Celebrity Meltdown

Celebrities and heroes who struggle with depression.

By PT Staff, published on November 01, 1999 - last reviewed on September 07, 2007

But Louganis felt acute insecurities and inner conflicts about being gay. In a crushing blow, he found out in 1987 that he was HIV-positive.

For years, Louganis did not share the news of his illness for fear that it would cost him his diving career. He relied on the income from endorsements and appearances to pay his enormous medical expenses rather than submit the bills to his insurance company.

Since going public, Louganis has been touring the country to give speeches about his life experiences and act as a positive role model.

Alanis Morissette (1974-)

While on tour to promote her platinum album, Jagged Little Pill, Morissette began to feel helpless. "Schedule-wise, my health and peace of mind weren't a priority," she told reporters. "There had been this dissonance in the midst of all the external success. Because on the one hand, I was expected to be overjoyed by it, and at the same time I was disillusioned by it." To combat her depression, Morissette traveled to India and Cuba, read, competed in triathlons and reconnected with friendships that she had let lapse. Feeling better within a year, she went on to produce a second hit album.

Lionel Aldridge (1941-1998)

Lionel Aldridge thought winning three Super Bowls was a challenge. But at least he could trust and feel comfortable with his teammates.

A year after retiring as a defensive end for the world champion Green Bay Packers football team in 1973, Aldridge went to work as a sportscaster at WTMJ-TV, where he began to feel suspicious of his co-workers and hear incendiary voices in his head. He checked himself into the hospital, but after a period of drug treatment, felt "zombied out." Aldridge stopped taking the medicine so he could go back to work.

The voices continued, though, telling him he was a terrible husband, that he didn't deserve his job, that strangers were out to destroy him and that people in the TV set could see inside his soul. Soon his wife left him, and, in 1980, he quit his job.

The former sports hero spent the next two years traveling around, staying in homeless shelters. He returned to Milwaukee in 1983, moved into the Rescue Mission and got a menial job at the Milwaukee post office. With a toned-down dose of medication, Aldridge was able to lower the frequency of the voices and function at work.

Aldridge went on to become a board member, of the Mental Health Association of Milwaukee County and a full-time speaker for the National Alliance for the Mentally III, traveling around the country to talk about mental health issues. He died of heart failure at the age of 57 in 1998.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Honest Abe kept some things in the closet.

He not only suffered from depression his entire life, but also had frequent anxiety attacks with burning eyes, headaches, indigestion and nausea. He was plagued by nightmares, visions and premonitions of his own death.

While some historians attribute Lincoln's illness to the death of his mother when he was 10, others say his "melancholy" came from a swift kick in the head by a horse when he was a boy.

Lincoln fell into "the shadow of madness," as he called it, in 1835 after the death of first love Ann Rutledge. After he broke off his engagement to Mary Todd in 1841, Lincoln's friends watched him around the clock, fearing he'd commit suicide. He was unable to work, and rumors of his insanity began to spread.

During the early 19th century, there was little available to assist people through their depression. The prevailing therapy of the time was the Christian oriented moral treatment, based on exhortation, kindness and support.

A decade later, Lincoln was able to channel his depression by obsessing over his legal and political career. He had a few more lapses during the Civil War, especially after Bull Run and toward the end of combat, but nonetheless was able to emerge as one of the greatest American presidents.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Though he had limitless energy for his many creative projects, Tolstoy told fellow writer Ivan Bunin: "There is no happiness in life, only occasional flares of it."

While finishing his novel Anna Karenina, Tolstoy began to experience episodes of depression, and even contemplated suicide. But during this dark period, he found new meaning in Christianity. He expressed his celebrated mantra of "universal love and passive resistance to evil in the form of violence" in a series of writings that amplified his newfound faith.

Mike Wallace (1918-)

Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes has informed, aroused and incensed millions with his documentaries—not always handling the criticism well.

In 1982, Wallace's documentary on government misrepresentation of Vietnam War enemy troops inspired a general to file a libel suit. In reaction, Wallace developed psychosomatic pain: the feeling of "knives" in his arms and weakness in his legs. He battled suicidal thoughts and relied on sleeping pills for rest.

When The Trial. finally began in 1984, Wallace collapsed and was hospitalized for two weeks. His doctor diagnosed him with clinical depression and gave him the drug Ludiomil.

When The Trial. ended in 1985, Wallace was able to stop taking medication. But he suffered two more bouts of depression over the next 10 years.

Since 1993, the antidepressant Zoloft, combined with therapy, has kept his depression under control. Wallace appeared in the 1998 HBO documentary Dead Blue: Surviving Depression and is working to destigmatize the illness.