That explanation is exactly what it is. I have never read something so true about major depression, or depression in general. (Now if only one could write so creatively and informatively of delusional disorder, that would be great.)
@Jack Asher: I wondered if that website was behind that link. That article is great and sums up a lot of what depression is for me, too.
Golly, this is a very interesting thread. I'm lucky enough to have never suffered from depression myself, although, like everybody else not named Pollyanna, I do have periods where I'm unhappy, grieving, unmotivated, etc. Sometimes these periods produce good work, sometimes not. I am constantly amazed at how people who DO suffer from depression learn to cope with it. Just reading these stories on this thread is an education. I recently encountered a young man who writes fantasy. He has ADHD, which is a very odd condition to work with. He struggles very hard to keep his mind on what he's doing. He says he can only sit still for a few minutes at a time, then has to get up and run around and do something else for a while. He also says he doesn't 'feel' anything at all, and that it's part of his condition. He's very caring and concerned and selfless, actually, in his dealings with people, and yet he says he doesn't actually feel emotions. He doesn't feel joy in accomplishment, either. I just felt totally gobsmacked, hearing about this. What was even more astonishing, is the excellence of the snippets of writing he's able to produce. Not only are his characterisations vivid and very deep, but he conveys emotions extremely well—including a very wry sense of humour. Indeed, his main character is incredibly motivated to excel at what he does, and he's very creative. This young writer has built relationships between his characters which are moving and believable. Other than the fact that his scenes don't link together yet, at least not very well, he's an amazing writer. It's very upsetting to me, and probably to him as well, that his mental condition has such influence over his ability to produce. On the other hand, when he's heavily medicated (with ritalin, I believe), he says he can't write at all. So I don't know, but I just feel amazed at him, and so sad that his genius (which I feel it is) is so unlikely to produce anything solid, at least not for a long time anyway. However, he's got grit, and who knows? I certainly wish you all the best in your struggle. It makes things like two broken arms seem like small potatoes indeed.
Apologies Jack, My last post was made around 3am-ish, and I thought it was about time I went to bed. (That discipline I spoke of earlier.) I have Bi Polar II, with co morbid Borderline Personality Disorder. As much as I hate to say it, it's good to see a fellow sufferer.
@jannert: I say those things about myself all the time. I usually feel exactly the way your brother does. I'm not sure if it's for the same reasons, but I do know that writing, including these posts back and forth, is the absolute best way for me to stretch my imagination.
I'm with @MsScribble and @obsidian_cicatrix... I don't think depressed people are most creative in general. They can be very creative, for sure, or they wither away, never creating anything. Some people can't get anything done because they're depressed. They can't write because it depresses them. They can't get it even started 'cause they're, hello, depressed. I don't mean "down periods", by the way. I mean the debilitating, crushing gloom of depression, which wasn't cool or artistic or particularly creative. In fact, it sucked ass. Your brain is not just peanut butter the way it usually feels like, it's tar. Sticky, stinky, black tar. All thoughts and ideas just sort of slowly swim in it, or wade, or just get stuck, but they don't soar and there's no delight, no joy. More often than not, your mind is a black hole and no creative light escapes it. You can edit and revise, to a degree. Like a robot. But I hated, hated, hated the days when you wanted to write, but couldn't. It's better to be lucid and functional, that's when the Force Is Strong. Depression, mental problems, etc. didn't really help more than they hindered the writing process. Good thing there's therapy and drugs. Might not work for everyone, unfortunately. And, naturally, people have different experiences and some can be really creative when depressed. The human brain is a funky thing.
That's the whole point of something being a disorder or an illness - it impedes you. If it helped you in life, it wouldn't be called an illness. That's why I get so mad at the 'depressed creative' stereotype. Those of us with ADHD also get the creative tag thrown at us. (Platitudes are so much easier than thinking.) For every person with depression who makes it work despite the illness, there's god knows how many who society throws away, who's lives are limited, and who are dead. Depression kills people everyday, and medical-wise, its very poorly treated. Its not some magical doorway into creativity. Its just a sucky thing that happens to some people, like diabetes and broken bones.
