Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - "Churchill's Achievements Were Because of His Bipolar Disorder" with James Ricciardi

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

In this conversation, James Ricciardi, a mental health historian and former lawyer, shares his personal journey with bipolar disorder and discusses the intersection of mental illness and success. He highlights the historical stigma surrounding mental health, the experiences of notable leaders like Winston Churchill and Lyndon Johnson, and contemporary figures who have openly discussed their struggles. Ricciardi emphasizes the need for a shift in public perception and understanding of mental illness as a legitimate health issue, akin to physical illnesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com.

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor.

Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is open. book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word from authors and historians to figures and entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcast and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're

enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches. So let me know. Anyways, let's get to it. Joining us now is James Rosharty. He's a mental health historian and he's a former partner at McGuire Woods, LLP. Not a book, but it's an article that drew my attention. It's about mental illness and highly successful persons, which I believe, by the way, Jim. So I would like to first go to your background. You graduated from Harvard. You were named. You were one of the best lawyers in America, working on cases like Enron. But let's start with your background and then we're going to go into some of the insights

that you have about some leaders and how there's a close connection between genius, mental illness, and leadership. But let's go to your background first, sir, because I want to establish your gravitas. Okay. Well, I have a computer science degree from Ohio State. As you do, I have a Harvard law degree. and as you did, I didn't go immediately into practicing law. I went into business and I wound up as a vice president and general counsel of an industrial

conglomerate in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The company wound up in a three-year Chapter 11 case, and I hired outstanding New York bankruptcy council, and during those three years, I learned a lot about bankruptcy. And so I decided I finally found something in the law that I liked. So I called a very good friend of mine who I'd gone to Harvard with and said, you know, Connor, I think I really like this bankruptcy stuff. And he said, well, you know, we're just starting a bankruptcy department in our New York office. Why don't you come in for a day of interviews?

I'll set it up for you. So to make a long story short, that's how I got my first job practicing law at the age of 37. And I only had taken a bar exam in New Jersey, but now I was practicing in New York. And you know New York and New Jersey don't reciprocate. So I had to take 17 years out of law school, the bar exam in New York State, which is one of the hardest. Well, you passed it, and you're obviously incredibly smart person. But you have your own mental health journey. And what I love about your story, if you don't mind me saying this, is that

we sometimes have a stigma associated with mental health. We see it not for what it actually is. It's an illness like any other illness that we may have. I have a bad heart. I take cholesterol medication. If there's something related to my mood, it could be biological more than anything else. And sometimes we attribute it to conscious behavioralism when it could, in fact, just be biological. So I want you to talk about first, if you don't mind.

your personal story, your own personal mental health journey, and some of the revelations that you've discovered as a result of your own journey, and what caused you to want to write this article that you've put together? And then we're going to go over some examples. You're right. I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder more than 40 years ago. And I've had many episodes. They were almost always manic, depressed. episodes. And what I mean by that is I would have a mania first and the mania would inevitably wind up in a depression. And for those of your listeners or viewers who don't know really what manias and depressions are, I'll take a minute or two to explain that. A mania is when your mind

tends to focus on only one idea or only one very small subset of ideas. If you are a say a mathematician. You might focus on the solution of a problem that has escaped solution for 200 years, and you might focus exclusively on that, and you will become irresponsible towards your friends, irresponsible towards your co-workers, you will become very irritable, you won't sleep, but you won't sleep not because you're depressed, you won't sleep because all of your energy is being put into solving that one problem. And you may or may not solve that problem. But inevitably, your mania is going to end up in a suicidal depression if you have bipolar disorder.

And that was what always got me because I didn't only work from McGuire Woods. I worked for two other leading law firms before that. And every time I made a move, it was because. because I had a manic depressive episode, and either the management of the firms really didn't want to deal with it because, you know, mental illness is not as important as physical illness. Or I myself couldn't deal with it, and I took myself out of the workforce for six months or a year and had to really struggle to get back, you know. Now, the depressive side of it is almost always suicidal, but there are other aspects to depression. Also, you can't sleep, but it's not for the same reason as you can't sleep during a mania. You can't sleep in depression because you have constant feelings of worthlessness.

Everything, every future moment seems black. You don't see any way out of the situation that you're in. And it could be triggered by something like what triggered Winston Churchill, or it could be triggered by nothing, you know. And mostly it's triggered by a mania that happens before. But not to interrupt you, and I don't know as much about this as I should, frankly. Is it chemical? Is it environmental?

