RESEARCH PROJECT Bush’s Anxiety Disorders

[troublemaker]

I just read this article (below) about Bush being grounded for cracking up and being unable to fly anymore. The reminiscence in the article matches up with the recent AP article about Bush’s misadventures finding the runway and eventually being taken up in a two-person trainer to get in flight hours before eventually grounding himself by refusing his physical. And that all dove-tails nicely with something recently posted on DU (help finding?) about the very last time Bush ever piloted an airplane, taking one of his buddies on a harrowing Cessna ride where Bush seemed to be wrestling with some inner demons and drove right off the runway.

So let’s collect up all material relating to:

1. Bush’s performance/ability to fly at various times
2. Bush as phobic and/or prone to panic attacks or freezing up
3. Bush being treated for anxiety disorders

It has been said that this story is a smoke-screen or cover-up for cocaine. A lot of anxiety disorders are associated with cocaine use and alcoholism, so it’s certainly not an either/or proposition. I expect that whatever break-down he might have had was drug-related and it's all facets of one big story. (And even if given a choice of media-exposure and/or proof between Bush doing drugs or losing his nerve while wearing the uniform it's highly debatable which is more damaging.)

We’ve had thousands of drunk and drug using war heroes, but not many war heroes that just freeze-up under stress. He’s already essentially admitted to being a reformed dope-addict, but turning yellow is something new and something the media cannot pretend doesn’t bear on legitimate questions of future performance. Anxiety disorders are not voluntary. Bush can promise us that he will be sober when the missiles start coming in, but he can’t promise not to freak out.

And if Bush does have a psychiatric history of suddenly freezing up… well, then the seven minutes move front and center. It would be interesting if Bush had a problem similar to baseball players who wake up one day still able to play fine on reflex but suddenly being unable to make routine throws where you have time to think about what you’re doing. It sounds silly, but it has ended more than one baseball career. I’m guessing similar syndromes afflict pilots.

My own guess is that Bush has attacks and is currently treated with a high dose of Paxil daily (dosages for anxiety disorders are higher than for depression) and with Xanax for crisis management, like when he’s too freaked out for public appearances. (He was clearly doped up for two weeks ending with the D-Day trip)

Have at it!

Fear of Flying Article: http://www.legitgov.org/essay_eastman_bush_fear_of_flying_in_guard_092304.html

DU thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x889877

[A_Possum]

1. I actually think that Georgie being afraid to fly a fighter jet...

would hurt him way worse in the public eye than the cocaine.

The cocaine has a "rebel" aura, plus it's been bandied around forever. Learning to fly and then getting so scared to do it that you turn tail and quit...

well, that's a coward and quitter. Plus it ruins the military tough guy image.

[LiberalEsto]

2. His anxiety disorder

could also stem from having such dysfunctional parents : Barbara "Why should I bother my beautiful mind..." and Poppy, the CIA Iran-Contra snake. It could screw up anyone.

I'd almost feel sorry for * if it weren't for all the death and m isery he has dumped on the world.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides

From Capitol Hill Blue

Bush Leagues
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 4, 2004, 06:15



President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."

more
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml

lots more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=602189

[blm]

4. He needed liquor/drugs to relate to women.

His fear of horses, yet, since Dec200 he's been pretending to be a rancher for his photo ops.

[nostamj]

12. this is a BIG issue in KK's book....

* could NOT relate to women unless he was plastered...

[mhr]

5. I Think He Was Following In His Father's Footsteps By Flying

He probably overcompensated during training.

Eventually, the stress of doing something that terrified him led to drugs and alcohol.

This started a downward spiral that eventually led to diminished capacity.

Ultimately he refused his flight physical because it would ground him permanently.

His flight to Alabama was a desperate escape from reality. In essence he was hiding.

His continued refusal to drill seems logical as he sought to find anyway out of his dilemma.

Ultimately, Bush may be tragically human in that he was and probably still is incapable of facing his past fear.

[mhr]

6. Kick

eom

[Avalux]

7. Horses....

isn't he afraid of horses? Don't have a source, remember reading it somewhere though. And still, he pretends to be a Texas rancher.

[starroute]

8. Here's the 1976 Cessna story

http://www.seanet.com/~johnco/bush102.htm

Bush banged on the door of Susie and Don Evans on an otherwise placid Sunday afternoon and suggested to Don that they head out to the airport and spend a few bucks for a spin over the desiccated Permian Basin in a single-engine Cessna. ... Evans said he'd love to go flying. At the airport he watched Bush stare at the controls, at the panel, and he realized that Bush-though not admitting it-had no idea how to fly the thing properly. After finally figuring out how to launch the plane, Bush pushed the Cessna hard down the runway. Evans screamed, "Give it some gas!" The Cessna's warning system was blinking and crackling. Bush tried to lift his craft fast, almost as if he were piloting a jet back in the Texas Air National Guard. The plane wobbled into the air, and the unsubtle maneuvering threatened to shove it into a stall.

