6 Unbelievable Stories of Geniuses That Went Mad
From Popular Scientists to Intellectual Actors Were Pushed To Mental Illness?
Throughout history, many great men, with great accomplishments have walked over this planet. Many of the geniuses in their own right, however, there’s nothing perfect in this world, and everything has a downside. All the geniuses are a bit cuckoo in the head, and today we’re going to shed some light upon the crazy parts of 6 of these great men that reshaped history.
The Mad Painter
At the top of our list is Vincent Van Gogh, the infamous artist, whose paintings, are regarded as masterpieces, to the point where they are the foundations of the art that exists today. Unlike the majority of the artists of his time, Van Gogh was supported by his family, and despite being the genius that he was, he still feared one thing, loneliness. Van Gogh hated being alone to the point that he lived with his parents; moreover, this also led to more severe issues; he was also diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
Over time he started having hallucinations, which got worse when he used to eat his art supplies. With the flow of time, and after being rejected by his love, his anxiety and illnesses increased to the point, where he ended up cutting his ear off due to madness.
His craziness elevated in his last days. Inclusive of hurling insults and shouting at random people on the street. Even so, it helped him a little as he was further subjected to ridicule. Such events aggravated over time. Unfortunately, he ended up shooting himself in the chest and dying shortly after.
The Lonely Inventor
Nikola Tesla, an inventor of the 19th century, was way ahead of his time; he was a true visionary, and almost everyone alive has heard about the geniuses of this great man.
Tesla left his mark on the world; however, when he was alive, he was never appreciated for his efforts. Apart from his genius, there were a few very weird downsides to him.
Tesla had Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): apart from this he was infatuated with the number 3 as well, his infatuation was to the point where he would do everything 3 times. Often he would circle his building thrice before entering and whenever he stayed in a hotel, he always chose room numbers that were divisible by 3.
A bit different, from his infatuation with the number 3, he was also a very big “Germaphobe” who refused to touch anything dirty or round. Despite all his efforts to make life better for people, he died alone and unappreciated in his hotel room, with his only friends and love interests being ‘pigeons’.
The Delusional Mathematician
Vashishta Narayan Singh was born in a poor household in Bihar, India. He was a prodigy by birth and like most exceptional, he was recognized and worked to the point where he went to the University of California.
Being a mathematician, his genius rivaled that of Einstein. He even challenged some of the equations proposed by Einstein. While in the states, a fellow professor, offered his daughter hand-in marriage to him; however, he declined as he wanted to marry someone from his homeland.
In the 1970’s he came back to India, joined the faculty of IIT, Kanpur, and married a spouse arranged by his family. However, as time passed, things began to go south with both his marriage and finances, due to a lot of pressure from his wife, an advocate of luxuries.
Unrest and depression diagnosed him with Schizophrenia. Shortly after this diagnosis, his wife divorced him and he stayed in an asylum for 15 years.
After which he escaped from the asylum and was recognized by one of his friends who got him back to his family but by that time it had been too late he ended up taking his last breath in November 2019.
The Lunatic Prime Minister
Winston Churchill is best recalled for leading ‘Great Britain’ through WW-II successfully through his firey and motivational speeches. To add more laurels under his belt he was additionally a Nobel Prize Winner in the Literature category.
However, that does not mean that he was completely sane; contrary to popular belief he was a big nutjob. In addition to it, he was known to have random outbursts, which ranged from him suddenly donning his birthday outfit and parading around his office. Elliot, his son, once saw Churchill, completely naked in his office, dictating a letter to a male secretary.
The Philosopher
Pythagoras is a famous mathematician that lived in ancient Greece. He was best known for creating the Pythagoras theorem (yep, the one that you studied in school).
Pythagoras also created his own religion “Pythagoreanism”, this was a very weird religion, which had some absurd rules, including the fact that one should not eat beans, because Pythagoras believed that beans, were home to the souls of the dead.
Despite his death being shrouded in mystery, most of the stories end with him sacrificing his life to save a field of beans.
The Sadistic Mime Artist
Charlie Chaplin was a famous mime artist, from the 1900s, who’s still well known for his amazing and awe-striking silent movies. Apart from his, well-known performances in mime. Like every other genius, he had his crazy side as well.
Charlie used to hate kids and had a very disturbing infatuation with women too; he would more than often abuse his kids coupled with his teenage wives.
Charlie was very sadistic and mistreated his first wife as well; moreover, he had pedophilic tendencies, and pursued an actress by the name of Lita Grey, despite her being only 16 years old at the time.
During auditions and similar events, he would make women undress and threw custard pies on them as well, and even tried to engage in acts of intimacy with them, but instead of touching and molesting them, he used to mime the act of doing that as well, talk about being crazy and sadistic.
Chaplin wasn’t officially declared mentally ill. Nevertheless, since his mother was in direct contact with asylum and abandonment by his alcoholic father fueled the distortions in his personality development.
He was a classified case who suffered from constant depression and anxiety attacks, especially in his last years.
Connectivity Between Intelligence and Madness?
Coming towards the end, with all these geniuses, there has always been something wrong, almost as if they were paying the price for it. While we should all appreciate the good that they did they did and appreciate that their inventions got us this far.
I believe, that if we as a society are not averse to sadistic behaviors of people, then we can stand a higher chance of retaining genius minds.
Without going much into biological reasoning and evidence. I have noticed a pattern where most celebrated intellectuals suffered from some kind of mental illness!
Appreciating brilliance and achievements of the living can be made a norm, so as to avoid all these tragedies. What do y’all think?
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