Mental Illness and George Albert Smith

I recently ran across an article entitled “Cheat the Asylum of a Victim”: George Albert Smith’s 1909–12 Breakdown, written by Mary Jane Woodger which can be found in the Journal of Mormon History. (George Albert Smith link, go to page 113.)  Although George Albert Smith lived in the years before mental illness was recognized and widely treated, it recounts his symptoms as observed by family members and his doctors that point to him experiencing many years of anxiety and depression. This year at church, you may know that we are studying the life and works of George Albert Smith. I think that the Curriculum Committee of the church missed a tremendous opportunity with the production of the manual for study this year when they failed to mention President Smith's struggles with mental illness.  Most of us know someone (if not ourselves) who has struggled with mental illness. We know someone who has or have ourselves, taken anti-depressants, stimulants, or has gone through extensive counseling. It is no secret that in the past, church leaders and church members have often misunderstood mental illness. However, we live at a time when we can all safely view mental illness as a biological problem, like cancer, that needs to be treated. I think however, that many people who suffer with these issues still feel stigmatized, and some yet think that it is simply an emotional or spiritual failing.  How empowering, refreshing, and hopeful that information in the manual could have been, had it been included in the study of his life.  How much greater his accomplishments would be seen, at least by those who have struggled with anxiety and depression if they knew that one as great as him had struggled, yet still been an amazing prophet!

It is therefore tragic that the new manual does not mention George Albert Smith’s lifelong struggle with what appears to be some sort of chronic depression and anxiety disorder.  Instead it describes his health issues and years of convalescence as strictly physical maladies (which though technically correct, obfuscates the real mental illness component of his suffering). Here is a fairly large excerpt from the article from the Journal of Mormon History.

"ON APRIL 12, 1910, DR. HEBER J. SEARS wrote briskly to his nephew: “A letter from your mother brings the sad intelligence that you are down with nervous frustration. . . . For Heaven’s sake George— ‘Side step or step backward not forward.’ Cheat the asylum of a victim.  Dump your responsibility for a while before the hearse dumps your bones.”  His nephew was George Albert Smith, then a forty year-old apostle who was almost totally incapacitated, physically and emotionally. But he survived to become Church president at age seventy five.

In appraising George Albert’s symptoms since 1907, Dr. Ford McBride suggests that George Albert may have experienced a panic attack or a major depression.  George Albert’s “good work ethic” exposed him to additional pressures because of an apparent “personality style that lent itself to hypersensitivity,” manifest in a preoccupation with “what he ate along with a lot of pressure he seems to have felt to measure up to other’s expectations.”  Although George Albert’s “physical pains” were real, they seem excessive were the diagnosis to be either thyroid or lupus. The “extreme impairment” George Albert experienced “seems to be an overreaction” to his physical maladies and symptomatic of a panic attack or depressive episode.

George Albert wrestled with both physical and emotional health issues throughout his life, but this article focuses on conditions leading to an episode of nervous exhaustion that lasted from 1909 to 1912, then describes an experience George Albert had in the spring of 1911 that changed his approach to both physical and emotional limitations. The story of his triumph over these maladies, is documented in surpris- ing detail in his correspondence and journals, much of it quoted here for the first time, and in related papers of those close to him. His story deserves telling for the hope it conveys to individuals likewise suffering from physical illnesses that often bring in their wake emotional distress and the inability to serve in Church callings despite their desire to be healed, faith manifested in seeking priesthood blessings, and earnest prayer. Although it is possible from a modern perspective to offer appropriately tentative diagnoses of the organic cause of his ailment and also his mental depression, Smith felt that prayer was his main resource in dealing with his condition.  George Albert’s nervous collapse, as it was called, reached its pinnacle in February 1909, leaving him so impaired that he was unable to work or even to deliver a public address.  A decade later, he recalled in a conference address, “I have been in the valley of the shadow of death in recent years, so near the other side that I am sure that for the special blessing of our Heavenly Father I could not have remained here. . . . The nearer I went to the other side, the greater was my assurance that the gospel is true.”

George Albert’s difficulties were certainly not all physically based, although mental or emotional instability was seldom given much attention except for outright insanity in the early twentieth cen- tury. Those close to George Albert Smith were aware of some emotional problems. Grandchild George Albert Smith V suggests that his grandfather struggled with depression, feeling incompetent, and being overwhelmed. There were times when “he just could not pull it all together.”  Another granddaughter, Shauna Lucy Stewart Larsen, who lived in George Albert’s home for twelve years as a child, remembers that “when there was great, tremendous stress, mostly [of] an emotional kind, it took its toll and he would literally have to go to bed for several days.”  Grandson Robert Murray Stewart remembers, “There were problems associated with his mental health, just maintaining control of himself.”  Given what seems to be George Albert’s emotional fragility, physical illness may have been a socially acceptable way for him to retreat, rest, and regroup before tackling his responsibilities again with renewed determination. Well known for his sensitivity and compassion, he too-easily took on others’ burdens. At one point he confided to a stake president, “[Even] when things are normal my nerves are not very strong and when I see other people in sorrow and depressed I am easily affected.”  One of his grandchildren observed that George Albert “took everything so much to heart”; others’ problems “became such a part of him” that when associates experienced difficulties it just “wiped him out” and he would go to bed for days at a time.  Obviously his ready concern and sensitive sympathy drew those in trouble to him, which must also, at times, have been a drain on his emotional reserves. 

Complicating a physical diagnosis is the mental component.  Apparently debilitating fatigue without an obvious cause and depression can be traced back as far as Asael Smith, Joseph Sr.’s father, and coming forward to John, Joseph Sr.’s brother.  Of course, diagnosis becomes increasingly murky and uncertain, the further back in time one goes. Clinical psychologist Ford McBride corroborates the genetic component in psychological diagnosis. While “situational depression” may be triggered by a traumatic event (such as a death or divorce), the absence of such an episode suggests “clinical depression” in which “you’ll find typically some kind of a genetic history of a mother depressed or a cousin, etc.” He stressed that a family history “is very, very pertinent” in diagnosing clinical depression.  Dr. Gilmore likewise feels certain that George Albert experienced depression, although he leans toward seeing it as “secondary depression” caused by his lengthy “chronic illness” and complicated by his “frail constitution” and oversensitivity to diet."

Why did the church feel the need to leave out this very pertinent information?  Perhaps they felt it would give a negative view to President Smith's life.  Maybe they thought it "too controversial".  Whatever the reason may be, I have found great comfort knowing this added information on his life:  that he suffered from depression and anxiety as I have, and recently found out that my SECOND child has struggles with anxiety as well.  George Albert Smith was able to lead an exemplary life, full of spirituality and wonderful experiences.  And if he can, so can I, and so can my children.