Mental Illness and Creativity

I’d like to thank litebeing chronicles for inspiring me to write this post.

People have this conception that a prerequisite to creativity is some form of mental illness. After all, don’t you have to be some sort of mad to spend hours on some piece of art that may never see the light of day? I suppose so, but then there are a variety of mental illnesses out there, some that might enhance creativity, and others that may inhibit it.

I can only speak as a person with bipolar disorder who has gone through mania, hypomania, mixed states, and depressive episodes. I can’t speak for any other type of mental illness, like schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder or panic disorder or even borderline personality disorder. So my experiences with creativity, or lack thereof, only come from my experiences with my own mental illness.

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night. Oil on canvas, 73×92 cm, 28¾×36¼ in. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mental illness can enhance creativity in some aspects. I never hallucinated during my manic episodes, but the fast, racing thoughts and overexcitement of life seemed to have resurrected dead creative brain cells that were lying dormant in their little graves. Stolentime was partly the product of a manic episode and mostly the product of my sanity working through what my mania came up with. Of course, the novel was a completely different story then, but only because my mania had no filter and no way to logically structure a story. So while my mania came up with an idea, it couldn’t bring that idea to proper fruition because the thoughts I had were too grandiose and I couldn’t look at reality properly. I was completely delusional, so to speak.

I once read some of Van Gogh’s paintings were a product of his mania, but there was no mention whether he painted them while he was manic or after he was manic because mania can give you thousands of ideas, most that you’re not even going to remember.

But depression inhibited my creativity. My brain was so weighed down by this thick, heavy black fog that it couldn’t come up with anything new. It kept trying to grasp on to those ideas it came up with during mania, but it didn’t have the energy to put any sort of logic to them. However, I do think some writers have used their depression to their advantage. Apparently Sylvia Plath wrote her final novel when depressed before ending her own life, so it is possible to write while depressed–just very, very difficult. I couldn’t really brainstorm Stolentime while depressed, but I had enough in me to work on When Stars Die because it didn’t take whole re-writes.

Overall, I think mental illness can enhance creativity, but after the fact. It’s very difficult to enact creative processes while ill, but that doesn’t mean one can’t use one’s illness as a source of inspiration–might as well make something good come from the bad, right?

Symptoms of Clinical Depression Are Not Romantic for Writers

“As a writer, I believe depression is necessary. By going through these dark places, we are able to come back and illustrate just how beautiful the light really is.”

I found this post on Tumblr and almost wanted to scream. The poster and I got into a spat and she tried to explain what she actually meant, but anyone reading the above quote is going to get the exact same implication regardless: that depression is being romanticized and only those who are depressed and heal from it can become truly great writers.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night. Oil on canvas, 73×92 cm, 28¾×36¼ in. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Do you want to end up like Van Gogh?

I don’t care that the writer told me she meant depressed writers should seek solace in writing and should not take the good days for granted to better their writing because that is not at all what she said in her writing. This is a lesson in writing, that you need to write clearly so there is no miscommunication between you and reader. Granted, even the most obvious sentences can draw miscommunication, but it is not my job as a reader to read your mind in order to understand what you actually meant.

In any case, let’s backpedal to the original statement. I wanted to scream reading this. I will admit upfront my depression influenced the latest book I am working on, but it was not worth being depressed for. I would have traded my depression for anything. However, I might as well use my past experiences with depression to create a story about a treatment-resistant teen that will hopefully inspire teens struggling with depression to seek help. But, again, I neither need nor want depression to create stellar story ideas.

There is nothing romantic about sleeping more than half the day, no longer having the ability to enjoy what you do, being unable to eat because you have zero appetite and can barely eat because your stomach can’t hold much, having breakdowns several times a week, wishing you were dead because the pain feels unending, existing with an unquiet mind that wants to destroy you, and having to work 100x harder than the average person to get anything done. It is grueling, and I would have been happy to give my depression to anyone who feels the need to romanticize it.

You don’t need to go through dark places to understand the light–that cliché bullcrap. You simply need to be sensitive with an honest mind and an honest heart.

When Stars Die did not come out of any depression or even past experiences with depression. Yet, that is, thus far, the best book I have ever written because I used my sensitivity and the humanitarian aspects of myself to create Amelia and her story. I am a naturally sensitive person. Depression has made me more sensitive, but that isn’t a good thing. It’s because I’m still raw, still healing, from being depressed, and depression itself is honestly traumatizing, so I’m still trying to shake that off. The only thing depression has done was inspire a story. It does not influence my writing or my ability to create a troubled teen. It did not make me a better writer or storyteller. It just gave me an idea. That’s it. And I’m pretty sure for most writers struggling with depression or who have struggled, they can attest that it neither made them a good story teller nor a good writer. It might have just given them a story idea.

So the above quote enrages me because now vulnerable teens on Tumblr are going to read that and think depression is somehow romantic.