an asylum. In the absence of any effective treatments, over the next 30 years or so he was to suffer repeated episodes of his illness and was confined on a number of occasions. Despite treatment by the foremost psychiatrists of the time he never danced professionally again.

It is a tragedy that this great dancer, who many described during his short career as the eighth wonder of the world, died before the development of the new antipsychotic medicines that today enable so many people with schizophrenia to live fulfilling lives.

As Peter Ostwald, his biographer said of him: "he was the inventor of male dancing in our time. Without him there would have been no Lifar, no Dolin, no Eglevsky, no Nureyev, no Baryshnikov: none of the magnificent men who followed in his footsteps and enriched our lives."

RIP Vaslav Nijinsky
<< Back to blog

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Vaslav Nijinsky - Living With Schizophrenia

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Last month saw the anniversary of the passing of the world's greatest ballet dancer and choreographer, Nijinsky. It was also sad that despite a meteoric early career he was, during his early life, struck down by the serious mental illness that we now know of as schizophrenia and which prevented him from fulfilling his true ...

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Schizophrenia is a disorder that effects how a human being thinks , feels, or behaves. The first signs of his  disorder was in the year of 1917. No one knew that this disorder would end his career. These signs were...
A tendency to fell and look depressed
Little trust to those that were close to him

In 1919 he was diangnosed with a new condition( It was new in 1919) called Schizophrenia. He was later sent to a asylum. He spent  over 30 years suffering with his mental disorder and was confined numerously.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+schizophrenia&oq=what+is+schi&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5343j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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Posted: Thursday, May 12th, 2016

Last month saw the anniversary of the passing of the world's greatest ballet dancer and choreographer, Nijinsky. It was also sad that despite a meteoric early career he was, during his early life, struck down by the serious mental illness that we now know of as schizophrenia and which prevented him from fulfilling his true potential.

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in St Petersburg, the son of two Polish dancers and studied dance at the Imperial Ballet School where his skills were soon evident. By the age of 18 he was already dancing with the likes of Anna Pavlova at the Maryinsky Theatre. Later he joined the Ballet Ruse, a new company formed by Russian impresario Sergei Diagelev in Paris where he danced for much of the remainder of his career and became famous the world over as the foremost male dancer of his age.

By 1917 the first signs of the mental storms that were to end his career were beginning to show through and in 1919 Nijinsky was diagnosed with the newly-described condition called schizophrenia and committed to an asylum. In the absence of any effective treatments, over the next 30 years or so he was to suffer repeated episodes of his illness and was confined on a number of occasions. Despite treatment by the foremost psychiatrists of the time he never danced professionally again.

It is a tragedy that this great dancer, who many described during his short career as the eighth wonder of the world, died before the development of the new antipsychotic medicines that today enable so many people with schizophrenia to live fulfilling lives.

As Peter Ostwald, his biographer said of him: "he was the inventor of male dancing in our time. Without him there would have been no Lifar, no Dolin, no Eglevsky, no Nureyev, no Baryshnikov: none of the magnificent men who followed in his footsteps and enriched our lives."

RIP Vaslav Nijinsky
<< Back to blog

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Vaslav Nijinsky - Living With Schizophrenia

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Last month saw the anniversary of the passing of the world's greatest ballet dancer and choreographer, Nijinsky. It was also sad that despite a meteoric early career he was, during his early life, struck down by the serious mental illness that we now know of as schizophrenia and which prevented him from fulfilling his true ...

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Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression. Depression is when you feel low in spirits or dejection.  Depression is the most common mental heath disorder after anxiety disorders. It affects 7% of adults in the United States.
https://www.rtor.org/depression/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx8C_isDi2AIVnkwNCh2www8JEAAYAiAAEgIPZPD_BwE

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Beethoven suffered from bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic depression, is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).

When you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. When your mood shifts to mania or hypo mania (less extreme than mania), you may feel euphoric, full of energy or unusually irritable. These mood swings can affect sleep, energy, activity, judgment, behavior and the ability to think clearly.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bipolar-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355955

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Edvard Munch

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Michelangelo suffered from autism. Autism is a mental condition, presented from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. All the men in Michelangelo's family "displayed autistic traits" and mood disturbances. his family described him as "erratic" and "had trouble applying himself to anything." As a child and young man, he did not get along with his family and suffered physical abuse

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May 26, 2004 -- Classic tortured genius: The great artist Michelangelo may have suffered from autism, new research shows.