Neuroscientists almost exclusively believe today that it is biological, electrochemical, and neurological. And all three of those things can be influenced by the genetic makeup of the person. Right. For example, a person that has a person, predisposition to breast cancer. That predisposition is genetic. A person can have a genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder. A person can have a genetic predisposition to depression. You know, the person can have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. Right. Now,

schizophrenia is in a different league, so we won't talk about that. Right. Because that's, that, that makes life almost impossible, you know. Right. Depression and bipolar disorder can be treated, but schizophrenia is almost impossible to deal with. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. Listen, I appreciate you bringing this up, and I appreciate the, also respect the vulnerability associated with it because it can be, listen, 100 years ago, this was very stigmatizing. Today, it's less so as we understand more about the illness.

The term in some ways is self-stigmatizing. but you have made enormous progress and you've also, if you don't mind me saying this, sir, I appreciate you coming on because there's lots of people that have this affliction. And it's important for us to dispel all of the stigmas associated with it. I don't know if you remember Mike Wallace. My friend Chris Wallace's dad was the famous reporter from 60 Minutes. He had this issue. He fought this issue, but his openness probably led to more people getting help associated with this.

I appreciate you coming on, but you have a, say it's a breakthrough, but you have a historical observation, which I think is worth talking about. And this is, you've identified several leaders. I'm going to list some of them. Churchill, you've already mentioned, Lyndon Johnson, Thomas Eagleton. We can talk a little bit about him. He was the vice president, the vice presidential candidate that underwent the electroshock therapy,

a result of which he dropped out of the 1972 race. He was George McGovern's selection to be vice president. John Fetterman, which we know is in the Senate, representing Pennsylvania by his own admission, has talked about this situation that's plaguing him. The legendary Ted Turner, Mariah Carey, Francis Ford Coppola, Ernest Hemingway.

I don't want to steal your thunder, sir. Tell us about these people, these specific individuals, also the observations that you've made about them, but also you have lots of empathy for them because some of the elements that they have, you have. So tell us about these people. Well, first, I'd like to talk for a minute about mental stigma. You know, mental illness was first identified by Plato and Hippocrates. So we've been dealing with this distinction between mental illness and physical illness for millennia. Millennia. And you said we've made a lot of progress in reducing stigma of mental illness.

I would like to challenge that. I think we've made a little bit of progress. And let me give you an example. Mental illness, of course, by its very semantic presentation, distinguishes itself. from physical illness. And because of its history, going back to Plato and Apocrates, it also is perceived as a lesser illness than physical illness. But you mentioned John Fetterman, and John Fetterman is a very interesting case, because while he was in the campaign for a senator from Pennsylvania, he had a stroke. You may remember he had a serious stroke.

and after he won, a few weeks after he got to Washington, he was hospitalized for 42 days for major depression, 42 days. Now, when I was hospitalized after, once I was hospitalized after a suicide attempt, I was in the hospital for 12 days. He was in the hospital, 42 days. So you know he had very, very serious major depression. But he never suffered any stigma. His colleagues in the Senate supported him, his family supported him, his doctors supported him, his constituents supported him. Why is that? Okay.

Now, to me, why that is is because all of his doctors associated his major depression with his stroke. So they made it a physical illness. That's why he had no stigma. They made it a physical illness. just as if a person behaved in a manic fashion but had a brain tumor and the brain tumor was removed and then they were their old self again there would be no stigma but if they recovered from a mania that couldn't be associated with a physical illness the stigma you know remained it's a very good distinction it's a very important point that you're making but why let's talk about

a few of these political leaders sir that have no strong They've had no physical malady, but they have forms of depression. We believe that Lincoln had it. Let's talk about Lyndon Johnson as an example. Or Winston Churchill, some of the people you write about. Let's talk about Winston Churchill and Lyndon Johnson. And, Anthony, you make me feel old when you call me, sir. Call me Jim.

Please. I'll call you Jim. I'm sorry. I'll call you Jim. All right. So Jim, let's talk about these guys. All right. Winston Churchill.