It is. Playing catch up, and relating back to my own case. It's very hard for me to express my creative side, especially when it comes to writing. The depression robs me of the ability to feel, and the mania sends my ability to feel into overdrive. Insensitivity makes way for extreme sensitivity. And don't even get me started on when I suffer a mixed episode. I tend to produce short, perhaps 10, 000 - 15,000 word pieces at a time that read like short stories, linked into a hugely detailed backdrop. I'm presently attempting to write a novel and as @jannert says about her acquaintance with ADHD, I have trouble tying all my bits and pieces together. Also, I can't put my work up for public critique. I fear what a harsh reception might do to my state of mind, although I try to compensate in other ways, to get some idea of how my work is coming across, and what needs to be done to improve it. The creativity is there, it's just hard to express. It's frustrating when I have such an urge at times. I can completely relate to this. I'm feeling that way right now. I can relay a continuous train of thought at the moment, but unfortunately my writing doesn't work that way. I'm waiting for the most lucid point so I can get back to it.
@GingerCoffee: It is common knowledge for any psychiatrist, not sure why you couldn't find anything on Google, I suppose that's a limitation of internet searches. I don't feel the need to support every thought I voice with links to an article, because studies are but a drop in the sea of information and no substitute for comprehensive knowledge, in my opinion. Still, I found a few recent scholarly articles with a simple search, so you might want to try that. The journals I'd recommend in general, are JAMA Psych, Annals of Psych, American Journal of Psych, and others. I don't think it's a 'hot' research topic, so there isn't an abundance of new studies on it. Also, Googling 'writers and depression' I came up with wiki article that documents all the people who are known to suffer from major depressive episodes, which, admittedly, could be just a part of bipolar disorder, or be co-morbid with anxiety etc. I remember many of them speaking about it publicly and others who were historically documented to have such problems. This article has quite a few interesting references, but primarily it testifies to this association being known throughout history. Just a comment on clinical versus mild and moderate depression. All are physiologically characterised by disturbances in neurotransmitter levels. Clinical depression is the persistent version, which doesn't resolve quickly by itself and its intensity increases if it's not treated with medication. Psychotherapy can be useful in all types.
Very difficult - I would have thought - to determine the exact the nature of the links between mental illness and creativity. Are we saying that an urge to be creative is as much a positive symptom of, say, schizophrenia as hallucinations? Or are we saying - which is something a little different - that the creativity springs from the (universal) urge to communicate in one whose illness limits (for a huge number of reasons) their contact with others? Does engagement in a solitary artistic pursuit make you ill? And so on. I
The question can also be 'are people with affective disorders more likely to be successful in their artistic pursuits'? Which is why they feature prominently among known artists. Perhaps intimate knowledge of disordered affect, and extremes of human feeling, gives better insight with which many can identify? All those would be interesting to answer. A link doesn't imply causality nor does it explain the exact mechanism. It appears, though, that disturbance in intrinsic ability to control the levels of neurotransmitters, ie. body's propensity to fluctuate between too much and too little, is related to need to express creative ideas. We know so little about the exact effects of each neurotransmitter on things like mood, energy levels, behaviour and cognitive processes. We also know little about the intricacies of positive and negative feedback mechanisms which appear to regulate a lot of neurochemistry, as well as genetic causes of these variations. It's what makes brain research so exciting, but also frustrating to those looking for black and white answers and quick results.
I wasn't a problematic teenager, but I remember a period where WHY? was part of my everyday life. Trying to find a sense to everything, finding it for nothing. That time, I felt lost and I was writing a lot, mainly poetry. When I read some of these writings today, I remember the feeling but know that I wouldn't be able to write poems as I used to.
I've asked myself this often I know in my case it's not true. I may have a certain artistic bent, but it is constantly hampered by my condition. The greatest of my talents lies in music, but aspects of my condition prevent me from performing in public, despite the fact I am a fully trained classical musician. It makes me wonder how others did it. Sometimes, it seems to me, that the wish to see value in mental illness pushes the compilation of lists of people who have been successful to be compiled in the first place. It doesn't do to say, well, Joe Blogs was an extremely gifted painter. That doesn't really impress the point that it still can be possible to be successful. The onset of my illness was obvious to me from the age of 14 and to everyone else by around 18. By that point my personality was already established. I feel a constant struggle between my latent personality and my illness. Makes me wonder how that affects the outcome.
Thank you. I will surely take a look at those resources. I have become a big fan of ebooks-- love having them on my Kindle Paperwhite, and my new Kindle Fire HDX 7" ships any day now; looking forward to its light weight, hoping it is light enough to use to replace my Paperwhite; and i will welcome the quad core processor as i do a lot of highlighting in ebooks and the Paperwhite has a delay for that given it is e-ink technology.
