Mary Todd Lincoln is said to have had a personality that ranged from aggressive and demanding to eccentric and overly indulgent. Then there are accounts that she was a caring mother, devoted to her family. These personality traits are very contradictory to each other and this makes one reflect on who Maria really was. It is commonly known that Mary was mentally insane; so much so that her son had her committed to a mental institution in her final years. Mary's life, which began at an early age, was full of unimaginable tragedies that must have been difficult to deal with, especially in the eyes of public judgment. Mary lived in a time when mental illness was not yet properly diagnosed and treated, but after so many years of psychological progress, we can see that she could indeed have been suffering from an overabundance of emotional trauma that caused depression and not insanity. at all. Perhaps Mary's eccentric behavior could be explained by looking at the traumatic events that shaped her life. Mary's first experience with death came at age six when her mother died and less than six months after Eliza Todd's death, her father remarried. The sudden marriage became "the talk of the town", but despite this Betsey became Mary's new "but". So, Maria lost her mother and found a stepmother in a very short time. This has certainly caused emotional upset and is the first time Mary has described herself as a victim. In Jean Baker's biography of Mary she writes, "Mary Todd Lincoln remembered her childhood as bleak and herself a victim." During her childhood she went to school just a mile from her home, but instead of traveling the short distance Mary left on Monday and returned on Friday due to... middle of paper... arch 28, 2014 http://rogerjnorton.com /Lincoln16.html_, “An Overview of Mary Todd Lincoln's Life,” Mary Todd Lincoln research site, last modified 2014, accessed April 1, 2014. http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln76.html_ , “Mary Todd Lincoln and Clairvoyance ” Mary Lincoln Research Site, last modified 2014, accessed April 2, 2014, http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln44.html_, “Mary Todd Lincoln's Confinement in an Asylum,” Mary Todd Lincoln Research Site, last modified 2014, accessed on April 6, 2014 http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln22.htmlPouba,Katherine, Tianen,Ashley, “Lunacy in the 19th Century: Women's Admission to Asylums in United States of America,” Oshkosh Scholar, Volume I, April (2006): 95-103. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/6687Turner, Justin and Linda Turner. Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc, 1972