In 1945, after he's widely acclaimed as the hero of World War II, his party loses an election for control of parliament. And you know the way things work in Great Britain. You lose an election for control of parliament, and the prime minister has to resign because the new control party picks the prime minister. So after his years of being hailed as a hero, he's suddenly out of government. and almost immediately he goes into a depression. And he's unique because we have a book written by his personal physician, Lord Moran,

who details his depression. He details his depression. He details aspects of his bipolar disorder. And so another psychiatrist and historian, Anthony Storr, in reviewing Lord Moran's book and in reviewing records that became available only after Churchill's death, he says, you know, I think that Churchill's achievements were not in spite of his bipolar disorder, but because of his bipolar disorder, which brings us back to what I was saying about tunneling and focusing on really important things and being able to solve really important problem,

even though the rest of the world you treat like hell, you know. And that's probably as good an explanation of Winston Churchill's life as anything. And it comes directly from the horse's mouth, his personal physician who treated him for years. And his book was written only after Winston Churchill's death. Now, Lyndon Johnson is a little bit different situation because he never had a contemporaneous diagnosis. of either depression or bipolar disorder. But I need to set the scene for you a little bit to understand why I included him in the list of people.

In 1964, he won 61% of the popular vote, which remains to today the greatest share of the popular vote ever won by a president since 1820. Unities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields, like software development and information technology.

Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. Shortly afterwards, in 1965, he has goldbladder surgery. And Lady Bird Johnson kept a diary of every day of his presidency. So from November 22nd, 1963 to January 20th, 1969, she's got a daily diary. Okay. So she was staying with him.

Goldbladder surgery was more complicated than than it is today. So he was in the hospital for like a week. And she stayed within most days. But she goes out one day, as she says, to do some errands. Okay. So when she comes back, it's dusk. and she finds Lyndon Johnson with his good friend Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortis,

who he had put on the court, but with whom he had had a 30-year relationship. And he's telling Justice Fortis, you know, I want to go back to my ranch in Texas. I don't even want to talk to Vice President Humphrey. I don't want him to be able to call me. I know they'll probably want to impeach me. They'll probably demand my resignation,

but that's just, that's where I'm at. And in the middle of this conversation, Lady Bird walks in. And she's like, oh, this is like an avalanche has just fallen on my husband. She says the black beast of depression is back again. So she's telling us this isn't the first time that Lyndon Johnson has behaved this way. And he's behaved this way when he's on top of the world. So it's different from Winston Churchill. It's completely different from Winston Churchill.

Church, which is what convinced me that he had major depression, as defined by the National Institute of Mental Health. And there's actually more evidence. Bill Moyers, who was special assistant to the president and then press secretary to the president, and as we know, was the host of a show on PBS for about 30 years. he says that, you know, the night that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, which many people have called the Bill of the Century. You know, there were accolades coming in from all corners, all the TV stations were saying how historic it was. He wasn't down on the first floor with the staff and the senators and everybody in the celebration.

So I went to look for him, and I found him in his room in bed. depressed, and he didn't want to get out of bed to go downstairs to join the celebration. So there's another, you know, like super achievement, and he's depressed. There are instances of manic behavior that are recounted by Jack Valenti and Joe Califano. And interestingly enough, the last volume of Robert Carroll's biography, of Lyndon Johnson was published in 2012. And all of the information I have gotten comes from books that were published after that. In fact, Lady Bird's diary was not even made public to researchers until 2017.

And hiding in plain sight was published in 2021. So all of the information I'm giving you was never available to anybody who wrote a biography of Lyndon Johnson before that. There's another very interesting thing about it. You know, he made a speech, his first speech to a joint session of Congress on November 27, 1963, five days after President Kennedy's assassination. And he spoke about President Kennedy and President Kennedy's assassination, and he spent a lot of time talking about the Civil Rights Bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. but he also asked Congress for an all-out attack on mental illness. He's the first U.S. president that ever asked Congress to do anything about mental illness.

Is it self-referential? Who knows, right? Yeah, but I think it's an amazing story about his life. If you don't mind, go to some people that are contemporary, like Mariah Carey or Francis Coppola, the director of the godfather apocalypse now etc tell us tell us some of your insights there if you if you if you permit me you know my my paper as you once described it was a research paper i've continued to do research and and i'd like to make a little detour you got you got mad at me i all i was saying is it's a great paper but i want it it's got to go this way it's got to go bigger so it can be bolder

it's in the middle unfortunately in our society you got to go one more or the other. I want you to turn this into a book. Well, it might be going to a book. Instead of talking about Francis Ford Copeland or Mariah Carey, I like to talk about two other people with your permission. Kay Jameson and Kurt Cobain.

Perfect. Kay Jameson is the Dalio Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. She has been afflicted with bipolar disorder

from early adulthood. So she is a remarkable person because she has the personal experience and the academic experience. And she actually, her second husband was a psychiatrist who worked for the National Institute of Mental Health. And they co-wrote a book about her bipolar disorder and how he helped her get through her worst episodes. So she's really a remarkable person. There are very few people that have both been the victim of a disease and also the person who studies and helps with the treatment of the same disease. And she reviewed Kurt Cobain's suicide.

