On October 2, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson was found lying half naked on the floor of the White House bathroom.

He'd suffered a stroke on the toilet and crumpled in a heap.

Two red gashes had opened up on his nose and temple where he'd struck some exposed plumbing after collapsing.

A White House usher later saw Wilson laid out on a bed like a wax dummy, looking all but dead.

For the next few months, servants had to prop Wilson up in a wheelchair each morning and hand feed him.

He spent his days either zoning out in the garden or watching silent movies on a projector.

Even when Wilson returned to work, he could barely function and he often broke down crying to everyone's embarrassment.

A staffer later described him as a broken, ruined, old man.

But there was one person who really wasn't bothered by all this. Wilson himself.

Despite being weak and bound to a wheelchair and even partly paralyzed, Wilson seemed oblivious to how sick he was.

He actually started campaigning for a third presidential term in 1920 and he got furious if anyone suggested he retired.

When Wilson lost the Democratic nomination for president that year, he was crushed and he left the White House in tears in 1921.

He still thought he was at his peak, both mentally and physically.

His health did not get better over the next few years and neither did his delusion.

As late as January 1924, he sat down to write his, quote, third inaugural address, confident that he would still win that year's election.

Right up until he died a month later, Wilson was convinced he was 100% healthy.

So what was going on here? Was it just stubbornness? Perhaps you don't get to be president without being strong willed.

But to be that delusional, how is that possible?

In truth, Wilson was probably suffering from a bizarre neurological disorder called anosognosia.

The name means without knowledge of disease. It describes people who, as strange as this sounds,

cannot comprehend that they're sick. It's a complete lack of self-awareness.

But however strange this seems, there is a real neurological basis for anosognosia and people engage in something similar all the time in everyday situations.

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