It is suggested that Mark Twain (pen name) was bipolar. It is also hypothesized that his daughter Susy, who many considered to be Twain’s writing muse, was also bipolar. He writes about her here in his newly released manuscripts:
“She was a magazine of feelings, and they were of all kinds and of all shades of force. She was so volatile, as a little child, that sometimes the whole battery came into play in the short compass of a day….She was full of life, full of activity, full of fire. Her waking hours were a crowding and hurrying procession of enthusiasms — joy, sorrow, anger, remorse, storm, sunshine, rain, darkness. They were all there. They came in a moment, and they were gone as quickly….In all things she was intense. In her, this characteristic was not a mere glow, dispensing warmth, but a consuming fire.”
Were either of them truly bipolar? Who knows. But I can certainly relate to that description of a child.
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