US Election: The Mental Health of the Former US President -Depression, Insanity and Perversion-BBC News

In the summer of 1776, during the United States’ War of Independence against Great Britain, the difficulties of the war brought the resistance commander-in-chief, George Washington, to the brink of suicide.

According to biographer Ron Chernow, when his army collapsed in Manhattan’s Kip’s Bay, the then 44-year-old commander-in-chief, Washington, became nervous and almost insane.

When dozens of British soldiers approached him over the cornfield, he sat motionless on horseback and gazed into the distance blankly. His guards seized the reins of the horse and worked to bring the future founding president of the United States to safety.

One of his generals, Nathanael Greene (Nathanael Greene) later said that Washington was “extremely depressed over the defeat of his army and even wanted to die.”

It can be seen that heroes in difficult times with magnificent minds will inevitably have vulnerable moments under tremendous pressure.

Fast forward more than 200 years and take a look at the state of mind of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Since Trump entered the White House, there have been mixed opinions and comments about his mental health.

Some related posts are titled: “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Evaluate a President” (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Evaluate a President), Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump (Rocket Man: Nuclear Madness and the Mind of Donald Trump), Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes Trump’s Age).

And Trump, who believes he is in good mental health, is by no means the only American president who is considered a “lunatic.”

The second president of the United States, John Adams, was described by his political opponent Jefferson as “sometimes he is just crazy.”

Another former president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt), was described by a monthly magazine of Contemporary American Psychiatry as “will be recorded in history by one of the most psychologically distorted cases of psychology.”

American historian Henry Adams said that Roosevelt was “completely shattered in his mind … almost faced insanity, or insanity” during his re-election campaign in 1912.

A psychoanalytic study of American presidents published in 2006 indicated that approximately 49% of American presidents had some degree of mental illness at some point in their lives (researchers say that this proportion is comparable to that of American citizens. The proportion is Similary).

The study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina showed that 27% of US presidents had suffered from mental illness during their tenure. A quarter of presidents have symptoms of depression, including Woodrow Wilson and James Madison.

The report also believes that Teddy Roosevelt and President John Adams have symptoms of bipolar mania, while Thomas Jefferson and Ulysses Grant are their social partners. Worried about anxiety.

Study leader Professor Jonathan Davidson said: “The president’s job is under immense pressure and no one has the unlimited ability to fulfill it.”

In 1919, President Wilson suffered a stroke while doing his best to pass the Treaty of Versailles. This caused him to suffer from depression, paranoia and paranoia for the remaining two years of his presidency.

At that time, the first lady Edith Wilson (Edith Wilson) became an indispensable assistant to the president, and many people believed that she was the real owner of the Oval Office.

When Wilson left the presidency, a journalist once described him as a shy person: “The man who used to be cheerful and ambitious no longer exists.”

According to Professor Davidson’s research, two US presidents were directly defeated due to grieving family members. Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Pierce fell into great pain due to the tragic death of their sons and were unable to fulfill their duties as presidents.

The fourteenth president of the United States, Pierce, suffered a serious train derailment before taking office in 1853. His 11-year-old son, Benjamin, died in the accident and was the only one of Pierce’s three children left.

The Democratic president wrote to his secretary after this tragedy: “How can I regain my strength and do everything I can to face the next presidential duties? I am lost.”

Professor Davidson said the United States was on the brink of civil war at the time, and the loss of his son to Pierce prevented him from fulfilling his role as the country’s president.

He became the only American president to be abandoned by his party in subsequent general elections. Grief over the loss of a son and the civil war facing the United States ultimately plunged Pierce into a prolonged alcoholism. According to his biographer Michael F Holt, Pierce eventually died of liver disease.

Coolidge was an enthusiastic and energetic leader when he was elected president. But in the summer of 1924, his 16-year-old son Calvin Jr. was playing on the White House tennis court. He had no socks on his shoes and his toes were worn. He died of sepsis after becoming infected.

According to his biographer Amity Shales (Amity Shales), Coolidge has always blamed himself for the death of his son.

“Whenever I look out the window,” Coolidge said, “I can always see my son playing tennis there.”

His behavior became increasingly strange, and he would suddenly get angry at anyone, including his wife, assistants, and visitors.

The 30th President of the United States wrote in his autobiography: “When my son dies, the power and glory of the president seem to disappear. I don’t know why I have to pay such a high price to enter the White House.”

However, not all American presidents are devastated by the death of their loved ones.

David Herbert Donald, biographer of President Abraham Lincoln, said that the life of the famous American president was full of melancholy.

February 1862 was during the American Civil War. Unfortunately, Willie, President Lincoln’s 11-year-old son, passed away. Many members of the White House staff were concerned about whether the president could overcome the difficulties. Donald wrote in Lincoln’s biography that that same year, after Lincoln suffered another military defeat, he told his cabinet that he was almost ready to hang himself.

However, the 16th president of the United States finally overcame the pain of losing his son, not only rose again, but also raised the country from the ashes.

In a 2012 study conducted by psychologists at Emory University in Georgia, USA, some presidents were found to have psychopathic symptoms, including President Clinton.

The presidents with the most significant symptoms are Lyndon Baines Johnson and Andrew Jackson.

Researchers from Emory University confirmed that the manifestations of this psychopathic symptom are: superficial charm, self-centeredness, hypocrisy, insensitivity, risk-taking, little self-control and courage.

This study included all successive US presidents except for President Obama and the current president (Trump).

Professor Scott Lilienfeld, leader of the research team, said: “I think that if this symptom persists for a long time, it will ruin the person. In fact, this symptom can help a person a lot in the short term.” He rises quickly to the leadership position, but I doubt this will help this person’s overall leadership performance, especially in the long term. “

Take President Johnson as an example. According to biographer Robert Caro, Johnson not only won the Texas Senate race in 1948 with cheeky tactics, he also used it as a joke afterward. In public, he ignored his wife sitting next to him and put his hand on another woman’s skirt. He has no respect for his subordinates and often dictates dictation instructions to his assistant while in relief.

Many people also suspect that in 1964, Johnson engineered the naval conflict in Tokyo Bay to deceive the American people in order to escalate the Vietnam War.

Speaking of President Andrew Jackson, he was the one who signed the Ethnic Cleansing Indian Removal Act. Although he is the only president to have paid the debt of the United States Treasury during his tenure, in the hearts of Americans, he is always a cruel and ruthless president.

And President Clinton, needless to say, his reputation was discredited by that sexual harassment case.

The skills of White House Oval Office owners to cope with stress vary.

Richard Nixon even began taking antidepressants and sleeping pills when he was vice president, swallowing with alcohol.

Alcohol became the partner of the American president who resigned due to the Watergate incident. His top political adviser, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Henry Kissinger), said during the Middle East crisis that Nixon was once unable to answer a phone call from the British prime minister because he was drunk.

Arnold Hutschnecker, a psychologist who went to the White House to treat Nixon, said Nixon “has a number of neurological symptoms.”

People often think that Trump, the current president, completely shattered the orthodox image of the American president in history.

But looking back at the eccentric experiences and tribulations of successive US presidents, we can’t help but wonder: What is a normal president?

（According to BBC ChineseApril 2019Adaptation of published articles）