It's quite inspiring that a lot of greats and geniuses were bipolar - they've made some spectacular achievements in their lifetimes, some of them even without ever overcoming the condition. It has been noted of course that the swings into elevation and depression can cause one to be brilliant, sensitive, multi-talented even genius-prone. You'll see what i mean in a while.
This, by the way is not the least bit an exhaustive list; I only included here the people I like or at least find interesting.
Poets
A lot of the poets I like were bipolar. I can see how the so-called "illness" creates a vast, deep well of emotion and imagination from which they they drew.
I can guess these guys were especially introspective but verbally expressive and poetically prolific during a prolonged episode, (snicker) - I know I'm like that.William Blake (at left) for one, whose verse provided an inspiration for my artwork when I was a teen. Blake was a noted not just as a poet but as a painter as well .
The idol of his times, the passionate, extremely talented (and dreamy) George Gordon Lord Byron (at left). It's not hard to imagine, with his various neuroses as well as his swings from wanton "I will live as i want" behavior to world-weariness and back. The disturbed antiheroes Byron thought up were actually reflections of himself: confident, talented, attractive ... and disturbed.Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost , some of whose verse I've loved and memorized, were all manic-depressive.
Ralph Waldo Emerson too (whose quote happens to be emblazoned on the cover of my current journal). Samuel Taylor Coleridge , T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Charles Pierre Baudelaire were as well.
I can especially imagine Edgar Allan Poe (at left), with his dark, ingenious ruminations. I don't think anyone would disagree the guy had some serious depressions.Sara Teasdale and Emily Dickinson too - who would have known?
Sylvia Plath obviously was, and clearly had her creative bursts during her melancholia.
NovelistsSamuel Langhorn Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain whose popular works are relatively easy to read and pleasant.
Victor Hugo, who went for heavy, thought-provoking and almost-oppressive.
Virginia Woolf was called "crazy" - schizophrenic and bipolar, but it was those disorders, me thinks, that made her a literary genius.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is another noted novelist. His stories featured Byronic heroes too.
Others are Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ernest Hemingway and Leo Tolstoy.
Painters One of the original Renaissance Men, Michelangelo (at left) was a multi-talented, prolific, brilliant, extremely inspired, iconic . . . indecent, impetuous, problematic, unpredictable, mood-swingy, disturbed bipolar.
The afflicted painter, Vincent Van Gogh had a conglomeration of disorders, including BMD. Van Gogh made his greatest works in the last year of his life, one after another in rapid succession through a wave of creative genius due to a manic episode. When he came down from the elevation and entered into a depression, he shot himself.
I know from bits of research and from personal experience that the transition from mania to depression is where the sufferer is most suicide-prone; if a bipolar isn't medicated and/or covered by caring relationships, a suicide is most likely to happen during the transition. I suppose that's what happened in Van Gogh's case.
Expressionist Edvard Munch of "The Scream" (at left) fame was another disturbed one. I first learned about him from a documentary I watched as a child; I instantly found him both fascinating and frightful. I don't know any of his other paintings, but The Scream has made a great impression on me. I'm drawn by the undulating unsettledness in his composition and the story (said to be) behind it. I recall pitying him for being manic-depressive - of course at that time I didn't know I was as well .There's a female painter in this list - Georgia O'Keefe. I don't know much about her, but from what I remember from what I learned in Art History she had this preoccupation with vaginal forms.
The disturbed Jackson Pollock was also said to have bipolar, or something similar.
Just a thought: Why is it that most great artists were so tortured?
I have this theory that some of those in the artistic field probably would not have achieved everything they did if they weren't so disturbed. Though psychosis is not a prerequisite to genius, it can contribute. BMD is certainly debilitating, and I'm sure it was in a way for those artists. But I got to thinking that those artist and writers were so good because they were bipolar. Without the mood cycles, they probably would not have produced such dramatic work.
I know personally how bipolarity can swing one into great confidence and vision, wild creativity and inspired genius, as well as whirlwind productivity. So while the condition is inhibiting, on one end it is also inspiring.
Musicians / Composers
Both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (at left) and Ludwig Van Beethoven (far left) were manic-depressive. Their names have stood out throughout music history due to their ingenuity.One thing remarkable about Beethoven was his ability to convey clear, powerful emotion. I find it funny that I was entranced listening to a Beethoven some time ago and I made a joke that I think he was bipolar, based on the sound of his music. I find out later that he really was.
Another bipolar German classical musician was Robert Alexander Schumann.
Frideric Handel was German composer, of the Baroque era.
Composer-pianists Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin and Pyotr Tchaikovsky all had swings between elevation and depression. I imagine from his music that Tchaikovsky was a bit more manic.