<snip>

After more seemingly endless moments, he somehow got control of the plane again. He aimed the aircraft down, and the landing was as shaky and brutal as the takeoff. The plane careened off the runway and onto the desert. Evans sighed in relief. Then an unbelieving Evans braced himself as Bush suddenly and unexpectedly spun the plane and bounced back along the runway. Evans stared at Bush. He could see the fear and panic flooding his face. Bush pressed on. Evans had no idea why Bush wanted to go again. The plane wobbled uncertainly back into the West Texas skies, and Bush turned to Evans. "Hey," said Bush airily, as if he had just had an original, amusing idea, "let's fly around Midland."

The men began cracking up. Bush brought the Cessna back to the airport. It was the last time he flew a plane.

[troublemaker]

9. Thank you!

[troublemaker]

10. Anyone have a link for the AP Story? (The one that detailed Bush messing

up landings toward the end of his TANG flying career)

[mondohondo]

11. From an earlier post of mine

This is an area with which I have had some unfortunate experience.

When one overindulges in alcohol it depresses the functioning of the body's systems. Your body responds after you sober up by dumping a ton of adrenaline into your system to make up for its previous depressed state. This is what causes the "shakes" in serious alcoholics. It can also cause severe panic attacks that cause the victim to associate whatever activity they were engaged in at the time of an attack negatively with that activity. Panic attacks are no fun. You hyperventilate, further compounding the problem, and can't think straight. Your body revolts quite unpleasantly against what you are trying to do. The victim learns to associate panic attacks with engaging in a particular activity. Consequently, they avoid participating in that activity.

Today, fortunately, there are medications (e.g., clonazapam) that can help immensely in suppressing those panicky feelings. I don't think such medication was available in the early 1970's. In those days, I think you were either branded as a coward or you had to go through deep immersion therapy with a psychiatrist to pull you away from your fear.

Lets just play a game called lets suppose. Suppose Bush, after a hard night of drinking, climbs into the cockpit of his jet plane, takes off and experiences the kind of adrenaline kick I described earlier. Maybe he also drank a cup or two of black coffee to bring himself out of his hangover (caffeine AND adrenaline coursing through his system. Bad idea).

Based on my experience he may have had an extremely difficult time flying his aircraft. He would have trouble thinking clearly, he would have been hyperventilating, his hands and feet would be sweating and he'd have a serious tingling sensation in his limbs. He would have been lucky to have brought the plane back to earth safely. I think he would have had a hard time explaining what happened and surely wouldn't admit that he had experienced a panic attack (not very macho you see). Even though he was scared to death.

As a consequence, he would have done anything to avoid flying again, which appears to have been the case. He ran off to Alabama and refused to take a flight physical. He flew only in training craft with another pilot present. More than likely he was in a state of denial that there was anything wrong, but he also may have welcomed any circumstance that kept him out of the pilot's seat.

I know how resourceful my fellow DU'ers are at digging up the facts. It might be worthwhile to find out whether there are any records of aberrant flight behavior by Lt. Bush during the time in question. I'm guessing that he experienced some severe booze-induced panic attacks while flying and that is why he abandoned his post with the TANG.

[Lisa]

13. this may be a bit too early in his life ...

His Little League coach says he would hesitate when he had to catch the ball -- I do that myself, and admittedly I'm a bit timid, but I'm sure that this doesn't necessarily mean that the two characteristics go together!


http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/04/white.house.tball/

http://www.bushfiles.com/10_29_99/bush_lit_102900.htm
"He said, "He wasn't the best Little League player in the world, he was almost afraid of the ball, but he was in on every play. He was just always there.""


The fact he always had difficulty hitting, even when he went on to try for the Yale team -- hand-eye co-ordination problems?

[starroute]

14. Could it be related to whatever his learning disability is?

We know he has some sort of information-processing disability. There are stories kicking around online about how he has trouble taking in briefings unless the information is presented to him in three different ways (text, spoken summary, and illustrations.)

And we also know how clumsy he is -- falling off bikes, falling off his Segway, struggling to get out of a plane door. Is it possible that he started flying figuring it would be easy and then found that he just didn't have the coordination and ability to focus necessary to do it under stress? That he found himself in over his head and panicked?

My older son has a disability -- mania, or racing thoughts -- which is now being controlled with Risperdal, but all through school no one noticed it because he was able to compensate by being really bright. His teachers would strenuously deny there was any problem, even when I asked them why a kid as bright as my son could only seem to get B's and C's. My son knew he had a problem but was terrified of being found out and was more willing to be thought of as lazy than as weird.

Could it be that Bush grew up in something of the same situation and compensated for it in even more counter-productive ways? Bright (people who know him swear he is) but mentally disabled, covering it over, more willing to be seen as a screw-up and goof-off than to admit it, messing up constantly and just walking away from his messes, and self-medicating with booze and cocaine.

Another thing about my son is that he can have enormous trouble making decisions. He says that as a kid, he'd sometimes get paralyzed in front of a candy machine, unable to decide what to get with his quarter. Even now he can have trouble making decisions, expecially when there is no strong emotional factor pushing him in a particular direction. Could this also be Bush's problem and explain why he goes all deer-in-the-headlights when he needs to be acting decisively?