The report, which appears in the Journal of Medical Biography, provides a synthesis of new evidence about the famous 16th century artist, renowned for painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

"He was a loner, self-absorbed, and gave his undivided attention to his masterpieces -- a feature of autism," writes lead researcher Muhammad Arshad, PhD, a psychiatrist at Five Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust in Great Britain.

"Michelangelo met the criteria for Asperger's disorder, or high-functioning autism," Arshad adds.

In his report, Arshad outlines research into the great artist -- taken from numerous works, including notes from the artist's assistant and his family. It all points to high-functioning autism, he says.

Autism is a complex disorder that does not affect intelligence. But it does impact how people perceive and process information. Difficulty communicating, social isolation, a need for control, and obsession with very specific interests are hallmarks of autism. For some people, all this makes daily functioning quite difficult. Others get along fairly well, even attend regular schools.

Michelangelo likely suffered from high-functioning autism, called Asperger's syndrome, says Arshad. Some of his evidence:

The men in Michelangelo's family "displayed autistic traits" and mood disturbances. His family described him as "erratic" and "had trouble applying himself to anything." As a child and young man, he did not get along with his family and suffered physical abuse.

The artist was aloof and a loner. The artist's mentor described Michelangelo as being unable to make friends or to maintain any relationship. He did not attend his brother's funeral, which underlined "his inability to show emotion," writes Arshad.

He was obsessed with work and controlling everything in his life -- family, money, time. Loss of control caused him great frustration. He was able to generate, in a short time, many hundreds of sketches for the Sistine ceiling -- no two alike, nor any pose similar. He gave his undivided attention to his masterpieces.

He had difficulty holding up his end of a conversation, often walking away in the middle of an exchange, writes Arshad. He had a short temper, a sarcastic wit, and was paranoid at times. He was bad-tempered and had angry outbursts.

He rarely bathed, and often slept in his clothes including his boots. "He has sometimes gone so long without taking them off that then the skin came away, like a snake's, with the boots," wrote the artist's assistant.

Continued

"Michelangelo's single-minded work routine, unusual lifestyle, limited interests, poor social and communication skills, and various issues of life control appear to be features of high-functioning autism," Arshad concludes.

SOURCES: Arshad, M. Journal of Medical Biography, June 2004: vol 12, pp 115-120. WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise, "What is autism?"

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May 26, 2004 -- Classic tortured genius: The great artist Michelangelo may have suffered from autism, new research shows. The report, which appears in the Journal of Medical Biography, provides a synthesis of new evidence about the famous 16th century artist, renowned for painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

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One of the most known panic attacks happened January 18, 1892. Munch said " One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature". He was so effected by the experience he made..
2 painting
2pastuls
1 lithograph

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More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game "just for the commercials"-but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple's Board of Directors didn't want to run it at all.

THE AD

If you haven't seen it, here's a fuzzy YouTube version:

"WHY 1984 WON'T BE LIKE 1984"

The tagline "Why 1984 Won't Be Like '1984'" references George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984, which envisioned a dystopian future, controlled by a televised "Big Brother." The tagline was written by Brent Thomas and Steve Hayden of the ad firm Chiat\Day in 1982, and the pair tried to sell it to various companies (including Apple, for the Apple II computer) but were turned down repeatedly. When Steve Jobs heard the pitch in 1983, he was sold-he saw the Macintosh as a "revolutionary" product, and wanted advertising to match. Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The Mac was scheduled to launch in late January of 1984, a week after the Super Bowl. IBM already held the nickname "Big Blue," so the parallels, at least to Jobs, were too delicious to miss.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about "information purification directives." A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother. Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother's screen, smashing him just after he intones "We shall prevail!" Big Brother's destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word "Macintosh," in a restatement of that original tagline: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" An Apple logo is shown, and then we're out-back to the game.

In 1983, in a presentation about the Mac, Jobs introduced the ad to a cheering audience of Apple employees:

"... It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"

After seeing the ad for the first time, the Apple audience totally freaked out (jump to about the 5-minute mark to witness the riotous cheering).

SKINHEADS, A DISCUS THROWER, AND A SCI-FI DIRECTOR

Chiat\Day hired Ridley Scott, whose 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner had the dystopian tone they were looking for (and Alien wasn't so bad either). Scott filmed the ad in London, using actual skinheads playing the mute bald men-they were paid $125 a day to sit and stare at Big Brother; those who still had hair were paid to shave their heads for the shoot. Anya Major, a discus thrower and actress, was cast as the woman with the sledgehammer largely because she was actually capable of wielding the thing.

Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld wrote an Apple II program "to flash impressive looking numbers and graphs on [Big Brother's] screen," but it's unclear whether his program was used for the final film. The ad cost a shocking $900,000 to film, plus Apple booked two premium slots during the Super Bowl to air it-carrying an airtime cost of more than $1 million.

WHAT EXECUTIVES AT APPLE THOUGHT

Although Jobs and his marketing team (plus the assembled throng at his 1983 internal presentation) loved the ad, Apple's Board of Directors hated it. After seeing the ad for the first time, board member Mike Markkula suggested that Chiat\Day be fired, and the remainder of the board were similarly unimpressed. Then-CEO John Sculley recalled the reaction after the ad was screened for the group: "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces ... Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it." Sculley instructed Chiat\Day to sell off the Super Bowl airtime they had purchased, but Chiat\Day principal Jay Chiat quietly resisted. Chiat had purchased two slots-a 60-second slot in the third quarter to show the full ad, plus a 30-second slot later on to repeat an edited-down version. Chiat sold only the 30-second slot and claimed it was too late to sell the longer one. By disobeying his client's instructions, Chiat cemented Apple's place in advertising history.

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heard that the ad was in trouble, he offered to pony up half the airtime costs himself, saying, "I asked how much it was going to cost, and [Steve Jobs] told me $800,000. I said, 'Well, I'll pay half of it if you will.' I figured it was a problem with the company justifying the expenditure. I thought an ad that was so great a piece of science fiction should have its chance to be seen."

But Woz didn't have to shell out the money; the executive team finally decided to run a 100-day advertising extravaganza for the Mac's launch, starting with the Super Bowl ad-after all, they had already paid to shoot it and were stuck with the airtime.

WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE THOUGHT

When the ad aired, controversy erupted-viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in "free" airtime for the ad. All three national networks, plus countless local markets, ran news stories about the ad. "1984" become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

The full ad famously ran once during the Super Bowl XVIII (on January 22, 1984), but it also ran the month prior-on December 31, 1983, TV station operator Tom Frank ran the ad on KMVT at the last possible time slot before midnight, in order to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.* (Any awards the ad won would mean more media coverage.) Apple paid to screen the ad in movie theaters before movie trailers, further heightening anticipation for the Mac launch. In addition to all that, the 30-second version was aired across the country after its debut on the Super Bowl.

Chiat\Day adman Steve Hayden recalled: "We ran a 30- second version of '1984' in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market-Boca Raton, Florida, headquarters for IBM's PC division." Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld ended his remembrance of the ad by saying:

"A week after the Macintosh launch, Apple held its January board meeting. The Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend, not knowing what to expect. When the Mac people entered the room, everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.

Chiat\Day wanted the commercial to qualify for upcoming advertising awards, so they ran it once at 1 AM at a small television station in Twin Falls, Idaho, KMVT, on December 15, 1983 [incorrect; see below for an update on this -ed]. And sure enough it won just about every possible award, including best commercial of the decade. Twenty years later it's considered one of the most memorable television commercials ever made."

THE AWFUL 1985 FOLLOW-UP

A year later, Apple again employed Chiat\Day to make a blockbuster ad for their Macintosh Office product line, which was basically a file server, networking gear, and a laser printer. Directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony, the new ad was called "Lemmings," and featured blindfolded businesspeople whistling an out-of-tune version of Snow White's "Heigh-Ho" as they followed each other off a cliff (referencing the myth of lemming suicide).

Jobs and Sculley didn't like the ad, but Chiat\Day convinced them to run it, pointing out that the board hadn't liked the last ad either. But unlike the rousing, empowering message of the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" directly insulted business customers who had already bought IBM computers. It was also weirdly boring-when it was aired at the Super Bowl (with Jobs and Sculley in attendance), nobody really reacted. The ad was a flop, and Apple even proposed running a printed apology in The Wall Street Journal. Jay Chiat shot back, saying that if Apple apologized, Chiat would buy an ad on the next page, apologizing for the apology. It was a mess:

20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

In 2004, the ad was updated for the launch of the iPod. The only change was that the woman with the hammer was now listening to an iPod, which remained clipped to her belt as she ran. You can watch that version too:

FURTHER READING

Chiat\Day adman Lee Clow gave an interview about the ad, covering some of this material.

Check out Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld's excellent first-person account of the ad. A similar account (but with more from Jobs's point of view) can found in the Steve Jobs biography, and an even more in-depth account is in The Mac Bathroom Reader. The Mac Bathroom Reader is out of print; you can read an excerpt online, including QuickTime movies of the two versions of the ad, plus a behind-the-scenes video. Finally, you might enjoy this 2004 USA Today article about the ad, pointing out that ads for other computers (including Atari, Radio Shack, and IBM's new PCjr) also ran during that Super Bowl.

