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Abraham Lincoln once wrote a letter to his law partner. In this letter, he said, "I am now the most miserable man living." This was written just three weeks before his thirty-third birthday. Lincoln was born in 1809 and died in 1865. In that letter, he described a pain so deep that if it were shared by everyone in the world, no one would be able to smile. Lincoln was a quiet and thoughtful man. He felt things very strongly, which made him different from other people of his time. When he was a young boy, he told his stepsister that a small ant's life is just as sweet to the ant as a human life is to a human. He loved animals and insects. He would stop other children from hurting them, even when they were doing something cruel like setting sea turtles on fire to watch them burn.
As a teenager, Lincoln went against what his family wanted. His family thought that learning to farm was enough for their life. They did not care much about books. However, Lincoln wanted to learn more. He would sneak away from his farm work to read. A cousin later remembered that Lincoln was always busy with books. The cousin said Lincoln looked lazy because he was always scribbling and writing poetry. This love for learning prepared him for a life filled with hard work and deep feelings.
As a young man, Lincoln began to feel that he was cursed. He thought his life was a "peculiar misfortune." He believed he had dreams that were too big and would end in great disappointment. Five years after leaving his father's farm, he faced his first major episode of depression. He was studying law and working too hard. He read day and night until he became very thin and sick. At the same time, a typhoid epidemic swept across the land. It took the lives of many people. One of the victims was Ann Rutledge. She was a young woman who understood Lincoln's deep feelings better than anyone. He loved her more than he loved anyone else, but no one else knew the true depth of their connection. Historians have tried to understand their relationship, but much of it remains a private mystery.
Five years after leaving his father’s farm, the first detonation of depression shook the young man’s world. His legal studies strained him beyond capacity. Reading day and night, he grew emaciated. Meanwhile, a typhoid epidemic swept the land with a tidal wave of death, taking with it the life of Ann Rutledge — a young woman who uniquely understood Lincoln’s sensitivity and about whom he had come to care deeply — so deeply that no one around them quite understood the nature of their bond, though generations have taken the liberty of qualifying it, manufacturing an entire romantic mythos around a brittle skeleton of spare facts.
This time was hard for Lincoln. He was surrounded by death and felt stretched beyond his own limits. He began to think about suicide. The thoughts became so strong that he was afraid to keep a pocket knife for fear he would use it on himself. His friends and neighbors watched him with worry. They saw him walking in the woods with a gun. They were so scared that they started a suicide watch to make sure he stayed safe. Lincoln lived, but this experience changed him forever.
After that first episode, Lincoln suffered from deep sadness often. His struggle was similar to that of famous poets and composers like John Keats and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. This struggle helped shape who he became. An author named Joshua Wolf Shenk wrote a book called Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. After his depression, Lincoln learned to hide his sad heart behind his famous humor. He acted cheerful so well that even his closest friends did not know he was depressed. However, his pain still showed through his kindness. He tried to help friends who were also sad. He wrote about how deep thought can turn a happy idea into bitterness.
No one knew at the time, but in the summer of his thirtieth year, Lincoln wrote a very sad poem. It was called "The Suicide's Soliloquy." It was printed in a small newspaper in Illinois. It was placed next to ads for whale oil and French perfume. It took scholars 139 years to figure out that Lincoln wrote it. The poem tells a story about a man who decides to end his life. Lincoln used this story to safely explore his darkest thoughts. He imagined what it would be like to stop all the pain by destroying himself.
Unbeknownst to anyone, in the summer of his thirtieth year, Lincoln penned an intensely sorrowful poem titled “The Suicide’s Soliloquy,” printed anonymously in a small Whig paper in Illinois alongside advertisements for whale oil and French cologne. It would take scholars 139 years to identify his authorship. With its haunting story-framing epigraph and its dramatic narration by a fictional character, it was Lincoln’s way of safely rehearsing in the darkest recesses of his imagination what it might be like to enact the central pull of suicide — the tempting illusion that total self-erasure is the only way to terminate the mental anguish nothing else has allayed.
The poem begins near a deep forest by the Sangamon River. A man is found dead after killing himself. The speaker says there are lonely owls and fierce wolves there. No human will know what happened to him. The man says he is ready to kill himself, even if he regrets it later. He asks what hell means to someone who has never known joy. He fears his own thoughts so much that he wants to jump from the edge of hell into its waves. He says even the fires of devils would not scare him because he feels he is already damned on earth. In the final lines, he drives a blade into his heart. He calls the bloody weapon his last and only friend.
This deep despair was real to Lincoln. Three years later, another episode of depression overwhelmed him. He made a terrifying choice for himself. He decided that to remain as he was was impossible. He told himself, "I must die or be better, it appears to me." He did get better. He remembered something we often forget when we are very sad: that the light of being returns. Like a great artist, Lincoln learned to turn his suffering into fuel for building a better world. He turned his private pain into a powerful message to help his nation.
Lincoln once said in a famous speech, "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." The poet Walt Whitman admired Lincoln deeply. He called Lincoln the "greatest, best, most characteristic, artistic, moral personality." Whitman agreed with Lincoln. He argued that if America was going to fail, it would be because of problems inside itself, not from enemies outside.
Lincoln understood that a person's spirit is like the spirit of a nation. When we are destroyed, it can be a chance to learn how to make something new. We are invited to make beauty and make meaning. We can build the life and world we want to live in. Lincoln's life proves that deep pain does not have to be the end. Instead, it can be the start of a big change. By facing the darkness inside himself, he found the strength to guide a broken nation through its hardest time. He showed that the ability to feel deep despair is the same ability that allows us to feel deep hope.
Lincoln's story shows that mental health struggles are not just obstacles. They can be catalysts for great growth. His journey from despair to leadership offers a unique view on resilience. By facing his internal darkness, he developed empathy. This empathy was essential for leading the country during the Civil War. His personal suffering and his public leadership are connected. Vulnerability can be a source of great power. This transformation is a truth for all people. We can use our deepest pains to fuel our greatest achievements. Remaking oneself often requires undoing the old self. This necessary destruction allows a stronger and more authentic identity to emerge.
Lincoln could talk about his suffering, and this helped him connect with a nation that was also broken. His speeches often mirrored the debates he had with himself. He turned his personal turmoil into a shared struggle for the whole country. This skill helped him keep the morale of the Union strong during difficult times. The poem he wrote years before, "The Suicide's Soliloquy," showed that he would eventually win over his own demons. It reminds us that creativity can be a vital tool for survival. By giving form to his pain, Lincoln could step back from it and use it for a greater purpose.
The history records show that Lincoln's mental health was a central part of his presidency. He was willing to admit his pain, which set him apart from other leaders who might hide such feelings. This honesty created a leadership style based on reality and kindness. The lessons from his life still matter today. They offer hope to those who feel trapped by their thoughts. His story teaches us that the path to greatness often goes through the valley of despair. It is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Lincoln's legacy is not just about politics or war. It is about emotional endurance. He carried the weight of a nation while bearing the weight of his own heart. This is a profound example of strength. His depression was the place where his character was forged. It shaped his vision of a United States that could survive its own contradictions. His life is a story of triumph. It is a reminder that our greatest weaknesses can become our greatest strengths if we have the courage to face them.
Couple with two centuries of great writers — including Keats, Whitman, Thoreau, Carson, and Hansberry — on the surest salve for depression, then revisit Tim Ferriss on how he survived suicidal depression, Mary Oliver’s spare and splendid antidote to melancholy, William Styron’s classic interior tour of what depression is really like, and this tender illustrated meditation on what it takes to unblue our sadnesses.