Beyond the Bush Bashing -- Chavez's Poetry and Prozac

"I spoke to his psychiatrist, Dr. Chirino," she said. "He's the president's psychiatrist in Venezuela. Venezuela is a very colorful country with lots of surrealism. … What could be absurd in another country -- to speak to the psychiatrist of the president, in Venezuela you actually speak to the psychiatrist of the president. He said Hugo Chavez is bipolar and takes Prozac … He sleeps very little. … three or four hours … There are times he gets very depressed and when he does, he disappears and no one knows where he has gone," she said.

But where does the president go when he disappears? No one really knows, according to Wornat. But, she said, he could take refuge at the home of a lover. Wornat said she spoke to one of his former lovers -- and perhaps the love of Chavez's life -- Herma Marsksman, whose relationship with Chavez lasted more than 20 years. "I saw the letters he wrote her, in his handwriting, and they were very corny but very much in love," said Wornat.

Lover, Psychiatrist Describe Chavez as Abusive, Bipolar

"Herma Marksman also confirmed that he is bipolar and takes medication," said Wornat. "She said he was bipolar since he was a teen."

When Chavez has a period of depression, Wornat said, he sometimes will just stay in bed. "He could have a high of euphoria and the following week feel like he was in a deep depression. So he'd go from feeling like a king to feeling like he was in the dark," she said.

But Marksman may not have been the most important woman in Chavez's life. That place, said Wornat, is likely reserved for his grandmother. He loved his grandmother, she said. "I think she was the person he loved the most. The one person that most influenced him," she said. "I read the letters he wrote Herma, his lover, in which he spoke about how he had to forget the abuse of his mother and father."

Despite his difficult childhood, Chavez maintains a relationship with his parents, Wornat said. He was born in the state of Barinas, and his parents are the "royal family" of the state, she added.