It’s been a while, and I’m here today to talk about mental
health and creativity.
About a year and a half ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar
disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. And I was given new meds. And it
was amazing. It still is. I feel real, and present, and human now, in a way I haven’t
in a very long time. Maybe in a way I haven’t ever—certainly not since I was a
small child, at least.
I love feeling this way. And it’s absolutely worth it.
A lot of people talk about how mental illness makes people
great artists. A lot of other people talk about how that’s a load of crap, how
pain isn’t the price we pay for a creative mind, how all the brilliant,
mentally ill artists throughout history could have made even more, even better
art if they weren’t held hostage by their own faulty brains.
Mostly I’m with that second group.
I don’t write well because I’m sick. My writing quality hasn’t
gone down because I’m less sick now.
But here’s the thing: my writing quantity has. And whatever
they tell you in school, quantity and quality are connected. The more things of
any quality you produce, the better—we improve with experience, and the more
things we make, total, the higher chance we have that some of them will be
good.
I’ve found it harder to write since getting proper
treatment. I still like to write. But I don’t need to anymore, and that makes
all the difference.
I used to get trapped in my stories. It was terrifying, sometimes. A scene would play out
in my head. And then it would play out again, and again, an endless loop for
hours or days or weeks. And the only way to escape was to write it down.
I remember, once, in a ninth grade science class, a scene popped
into my head where one of my characters died. And he kept dying, in the back of
my head, dying and dying and dying, until I was crying over nothing in the
middle of biology.
Apparently that’s a symptom of OCD. Obsessive thoughts. I
used to have a lot of those.
The great tragedy of my imagination is that its contents can
only exist in one place. I’ve spent most of my life struggling with a delicate
balancing act. The real world is ugly, and hard, and I prefer my stories. But
my stories will beat ceaselessly against my brain until they drive me mad. Or until
I write them down.
The second the final word hits the page, there’s peace. The
story is no longer trapped in my head, fighting to get out. It’s no longer in
my head at all, and that world is no longer one I can escape to. I’m alone in
my head again, and for a few hours, a few days, it’s great. And then it’s
cripplingly lonely. And then a new story comes, and it all starts over. But that
old story is something I can never have back, something that will never again
feel any more Mine than any other story, by any other author.
I’m better now. The obsessive thoughts don’t come the way
they used to. The stories are still there, but they’re not caught in a loop,
and they’re not clamoring to get out. I can focus on other things, and pull
them forward when I need them, when I’m ready for them.
I can keep them in my head, if I want to. I don’t have to
scramble to write them down just for a moment of peace and quiet in my own
mind. And that means a lot of my motivation to write is gone. It’s harder to
find the time to write when I don’t need to. It’s hard to resist the temptation
to just keep the stories inside, safe and close and Mine.
So I haven’t written much in the last year or so. And maybe,
mostly, that’s a good thing. It’s because I’m better. It’s because I have the
space inside my brain to breathe. But I miss writing things down. Miss sharing them
with people. I’ll find my way back. I’ll find a new balance. I just don’t know
how much longer it will take.
Be patient with me, please—my brain works in a whole new
way, these days, and I’m still learning to navigate.
