17. Nikola Tesla’s Surprisingly Weird OCD Rituals and his Fear of Pearls
The Serbian-American engineer and inventor is highly regarded in energy history for his development of alternating current (AC) electrical systems. Besides the AC system, Tesla helped in the development of generators and turbine design, while the earliest demonstration of fluorescent lighting was his accomplishment as well. Being one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen, however, came at high cost for Tesla’s mental health. To begin with, Tesla was born into a family filled with mental instability. His memoirs leave no doubt that his father and brother were mentally ill. Shortly after seeing his brother die, Tesla started to experience hallucinations.
He would see spontaneous flashes of blinding light, which he likened to “the air around me filled with tongues of living flame.” Nonetheless, his biggest issues in life had to do with his extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder and germaphobia. Tesla had some convoluted ritual every time he went to dine and he would perform it over and over again before he would start eating. Additionally, he always wore white gloves (way before Michael Jackson) when he ate. It’s also recorded that he had various random obsessions and phobias, such as not standing to be near women wearing pearls.