We remember Winston Churchill the orator, the fiery leader, the man who refused to submit to tyranny, and in whose stubborn refusal a nation, and then the world, found the strength to resist and ultimately prevail. Other prominent British statesmen had failed to fill the role that Churchill rode to glory. Churchill alone emerged as the great leader, the wartime genius, the deliverer of democracy. And although some acknowledge that he had mental problems, few appreciate the relevance of those problems to his prodigious leadership abilities. I believe that Churchill's severe recurrent depressive episodes heightened his ability to realistically assess the threat that Germany posed.
One might suppose that such a great man would have to be especially whole, healthy and fit in mind and body, full of mental and spiritual capabilities that escape average men. But Churchill belied this notion. In fact, he was quite ill, and his story, if belonging to a middle-class American living in the 21st century, would seem a sad but typical tale of mental illness.
There is no doubt that he had severe periods of depression; he was open about it – calling it, following Samuel Johnson, his “Black Dog.” Apparently his most severe bout of depression came in 1910, when he was, at about age 35, home secretary. Later in his life, he told his doctor, Lord Moran, “For two or three years the light faded from the picture. I did my work. I sat in the House of Commons, but black depression settled on me.” He had thoughts of killing himself. “I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through,” he told his doctor. “I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.”
Churchill suffered from more than depression, though. Many historians now acknowledge his depression, but they generally don't appreciate that when he was not depressed, Churchill's moods shifted frequently. He was never “himself,” because his “self” kept changing.
Numerous physicians who knew Churchill or studied him have concurred on the view that he likely had a cyclothymic personality, which, as we now know, is biologically and genetically related to bipolar disorder. For instance, Lord Russell Brain, a famed British neurologist, knew Churchill for almost two decades and saw him as a patient for 20 visits. Lord Brain concluded that Churchill had “the drive and vitality and youthfulness of a cyclothyme.”
These observations suggest that when he wasn't depressed, Churchill probably had hypomanic (mild manic) symptoms: he was high in energy, highly sociable and extraverted, rapid in his thoughts and actions, and somewhat impulsive. He would routinely stay awake late into the night, with a burst of energy after midnight when in his bathrobe, he would dictate his many books and conduct much of his other work. He was incredibly productive, not only serving as a minister or prime minister for decades, but writing 43 books in 72 volumes (not to mention a huge body of correspondence).
Since cyclothymic personality involves the constant alternation between mild manic (hypomanic) and mild depressive symptoms, and since Churchill also clearly had multiple severe depressive episodes, it seems to me that he meets the official current definition of biopolar disorder, type II (hypomania alternating with severe depression). It is also possible that he had more severe manic episodes, which we cannot fully document yet, in which case he would meet the diagnostic definition of standard bipolar disorder (also called type I).
Perhaps the key to finding a link between this melancholic Churchill and his political realism can be found in the era of his political exile, the Wilderness years.
In the period between the two world wars, Winston Churchill, out of power and sidelined by his own Conservative Party, was seen as a peripheral and somewhat curmudgeonly political has-been.
