Separated by an ocean–of geography and privilege– two expansively intelligent and openhearted men were born on this day in 1809. The prism of history filters out the brightest colors of their extraordinary accomplishments, yet the subtler hues–their under-recognized contributions to mental health–are worth celebrating too.
Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin discovered the hidden upsides of their depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder respectively and showcased entirely new angles on mental health. Despite the American’s placement on suicide watch for his melancholy and the obsessional doubts that led the Englishman to take twenty years to publish his magnum opus, both were spurred on by their respective afflictions. Both remind us that, even today, mental health is a complex and personal art with the power to transform the collective.
Lincoln stared directly into the ‘I’ of grief and invited others to do the same not merely by dressing the wounds of the Civil War but by speaking straight to the heart. Unlike many public figures of his time, he didn’t shy away from talking openly about melancholy in his speeches or in the exquisitely sensitive condolence letters he delivered to fellow sufferers. As a person and leader, Lincoln modelled what is most effective in psychotherapy: inviting and befriending the seemingly broken and conflicted sides that threaten the fragile union of self.
Like many OCD sufferers, Darwin was regularly stalked by death. He obsessed about his children inheriting his weak constitution and compulsively closed his eyes to make all these thoughts go away. He regularly sought reassurance from others and his imagination ran wild with doubt. Even in the notebook where he sketched a tree of life to illustrate his emerging theory of evolution, Darwin scrawled, “I think.”
Like Lincoln, who drew on his enormous empathy, Darwin used his generous heart—a research-backed characteristic of OCD–to search for what keeps the course of natural history ticking. Despite his obsessional fears and the untimely deaths of his mother in childhood and his beloved ten-year old daughter in his adulthood, he persevered for an explanation of how life marches on.
Both men leaned into the nature and nurture of their mental health conditions. They capitalized on the hidden powers of curiosity, empathy, and resourcefulness found within the unique temperament of depression and OCD. At the same time, instead of despairing at the many losses they suffered, they leaned into the upsides of their support systems to find a creative way to keep going.
Lincoln’s purpose was sharpened by the long list of his own losses–brother, mother, sister, fiancee, sons, and closest friends–and channeled theses alongside his profound empathy and introspection. He tapped into the “‘mystic chords of memory that summoned the better angels of our nature” and productively used his dark nights of the soul to minister to a nation.
Darwin felt “the world’s pain so acutely, and so persistently,” as biographer Janet Browne writes, he viewed extending one’s heart in compassion to others as “one of the noblest” moral achievements. Dacher Keltner writes that “survival of the kindest,” rather than survival of the fittest is a better catchphrase for him. Moved upon hearing this parallel to the Buddha’s teachings, the Dalai Lama declared: “I will now call myself a Darwinian.”
Even by today’s high standards of mental health awareness shown in ‘fight the stigma’ campaigns, therapist influencers, and the wide openness to counseling across the generations, both men of the nineteenth century went even further. They didn’t just show nuance and innovation in the political and scientific arenas, they lived a life that showcased how all of us with shining afflictions can be more fully ourselves. And maybe the best side-effect yet, we can also change the world.