* = A Note on the Airing in 1983

Update: Thanks to Tom Frank for writing in to correct my earlier mis-statement about the first air date of this commercial. As you can see in his comment below, Hertzfeld's comments above (and the dates cited in other accounts I've seen) are incorrect. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Frank, in which we discuss what it was like running both " 1984" and " Lemmings" before they were on the Super Bowl!

Update 2: You can read the story behind this post in Chris's book The Blogger Abides.
This post originally appeared in 2012.

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11 Historical Geniuses and Their Possible Mental Disorders

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Studies have shown that there are much higher instances of mental disorder in political leaders and creative geniuses than in the general population. And while it's impossible to be completely sure of a correct diagnosis of a historical figure, that hasn't stopped researchers from making educated guesses.

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Connection Between Geniuses and Mental Disorders

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Connection Between Geniuses and Mental Disorders

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It is said that achieving an A grade is associated with with an increased risk for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is having many episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows and manic highs. Many people believe that you cant't have a genius without a little madness. Some research also shows that most geniuses suffer from a type of mental illness.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ending-addiction-good/201503/is-there-link-between-intelligence-and-mental-illness

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I chose Ludwig von Beethoven and Edvard Munch

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I chose Ludwig von Beethoven and Edvard Munch

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Is there a connection between insanity and genius?

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Is there a connection between insanity and genius?

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Genius and insanity may actually go together, according to scientists who found that mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often found in highly creative and intelligent people. Studies on word associations that ask participants to list all the words that come to mind in relation to a stimulus word like "tulip" found that bipolar patients experiencing mild mania can generate three times as many word associations in the same amount of time as the general population.

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Edvard Munch suffered a panic attack and expressed his feelings on canvas.  This painting is now worth millions.https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&ei=Uf1oWu_gN6vbjwTduL3ICA&q=edwrd+munch+panic+attack&oq=edwrd+munch+panic+attack&gs_l=psy-ab.3...161890.178574.0.180906.60.32.0.0.0.0.268.3264.9j15j2.27.0..2..0...1.1.64.psy-ab..36.14.2154.0..0j0i227i46i67k1j46i227i67k1j0i227i67k1j0i131k1j0i131i46k1j46i131k1j0i46i67k1j46i67k1j0i67k1j0i10k1j0i13k1j0i13i10k1.309.xXmiVPYd6JU
Leo Tolstoy
As Tolstoy aged, he became more and more scared of his impending morality and feared death because he was afraid of the "nothingness" that came after and became immensely depressed. Thus, even though he was well known and wealthy, by age 50 he had devolved into a paranoid man who struggled with the meaning of life. Because of this, anhedonia engulfed him to the point where, cognizant of himself nearing death, he ran away from home and died a begger's death at an old train station. https://www.quora.com/What-led-Leo-Tolstoy-to-depression

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The difference bewtween InSanITy and Genius

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The difference bewtween InSanITy and Genius

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Insanity is a term for a person who cannot distinguish the difference from reality and fantasy. the definition of genius is
1.) exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability.
2.) a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect.
3.) very clever or ingenious.
All of these meaning say that a person is creative and smart. they could be similar because they could go to far.

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I hear this every week, sometimes twice a day: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” No, it isn’t.

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Edvard Munch suffered from panic attacks and once had one for 20 minutes!

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As told by Waugh, “there IS a link between creative genius and madness -- with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder frequent in highly creative and intelligent people.”

This theory results from studies conducted on Swedish teenagers, all 16 years of age, that showed how those considered more academically gifted than their counterparts also had a higher proclivity to develop certain disorders (specifically schizophrenia and bipolar disorder).
As told by Waugh, “there IS a link between creative genius and madness -- with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder frequent in highly creative and intelligent people.”

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Kurt Godel suffered from Persecutory delusions (thinks harm is occurring or going to occur). Kurt Godel thought some one was going to poison him and he only trusted his wife Adele. He would only eat the food she prepared for him and had her taste it first. She became ill and Kurt Godel refused to eat. He was already underweight which was dangerous and he died of malnutrition.

https://www.quora.com/Did-the-mathematician-Kurt-G%C3%B6del-really-starve-himself-to-death-because-he-was-paranoid-that-he-was-in-danger-of-being-poisoned

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Is there a connection between genius and insanity?

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Is there a connection between genius and insanity?

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There could be a connection because people said that he was more creative when he was depressed. Scientists say that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often found in creative and intelligent people.