* Perhaps the most interesting, and new, revelations in a NY Magazine piece about Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr…

Jesse Jr. had in fact been struggling for some time. He had long suffered occasional but violent mood swings—laughing one moment, sobbing the next—so much so that nearly a decade ago members of his staff half-jokingly diagnosed their boss as bipolar. His condition worsened dramatically after the disappointment of not getting the Senate seat and the stress of the subsequent investigation and revelation of his adultery. The congressman who prided himself on never missing a vote became an absentee legislator. “He did absolutely nothing,” says former Illinois congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, who served in the House with Jackson in 2009 and 2010.

Earlier this year, however, Jackson was reenergized. Halvorson, who’d lost her reelection bid in 2010, ran against Jackson in the Democratic primary for his redrawn district—the stiffest electoral test he had faced since 1995. Jackson rose to the challenge, pouring himself into the campaign and, in March, he thumped Halvorson by taking more than 70 percent of the vote.

But soon after his victory, he plunged into a deep funk. This may have been brought about by the fact that the FBI had opened an investigation into whether he’d used campaign money to decorate his home. But it seems just as likely that Jackson, having worked so hard to hold onto his seat, now had to confront the crushing reality that all of his effort had merely resulted in his remaining in the same place.

According to a friend, Jackson began “drinking heavily, self-medicating, and going days without sleep. He was out of control. He was on a path that was self-destructive. Something had to change.” Indeed, although Sandi portrayed her husband’s hospitalization that night in June as a spur-of-the-moment decision, others close to Jackson suspect it was the result of a planned intervention—something the congressman’s friends and family had been discussing for weeks.

Go read the whole thing.