And we learned that Beverly Cobain, who was a registered nurse and the first cousin of Cobain, told her that he had been diagnosed as a young child with ADD and later with bipolar disorder. So she went in and reviewed the history of his medical records and the history of his family and found a family full of bipolar disorder. Going back to grandparents, great-grandparents, and it's consistent. with what we discussed before the genetic aspect of bipolar disorder and depression. And it's just, it gives one pause. And she also said something, she followed up on something you said, Anthony,

which is that she believes, and she says this is anecdotal, she's never done any scientific studies on it. But she believes that bipolar disorder runs in high achieving and high creative families. It's just her experience from having done so much research on so many people who had bipolar disorder. So I'd like to finish with stigmatization on mental health. number one as you pointed out mental health mental illness distinguishes itself from physical illness and let's just think about somebody who has a broken leg nobody ever says oh you don't need treatment don't go to the hospital but if you're depressed and you tell somebody you're depressed maybe

your husband or your son or your parents or your friends they say ah you know everybody gets depressed don't worry about it you know just just think positive thoughts you'll be fine in a couple of weeks. And a couple of weeks goes by, and you're not fine. You're worse. And you're not sleeping, and all you can see is black. And you tell everybody you're depressed. And they say, oh, just give it another couple of weeks.

Everything will be fine. So, you know, if it's a broken leg, you go right away to the hospital. If you're depressed or you're manic, people try and talk you out of it. So that tells you it's a lesser disease in the minds of people. And that has tremendously negative effects. It discourages people from getting treatment. It oftentimes winds up getting people fired or they quit. Your relationships go south because you're not doing what everybody else wants you to do.

It's very difficult to recover those relationships. And mass media really doesn't do anything to help. I mean, virtually the only time you see mass media talk about mental illness is in connection with a mass shooting or a famous person's suicide. And those aren't two things that encourage people. people to seek mental health help, you know. And they put a, they put a suicide hotline on at a time when they're not really encouraging people, because who wants to think of themselves as a mass murderer? You know, who wants to think of themselves as being ready to commit suicide?

So if the mainstream media really wanted to do something, they would put public service announcements on every day. They don't have to be 15, more than 15 seconds. They just start the same number. They say, if you're feeling bad mentally for whatever reason, call this number, you know. Don't associate it with mass murders and with famous people's suicides. So in a nutshell, I can see we're coming up to 1030 if you have any more questions. Yeah, no, it's very, it's very poignant. And I want to, I don't like interrupting when someone is elicited.

as brilliantly as you are. I have five words. If you listen to any of our podcasts, after reading your text, my producer and I come up with five words, and then we're going to ask you to respond to those words quickly. Okay, you ready? I say the words brain health. What do you think of, Jim? I think really of brain disease.

I think it's more important to think about brain disease than brain health, because brain health is a normal condition. Okay. What about the words mental illness? I say the word mental illness. You think what? Mental illness, I think climate change. I think we've got to change it to brain disease, but it's not a task, an easy task. It's going to take decades, just like it's going to take decades to solve the climate change crop. Okay. It's a good point. And so that's the least of my next word, which is stigma. Stigma has got to be reduced, but people talk about reducing stigma, but don't understand how to reduce statement. That's what I'm saying about the mass media.

All right. I'm going to say the word success. What do you think of? That there are many successful people who have dealt with serious mental illness or brain disease that we never know about because it's not something people talk about. Yeah. What about you, Jim? I say, Jim Rishardi, what do you think of?

I think that I've been very fortunate in my life, you know. with all of the instances I've had of manic depressive episodes, I could have wound up a lot worse. You know, I know I've been suicidal at least four times, and one time I wound up in the hospital. So I could have wound up a lot worse, and I'm happy to be able to do this research and to share it with people like you. Well, first of all, it is a true delight to have you on. I think that what you're saying is very compelling. I hope you turn it into a book. Okay, the title of the article is Mental Illness and Highly Successful Persons is written by James Rosharty.

And we're going to get this out there for you to publicize it, but I want you to turn this into a book, not just a long paper. So you can be mad at me for that, Jim, but I don't care. I think it's an important story to tell, and I think it'll help to bring down the stigma that both of us, want to bring down about the disease. I'm not, I'm not angry. I'm not angry with you at all. I just knew that in the time that you wanted to have a podcast, I couldn't possibly turn it into a book.

That's okay. Well, you're on and we appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for, for joining us today. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was open book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review.

If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's Add Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers.

for CGs national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.