Mental illness and creativity

Photo: Thinkstock.com

Over the years, after reading about creative types like Vincent Van Gogh and Virginia Woolf, it is easy to come to the assumption that there is a link between mental illness and creativity. However, there is much debate over whether or not this is true.

PsychCentral (www.psychcentral.com) reports that it is well-established that, “people with affective disorders tend to be over represented in the creative artist population.” (Katherine P. Rankin, Ph.,D.) Any search on the internet provides lists of famous people with mental illness and the majority of them are creative.

Many patients report feeling most creative when they are well, rather than on fast speed with mania or experiencing depression. There is a certain romance associated with the struggling angst-filled artist. Often people don’t want to take their medication for fear it will deaden creative feelings.

This creativity could also be due to temperament, and besides, advanced mania in bipolar people can lead to chaos rather than art. It may just be that those with mental illness are more sensitive and therefore are in touch with parts of themselves or the world in which others are not. That doesn’t guarantee however that if you are bipolar you will necessarily be creative.

Albert Rothenberg, professor of psychiatry at Harvard University does not see the link at all. In 2014 he published a book entitled, “Flight of Wonder: An investigation of Scientific Creativity”, where he interviewed 45 science Nobel laureates about their creative strategies. He found no evidence of mental illness in any of them, and rather attributed their creativity to just an interest in creative endeavours.

Whether there really is a correlation or not, the fact remains that art can be used as therapy for anyone, mentally ill or otherwise.

So pick up your paintbrush and go!

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Hover or love her

Photo: Thinkstock.com

When is ‘much’ too much? When you love your children, siblings or parents and want SO much to help them, when is your love simply ‘too much’ for them to handle?

That is the age-old dilemma. I just returned from my mother-in-law’s house this week and noticed as she ages how her life changes. It becomes increasingly smaller and smaller, literally and figuratively, as she ages.

When she raised a family she had a large house, huge yard filled with flowers, lots of animals and many children in the house. Now they are all grown and living on their own and at 83 she lives alone in a small, 400 sq. ft. apartment.

Yes, we all visit her as much as we can, but is that enough? When we visit we see the mountains of photo albums and revisit her life which is about all she can do nowadays.

She has one of her daughters living nearby and she sees her every day, sometimes more than once a day. She calls that daughter every time a computer glitch happens or she cannot get the remote to work on the TV, or any of a myriad of challenges in her life.

Her daughter does not want to hover over her, yet cannot go on a vacation without worrying about her.

Speaking of that, we had our 15-year-old daughter that faces her own challenges in life, stay with friends for the four days we were gone; the first time she did not travel with us to see relatives.

It was hard not having her with us but we know it was good for her to have her own freedom and independence from the family for a few days.

When we are here we sometimes ‘hover’ over her, knowing she has depression sometimes, but is that REALLY helpful or sometimes is it better to simply let the child or adult sort out the challenges in life for themselves? Are we really helping or hurting them when we help them so much?

It IS a balance and only after you look back would you see how to do it differently. Being bipolar is a challenge, but how you handle it can add to your own stress if you find yourself hovering over others and sometimes NOT taking on their daily challenges frees up your own mind and lets you breathe a little easier.

Look into your own life and relationships and see if you are adding stress to your life or the life of others in how you may be hovering over them as well.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Sunscreen for the brain

Photo: Contributed

A very famous public speaker from the US once labelled negative comments from uncaring people as SNIOPS and I maintain it is doubly crucial for those experiencing depression and related conditions to NOT fall into their lair of negative thoughts and comments.

Zig Ziglar explained “SNIOP” stood for “susceptible to negative influence of other people” and that is so true.

I think those of us that do have a mental illness are especially susceptible to those negative comments. We often have a positivity shield about the thickness of Saran Wrap! It does not take much to pierce this shield and suddenly we are in a downward spiral.

We saw that with a family member recently. She had made such great progress for weeks at a time with the new medicine she was on, then one day someone on Facebook made a terrible comment to her, so she cut herself. When her father found out he overreacted (as parents often do) and said she would not be allowed to be on the Internet for a day if that happened again. What he MEANT was she would not gain anything by posting news of her cutting on Facebook but she took it as punishment and one thing led to another and suddenly she found herself in the ER at Kelowna General Hospital in serious need of a strong dose of counselling.

One small comment from a SNIOP on Facebook and suddenly the family was turned upside down for two days, all because of her inability to handle that comment AND keep it in perspective.

Sometimes people are just mean, especially on social media where your friendships are wide and thick instead of concentrated and deep like you often find in your own circle of friends, or neighbours where you live. They see you daily and interact with you, where those on Facebook and other social media may live anywhere in the world and for the most time you have never even MET them in person, so they feel more comfortable taking verbal shots and even to the point of bullying.

I think it is crucial to thicken our own layer of mental protection by guarding ourselves from the influence of these people.

Next time you hear or see SNIOPs, ignore them; they add nothing to your life. Think of this as mental sunscreen meant to give your brain and life that layer of protection you deserve and need, at any age!

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

How did this happen?

Photo: Thinkstock.com

Sometimes people that face mental illness and challenges ask themselves, “How did this happen?” or “Why me?”

Does the classic debate apply here between environment or heredity when it comes to the brain? Scientists are discovering that mental illness often runs in families.

I know in my own family there is a history of mental illness on my father's side of the family. My sister and I both have bipolar disorder. Two of my four children have a mental illness, two do not (I keep my fingers crossed for them!).

There is no doubt factors such as stress, family struggles, children’s demands, financial challenges, business difficulties and others may influence whether or not a person has mental illness. Mental illness also influences how well we cope with these every day difficulties.

What happens when otherwise healthy people suddenly encounter a dramatic change in their lifestyle? Like the women of Vietnam that over time literally went blind from having witnessed the atrocities of war, the mind can sometimes shut down and simply refuse to accept any more negative input or influence. People can and have become emotionally then physically crippled by overwhelming depression which can lead to a premature end of life, either through a disease or by their own hands.

If you or someone you know struggles with this, don’t put it off, seek medical attention and explain the symptoms. As well, ask your family members if they know of anyone else in the family that may also suffer from similar conditions. If there is a similarity then be sure to alert them to the same symptoms you may feel as well. It is not uncommon for people to refuse or postpone medical treatment for fear of the stigma of mental illness so they simply refuse to seek help in any manner, which only makes it worse.

Susceptibility to mental illness through heredity does not mean a person will absolutely become mentally ill. Things like trauma, substance abuse and brain injury to name a few, add to the chances.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.