And one more thing -- my son says that his disability used to get in the way of his relating to people and picking up on the subtle verbal and body language signals you need to get along and make friendships. He would tend to interact with people manipulatively instead, pushing their buttons just because it felt good to make some sort of emotional connection, even if it was a negative one. That's why he would torment his younger brother, and it's why he would deliberately annoy the other kids at school, even though it got him picked on even harder.

Many of Bush's behaviors seem like substitutions of this sort for real intimacy -- socializing, drunken pranks, nicknames, goading. My son isn't at all like Bush -- he's basically a sweet, pretty level-headed fellow, where Bush is a drunken bully. But I can see a number of the same kind of compensations in their behavior.

[Gruenemann]

15. no problem coordinating his fist

with opposing rugy players' faces.

Is he left-handed like his daddy? I saw a picture of him holding a bat left-handed.

Left-handed people tend to have lots of problems, including a much shorter life span.

Before anyone jumps on me, just be aware that I myself am a lefty in more than politics.

[Lisa]

17. left-handers forced to switch can have speaking/coordination probs

That's what they used to do to kids a couple of generations ago. My dad, now in his 70s, experienced that -- they actually gave him the strap in school for using the "wrong" hand! He writes and draws (beautifully) with his right hand today, but his doctors have said that his apparent confusion at times, when speaking, is probably due to this.

Bush and Clinton were born in the same year. Clinton's left-handed but he doesn't discuss being made to use his right hand in school. Admittedly Bush in that upper-crust private school, and they might have been more old-fashioned about that kind of thing -- but I haven't found any mention of Bush possibly being left-handed. In fact, that sports article I cited earlier suggests that he can only dribble a basketball with his right hand.

p.s. about what Starroute said -- not necessarily linked with a learning disability, but Bush's folks had very high expectations for him and prodded him relentlessly by comparing him with his siblings. One reaction to this may have been to "opt out" and just not try hard, to avoid being needled (especially by his mom). After a while, people knew better than to demand things of him, and he got his wish to be left alone. But he is still able to "ambush" people by suddenly appearing sharp -- and he apparently enjoys this. He can get the praise without the constant pressure to perform.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. According to this psychologist, Bush is driven by love-hate for parents

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1033904,00.html

"...As the alcoholic George Bush approached his 40th birthday in 1986, he had achieved nothing he could call his own. He was all too aware that none of his educational and professional accomplishments would have occured without his father. He felt so low that he did not care if he lived or died. Taking a friend out for a flight in a Cessna aeroplane, it only became apparent he had not flown one before when they nearly crashed on take-off. Narrowly avoiding stalling a few times, they crash-landed and the friend breathed a sigh of relief - only for Bush to rev up the engine and take off again..."

"...On the one hand, Bush worshipped and aspired to emulate him . Peter Neumann, an Andover roommate, recalls that, "He idolised his father, he was going to be just like his dad." At Yale, a friend remembered a "deep respect" for his father and when he later set up in the oil business, another friend said, "He was focused to prove himself to his dad." On the other hand, deep down, Bush had a profound loathing for this perfect model of American citizenship whose very success made the son feel a failure..."

[Lisa]

19. Bush: "Dad's idea of the perfect son was Al Gore"

http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=31470&

http://www.dke.org/bushyaletimes.html
"Can you imagine how much it hurt," Mr. Bush once joked to a crowd, "to know that Dad's idea of the perfect son was Al Gore?"




Interesting.

[vogonity]

18. Drugs/Alcohol

Does anyone remember back during campaign 2000 about how * hated to be away from home and missed his favorite pillow and all that. From around the same time I remember stories about how he got more irritable throughout the day and basically had to be in bed by 9:30 or 10:00.

My hypothesis is that he probably was only mildly medicated throughout the day when making campaign stops and such. He probably could only barely hang on until he could get behind a locked door and finally "relax", probably with prescription meds. Xanax seems a likely candidate.

I don't think he was drinking back in 2000. I think he probably is drinking now. Does anyone know if his excercise regimen has changed dramatically in the last year or so? I think I read somewhere that he has "knee problems" and cannot run anymore. Chronic knee problems can be quite painful and would provide a semi-reasonable cover story for the prescription of pain medication. And of course we would need to provide some "Texas-sized" pain meds for someone like *. Once that door is open, I don't think that it is a huge strech to prescribe all kinds of things. * certainly does not need to send his maid out to meet someone in a dark parking lot with a shoebox full of money to get stuff like OxyContin or whatever. Jeebus, Karl Rove could probably make one phone call and get them directly delivered from Glaxo-Wellcomb or one of the other phamaceutical manufacturers.

There is one thing that I would REALLY like to know. What is the protocol for disturbing the little emperor "after hours?" Are there strict "no contact" rules to avoid anyone accidently encountering * in an intoxicated state?

I have first-hand knowledge of more than one family where the parents are quite simply not-reachable after about 8pm because they are simply to drunk to come to the phone.

GWB-- Worst President in American History. Period.