09 Writing as a symptom of mental illness
by V.E. on May 29th, 2008
filed under writing
[This is the first draft of the ninth part of my Master's thesis/book, Confession.
Comments and questions are always appreciated.]
I’ve noticed recently that many writers (historical and contemporary) seem to be at odds with psychiatric medicine and psychology. I have no hard evidence to back up my claim, but it seems the general feeling is that “brain medication” messes with a writer’s creative center and may even extinguish it completely. Not everyone can write about trees and stars, they say, what about inspiration?
Self-medication is fine, apparently, since many writers have literally drunk themselves to death. But monitored meds? How blasé. We have this idea about what “a writer” is, and receiving professional psychiatric or psychological care isn’t part of that idea. It’s as if the creativity will somehow run out or dry up and be gone forever if we do anything else with our brains.
Writers tend to be loners anyway, it’s true, and the act of writing itself may indicate not all is right in our heads. But at least the act is a constructive one, right? At least I’m writing on paper with a pen instead of on my arm with a knife, right?
That’s what I want to do, actually—and I’m going to be in school forever because of it—but I want to be a writing therapist. Not a physical therapist, mind you, but someone who helps people not kill themselves but their darlings instead. There’s a saying in the writing world: “Kill your darlings.” I’m told it means that a writer should be able to tear apart (“kill”) her work (“darlings”) in the name of “good writing” in an effort to learn and improve, but the whole things seems a bit sadomasochistic to me. Still, though, I’d rather have someone kill his darlings rather than himself. If it gets that bad, I want someone’s first internal reaction to be “Write about this!” instead of hanging herself or shooting up his school.
I’m sure some writers may write because they have something important to say or because they’re in love and life couldn’t be better. But in my experience, writing is more like a compulsion that temporarily quiets the torment within than like a spontaneous dance number in a 50s-era musical.
Even when I can’t do anything else because I’m depressed or neurotic or exhausted, I can write. That’s good, I suppose, that I have an outlet for my frustrations and a diversion from “real life” but I wonder. I wonder what will happen when I get well (and I will get well). Maybe the creativity does dry up when I don’t feel bad; who really knows? Emo kids have this down to an art. They dress in black and plaid and British flag patches and sit around feeling sorry for each other until crappy poetry is produced. The band Bright Eyes is the perfect example. That’s fine; live and let live, right?
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I have internalized the idea that poetry is easier to write than prose. I don’t intellectually believe this to be so, and I don’t think established poets like Billy Collins, Yousef Kummonyakka, Ai, and others have had an easy time of it creating their respective works (much less getting them published). Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s ever translated for me into something with which I can identify. The prevailing thought is that anyone can write poetry, but a person must be committed (and, perhaps, resigned to one’s fate) to write the next “great American novel.” Most poems are, after all, less than one page long each while novels are somewhere in the vicinity of 300 pages. And, if it’s a “great American novel,” it has to be good writing, to boot.
My roommate, Eddie, doesn’t understand why I see a psychotherapist once a week. To him, it’s a waste of money for something friends should do anyway for free. For a while, he told me every day that he was specifically not asking how my day went because I paid someone to do that for me. I didn’t know how to explain his prejudice to him, and though I was somewhat offended by his lack of tact, I wasn’t surprised by his feelings toward therapy.
I grew up in a home that accepted therapy as a sometimes-necessary solution for life’s problems, especially when serious thought had been given to one’s options aside from therapy. But what if my parents were more like most modern adults? We’ve got this idea in our heads that we should be able to succeed by ourselves without any outside help. Rag to riches, the American dream, and all that. Everyone wants to be like Rockfeller, Carnegie, and Ford, whether we realize it or not. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps all by their lonesomes, dag-nab-it, and if we can’t do the same, then we’re not trying hard enough or we’re just not American!
What does all this have to do with writing, anyway? When someone asked me what I’ve been doing with my “time off” (as if that’s what graduate school is: time off) I used to say, “I’m writing a book.” Then, without fail, I’d get The Look and some comment like, “Oh, so you’ve been sleeping in and playing computer games, huh?”
I wasn’t taken seriously because book writing is some far-off mystical thing that only happens under the best conditions to some already-established genius. So, I learned to change my response to, “I’ve been working on my Masters thesis.” If I’m working on my thesis, after all, I’m a serious student, and not just “some wannabe writer.”
Writing may not be a sign of mental illness in many people—or even in most people—but it is in me and other writers I know. It is, in a way, a double stigma. Mental illnesses are clichéd… but if you’re a writer, too?
“Why is she wasting her time?”
“Does he even want to get better?”
The condemnations never end.
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I am a writer in secret.
[...] for the disenfranchised 06. Why I write poetry 07. The lies I’ve told 08. How Bennett helped 09. Writing as a symptom of mental illness 10. Obsession I 11. Why I’m ashamed 12. I want to believe 13. When sex is more than just sex 14. [...]