I'm not sure why you think Google is limited in scope. The link I cited was a review of the literature by an MD and he cited the sources he was using to base his opinion on. "Common knowledge among [doctors, surgeons, psychiatrists, nurses] " is not the standard for today's evidence based medicine. You don't need to support anything you post. If there was some evidence connecting mood disorders to creativity, I would reconsider my conclusion that it's a myth, but I haven't seen any.
@GingerCoffee: Sure, believe whatever you want, it's a free country. I won't be replying to your posts again.
I was trained as an artist, and I'm desperately afraid to practice my art because it will drive me manic, and I'll spend days working, neglecting my wife or my actual job. Then spend the rest of the week thinking in quadrangles. Of course I'm fairly successfully medicated, and I've found that writing is a safe outlet for my creativity. Though if I write when I'm manic I usually have to go back and comb it pretty thoroughly. I've written some of my best dialogue that way, but it took several passes to render it cogent.
@Jack Asher: I think even people without bipolar have a tendency to get engrossed in art at the expense of everything else It's tricky to balance. What works best to prevent relapses in bipolar is to have that one person who you trust to tell you that you're going high, at which point you see a doctor early and adjust the meds or some other aspect and keep yourself well. I have known a couple of bipolar colleagues and they swore by such arrangement, both at work and at home.
@obsidian_cicatrix: It can be difficult with early onset illness. They tend to be more severe and difficult to treat, and co-morbid factors can make things more difficult. It's really cool you are a classical musician, something I always wanted to do. What do you play? I'm a really good singer and actress, but crippled by performance anxiety too, so I never pursued it beyond highschool. It's a pity, but I always remind myself that if it wasn't for that, I'd never ended up doing some other amazing things. Silver lining all the way
To be honest, I'm not against it, but I agree that Refer to my previous post if you're curious for more details. In short, you can learn any way any how. It doesn't matter whether you take formal classes or learn through practice. All that matters it the quality of the work you churn out.
@Jack Asher Painting has the same effect on me. Same here. There's something very spontaneous about the dialogue I write when manic, which gives it a more realistic feel, especially if it's a two handed conversation. Unfortunately my narrative tends to get a bit (a lot) more florid than I would like, and I always have to refer back to it at a later date, and do a bit of hack and slash. Generally, while my world is incredibly detailed, I render it in a very economical fashion, in the end. Otherwise, it would be unreadable. @jazzabel The early onset thing was strange. It was assumed I was acting out in typical teenage fashion. I knew myself there was something not right, but it took those around me a while to see the patterns that I'd already become aware of. I was heavily medicated for a long time. Typical cocktails of anti convulsants/psychotics, blockers, etc. I've never been prescribed anti-depressants as I'm deemed too big a suicide risk. I can go for days without sleep when I'm manic, but again, the only drugs my docs will prescribe are hypnotics, which don't work. I made the decision 10 years ago to try dealing with the condition without meds. (I know, I know... such a bi polar cliché. ) My liver was starting to suffer. It was against both the Consultant Psychiatrist and my own doctors advice. I was wise enough to realise I needed to ween myself off and did it very gradually. I really wish they could have supported my efforts. (I got the feeling they were rolling their eyes and thinking... Yeah, yeah... another Beeper off her meds.) I have a great support network, of a few very close friends who always keep an eye. They ensure that I don't retreat into myself by including me in activities. They make sure I'm eating, drinking and sleeping enough, but not too much. Without them, I don't know what I would do. They can tell when I'm starting to reach critical level, one way or the other, and change tack accordingly. When I started my last job, I was in a bit of a quandry whether to 'fess up, or not. I decided, in the end, to do so as I didn't want them to get the wrong idea if I took a manic turn. Both my bosses and the general staff were great. Despite mental health problems still carrying a stigma, I find that when people understand the nature of an illness, they are less judgmental, and it helps a great deal to not feel compelled to try and hide the symptoms. (Although, obviously, sometimes it's beyond my control to do that anyway.) I studied classical guitar. I've been playing since I was 6.... very rusty now though. I go for long periods without playing, and so the muscles in my fretting hand contract and it takes a lot of work to keep it fluid. I'm not resentful that I can't play in public anymore. Playing is a great comfort and release when I can't verbally express myself, as so very often happens when I'm depressed.
I don't think I'm bi-polar or have ADHD, but I do think that I may have a similar thing of some sort. There are some days (usually early afternoon to mid afternoon) when my senses are oddly heightened, I can't focus on anything, I feel freezing and I feel like I'm going insane. Luckily, those don't happen too often.
