Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill stands head and shoulders above any other politician of this century. He earned the right to be called 'statesman'. He saw the Nazi threat for what it was, and rallied an exhausted British populace to keep resisting. And yet, through all of these things, he also suffered from depression. How did he manage? How could a man with a disease that makes getting out of bed nearly impossible stand up to the force that was blacking out the world? There is no question that Winston Churchill had extraordinary strength, but he was by no means super-human. Working for the common good helped him win his daily battles with depression.

Churchill's depression showed itself most prominently when he suffered political setbacks. During WWI, he was made a scapegoat for the failed attack on the German stronghold of the Dardanelles. As a result of the naval defeat and subsequent political fallout, Churchill lost his cabinet position as Lord of the Admiralty. While war raged through Europe, Churchill was rendered powerless to do anything about it. "At the moment when every fiber of my being was inflamed to action, I was forced to remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front seat." His wife later commented on how deeply the setback affected Churchill, saying, "I thought he would die of grief."

The key to his successes lay not his being somehow better than the rest of the population, but in the era in which he lived. His political acumen allowed him to see the dangerous precipice on which history was balanced during WWII. The fall of Britain would have meant a disastrously different future for the world. Knowing that, Churchill could not let himself rest, could not allow himself to seem discouraged, no matter how discouraged he might have been. The entire nation was looking to him for resolve and strength.

His success then, was due to his realization that others depended upon him. Although he is known as one of the greatest statesmen who ever lived, his recurrent episodes of depression would certainly have taken a greater toll had he been in politics during times of peace when, rather than pulling together for the common good, politicians would have furthered their careers by engaging in the sort of personal attacks and scapegoating that so severely affected Churchill.


'We can get through this, we can live without depression.'