Scientist
Isaac Newton.
Historical-Political FiguresAbraham Lincoln (at left) suffered greatly from the illness. From what I've read, he was more inclined toward depression. History has a deified image of Lincoln, but he had some serious flaws. But he wasn't just a pensive man as our kiddie history books say - Abe was gravely melancholy, severely depressive. His dark moods were so pervasive that it affected people around him. There were times he would be so depressed and fail to show up at important meetings or even get up from bed. He never overcame his depression; it even seems more like he embraced it- and forced others to.
I mused on the thought that someone that gloomy and inconsistent would be the type of employee most modern-day bosses would lay-off first, without consideration. This guy, whose face is on Mt. Rushmore for being one of the greatest-ever U.S. Presidents, was a moody, pessimistic depressive.
Another great immortalized on Rushmore is Theodore Roosevelt. He has been described by biographers to have periods of amazing energy - he walked over twenty miles and read an entire book a day. He was known to be aggressive and ostentatious, as well as prone to social anxiety and depression.
Winston Churchill is another person I quite admire. Remarkable statesman, lawman, orator, historian and writer. A hero of World War II, Dunkirk, Britain's finest hour. I learned that he was an artist too - how cool is that?! Many attribute his excellent abilities to his disorder, which he called his "black dog".Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler had this condition in common. History doesn't hold very rosy images of them, but you've got to give them proper credit for their politico-military genius.
Enormous vision, egotistic ambition, megalomania, anger fits, messiah complex, disregard for others - those are all symptoms of severe elevation / mania. Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler all exhibited it from childhood. It can be very useful for authoritative leadership in small amounts, yeah? But when it isn't curbed, mania can trigger itself into destructive delusion.
Manic episodes cause one to be overconfident, even to absurd degrees; I personally have had those defiant "I will change the world" moments. It's not hard for me to imagine how someone with a good amount of intelligence, influence ad resources can actually channel all his megalomanic energy into making a mark in history. Lithium pills could have made a big difference for the whole world back then, huh?
Trivia: Did you know that Hitler was an artist as well? He made amazing watercolor paintings and charcoal drawings in his youth.
I have this theory that the so-called psychological defect that plagued Archduke Rudolph of the Hapsburgs was Bipolar Mood. He had a great, idealistic "I will save the world" phase to the point that he defied his father and despised the monarchy, and actually had plans on revamping all of Europe, but afterward he lost hope and spiraled downward into an alleged suicide.
Philosophers and Orators
Plato is said to have been manic-depressive, as derivable from what his student Aristotle said about him.
The most notable Christian speaker, Charles Haddon Spurgeon confessed of his moods in his book Dark Nights and Bright Days.
Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the authors of feminism, had a bit of tragedy.
Bipolars are very prone to tragedy. They're also real prone to repulsive behavior.
Modern-day Musicians and Celebrities
Substance addiction and abuse was the bane of many, including Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse and the late great Jimi Hendrix.
90's icon Kurt Cobain (at left) didn't stick to his prescription; he instead chose medicate himself with other drugs. We all know how that ended. He also wrote a song called Lithium.How about some people who are still alive today:
Gordon Matthew Sumner a.k.a. Sting (at left), who I've always thought is brilliant.
Adam Ant and Scott Weiland, whose unique, not-so-mainstream music helped soothe me through my youth.
Other rock icons: John Michael "Ozzy" Osborn, Axl Rose and Peter Gabriel.
Manic-depressives aren't always so dark. Take comedian Ben Stiller for example (both his parents, actors Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara also were bipolar). Jim Carrey, Russel Brand and Stephen Fry also are.
One modern artist that many including myself greatly admire is Tim Burton. I'm not sure how his BMD influences his output, but I think it's cute, the fact that he's bipolar.
Here's another film genius: Francis Ford Coppola.
Add to this long list Linda Hamilton, Catherine Zeta Jones, Richard Dreyfuss, Jean Claude Van Damme, Sinead O'Connor, Robert Downey Jr., Macy Gray, Carrie Fischer, Mel Gibson, Martha Stewart, Connie Francis, Larry Flint, Robin Williams, Marshall Mathers (a.k.a. Eminem), and media giant Ted Turner. Okay, some of them aren't really good examples, but they're in there.
I'm tickled that I share bipolarity with a lot of the personalities that I happen to like or am inspired by - and I never even knew they had it until recently. Would that be a coincidence, or my tendency to be drawn to those with whom I have some sort of commonality without even knowing about it?
I share a condition with many geniuses, an "illness" so detestable but so able to stoke brilliance. Perhaps after my death, my own name could be added to this roster? I've got the bipolar part; I just have to work on the "well-known" part.
Haha; better not stoke the mania.
