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I don’t want to jump into my new mental illness blindly. It takes a certain amount of balance to be able to perform as a writer and yet still be heavily influenced by the debilitations of mental instability. So, over the past month I have done a great deal of research on mental illness. Here’s an overview of what I’ve found:

Depression: This was the obvious place to start. I’m not totally convinced, in fact, that it’s possible to be a creative genius without being depressed. If your life is dandy, and your family is just splendid, and you don’t concern yourself with the horrors going on in the world around you, then what in George W. Bush’s name do you have to write about?  Shakespeare’s greatest plays are tragedies about lost love or fallen leaders or broken families. Joyce’s Ulysses is really an examination of the depressed fatherless artist. “History,” says Dedalus, “is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” It’s hard to find a great book, in fact, that doesn’t have a war or social inequality at the heart of the plot. The symptoms of depression are acutely helpful for the creative mind:

• persistently sad or irritable mood (also called realism) 
• pronounced changes in sleep, appetite, and energy (spontaneity fuels creativity)
• difficulty thinking, concentrating, and remembering (post-modernism doesn’t call for coherence)  
• physical slowing or agitation (typewriters don’t move or talk back) 
• lack of interest in or pleasure from activities that were once enjoyed (more time to write!) 
• feelings of guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness, and emptiness (a laundry list of helpful emotions)
• recurrent thoughts of death or suicide (useful if you wait until after you finish your magnum opus)
• persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain. (no pain, no gain) 

Bipolar Disorder: Bipolar is a combination of depression and mania–a cocktail for creativity. In addition to the periods of depression, a person with bipolar disorder will also experience these symptoms:

• either an elated, happy mood or an irritable, angry, unpleasant mood (the cranky old writer man)
• increased physical and mental activity and energy (an obvious plus) 
• racing thoughts and flight of ideas (the root of creativity) 
• increased talking, more rapid speech than normal (or more rapid typing?)
• ambitious, often grandiose plans (…of writing the greatest novel the world has ever seen) 
• risk taking (“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” –Pierre Corneille) 
• impulsive activity such as spending sprees, sexual indiscretion, and alcohol abuse (like a visual artist, writers need an engaging subject)
• decreased sleep without experiencing fatigue (Jack Kerouac is said to have written On the Road in two weeks)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Even though several of my favorite writers suffered from OCD, I don’t really see an advantage to symptoms of obsession or compulsion. It seems like some of the symptoms will simply develop on their own and get in the way of the creative process. 

Schizophrenia: This illness is significantly more debilitating, but has a few beneficial possibilities. Here’s a description of the symptoms according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI):

• Positive Symptoms, or “psychotic” symptoms, include delusions and hallucinations because the patient has lost touch with reality in certain important ways. “Positive” refers to having overt symptoms that should not be there. Delusions cause individuals to believe that people are reading their thoughts or plotting against them, that others are secretly monitoring and threatening them, or that they can control other people’s minds. Hallucinations cause people to hear or see things that are not present.
• Negative Symptoms include emotional flatness or lack of expression, an inability to start and follow through with activities, speech that is brief and devoid of content, and a lack of pleasure or interest in life. “Negative” does not refer to a person’s attitude but to a lack of certain characteristics that should be there.
• Cognitive Symptoms pertain to thinking processes. For example, people may have difficulty with prioritizing tasks, certain kinds of memory functions, and organizing their thoughts. A common problem associated with schizophrenia is the lack of insight into the condition itself. This is not a willful denial but rather a part of the mental illness itself. Such a lack of understanding, of course, poses many challenges for loved ones seeking better care for the person with schizophrenia.
• Other: Schizophrenia also affects mood. While many individuals affected with schizophrenia become depressed, some also have apparent mood swings and even bipolar-like states.   When mood instability is a major feature of the illness, it is called schizoaffective disorder, meaning that elements of schizophrenia and mood disorders are prominently displayed by the same individual.   It is not clear whether schizoaffective disorder is a distinct condition or simply a subtype of schizophrenia.

So, after careful and thoughtful deliberation, I have decided to become bipolar. A solid depression can be helpful, but you risk long periods of inactivity and a loss in any kind of productivity. Bipolar disorder allows for thoughtfully depressive periods followed by episodes of mania—perfect for a writer. The challenge will be to balance these helpful symptoms with periods of productivity.

It should also be noted that each of these ailments are closely linked with substance abuse. Because I don’t want to get involved in anything illegal or overly expensive, I’ll stick to heavy alcohol abuse. This will not only cause deterioration in my mental state but will aid the implementation of depression that will be entirely necessary in order for me to compete with the pantheon of great writers.   

~ by Lefty on November 13, 2007.