shutterbug

I'm looking into the creative aspect that has been tied to mental illness and was wondering if anyone can relate to this subject (Please tell about your illness and creative side) and/ or if you know of any more people that I should add to this list:

(From NAMI)
Charles Dickens
patty Duke
Jimmy Piersall
Winston Churchill
Michaelangelo
Sylvia Plath (sp?)
Ernest Hemingway
isaac Newton
Vincent Van Gogh
Tennesse Williams
John Keats
Leo Iolstoy
Robert Schumann
Beetohoven
Lionel Aldridge
Abraham Lincoln

(From "A Brilliant Maddness" - The Creativity Connection)

"Dr. (Kay Redfield) Jamison is well known for her interest in the link between creativity and mood disorders; she has written a major study on mood disorders among British writers and artists and is auther of the book Touched with Fire: Manic Depression Illness and the Artistic Temperament.

The book lists the following well-known bipolars:

Musical Composers:
George Frideric Handel
Robert Schumann
Hugo Wolf
Hector Berlioz
Gustav Mahler

Leaders:
Oliver Cromwell
Abraham Lincoln
Menachem Begin
Winston Churchill

Business Tycoons:
Robert Campeau
John Mulheren Jr.

Writers (and alcoholism):
Ernest Himingway

Blues musicians:
Memphis Slim

Others:
Lord Byron
Edgar Allan Poe
Anne Sexton
Virginia Woolf
Vincent Van Goh

Anna

I found some: This comes from The Scoop - A Bipolar Disorder Message Board

Buzz Aldrin (Astronaut)
Carrie Fisher
Dick Cavett
Tim Burton
Larry Flynt
Connie Francis
Linda Hamilton
Abbie Hoffman
Margot Kidder
Vivien Leigh
Kristy McNichol
Charly Pride
Axl Rose
Del Shannon
Jean Claude Van Damme
Virginia Woolf
Jonathon Winters
Brian Wilson
Rosemary Clooney
Francis Ford Coppola
Kitty Dukakis
Marlon Brando
Agatha Christie
Elton John
Marilyn Monroe
Mike Wallace
Jane Pauley
Ted Turner
Mariette Hartley

pedagogue

I think bi-polars are more in touch with their emotions (for better or worse) I think when you live part/alot of your life on the extremes.....you gain an insight that people who stick towards the middle don't get.

-pedagogue

shutterbug

Some interesting information about the famously ill: (all pulled from "A Brilliant Maddness," by Patty Duke)

Handel - His biographer, in 1785 wrote, "Handels' general look was somewhat heavy and sour; but when he did smile, it was his sire the sun, bursting out of a black cloud."

"Handel…left little written record of his psychological and emotional world. But in light of his recurrent mood cycles, modern psychiatric opinion agrees that he was a victim of cyclothymia, one of the milder forms of manic-depressive illness."

"Handel had long periods of high energy and extraordinary productivity, interrupted by episodes of depression that blunted his ability to work. His major depressions were called 'nervous breakdowns,' and during those times he was pessimistic and despondent, had a poor appetite and difficulty sleeping -- the hallmarks of depression."

"Typical of those with manic-depressive illness, Handle's mood swings cycled with the seasons: depressed times came in the late spring and early summer; late summer and early autumn brought bursts of productivity. In the early 1740s, his librettist Charles Jennens described Handle as having a head 'more full of maggots than ever." His biographer Percy Young wrote, 'The maggots came from mental derangement on the one hand and flooding inspiration on the other."


Robert Schumann - "His father, an author, translator and publisher, was an unstable, ambitious and brooding man who reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never fully recovered. Like his son, he worked in phenomenal burst of energy. During one 18-month period, he wrote seven novels. Robert's mother suffered from recurrent depressions. His sister committed suicide. One of his sons went insane in his early twenties and was confined to an asylum for 31 years. Another son became a morphine addict."

Schumann himself, "described his own struggles with mania and melancholy. He wrote..., 'In the night between the 17th and 18 of October [1833], I was seized with the worst fear a man can have. the worst punishment Heaven can inflict --the fear of losing one's reason....Terror drove me from place to place. My breath filed me as I pictured my brain paralyzed...No one knows the suffering, the sickness, the despair, except those so crushed.

"' And if we musicians live so often, as you know we do, on sunny heights, the sadness of reality cuts all the deeper when it lies naked before our eyes.'"

Composer Hector Berlioz, "described his affliction as a 'moral sickness, a disease of isolation. There are...two kinds of spleen,' he wrote in his memoirs, 'one mocking, active, passionate, malignant; the other morose and wholly passive, when one's only wish is for silence and solitude and the oblivion of sleep. For anyone possessed by this latter kind, nothing has meaning, the destruction of a world would hardly move him. At such times I could wish the earth were a shell filled with gunpowder, to which I would put a match for my diversion.'"

Gustav Mahler - "Lamented that he was a prisoner of his mood swings. When he was nineteen, he wrote to a childhood friend: ‘The fires of a supreme zest for living and the most gnawing desire for death alternate in my heart, sometimes in the course of a single hour. I know only one thing: I cannot go on like this…’"

"While many of manic depression’s victims have lived tempestuous lives that ended in suicide or confinement in mental institutions, they may also have brilliant contributions to society: Lord Byron and Edgar Allan Poe, Ann Sexton and Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh."

Oliver Cromwell - "The 17th-century commander-in-chief and Lord Protector of England, has been described by his biographers as manic-depressive or cyclothymic."

Abraham Lincoln - His "depressions, some of which were suicidal, are legendary. New York’s Dr. Ronald Fieve has called him a ‘mild bipolar manic-depression,’ but his depressions were more obvious than his highs."

Menachem Begin - "The controversial former Prime Minister of Israel, was subject to sweeping mood swings throughout his public career. Periods of abject depression rotated with times of frenetic activity. Often he worked with a vengeance, then retreated into bleak seclusion, avoiding all but the most important public appearances."

Winston Churchill - His, "biographer Anthony Storr describes him as cyclothymic, with alternating periods of severe depression and high energy that sometimes affected his judgment. In Churchill: The Man, Storr wrote: ‘…had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded we were finished.’"

"He also wrote: ‘All those who worked with Churchill paid tribute to the enormous fertility of his new ideas, the inexhaustible stream of invention which poured from him…[they]also agreed that he needed the most severe restraint put upon him, and that many of his ideas, if they had been put into practice, would have been utterly disastrous.

Robert Campeau - "The entrepreneur and former owner of Bloomingdale’s, Jordan Marsh, and Burdine’s, has apparently never been called manic-depressive, but he does seem to have the temperament noted by Dr. [Ronald] Fieve. As Fortune magazine, in a 1988 story, said of Campeau, ‘eccentric may be too tame a word [for him].’"

One person who worked with him said, "He, ‘can go from high to low in about two seconds.'" And " Mr. Campeau has said of himself, ‘I’m full of the spice of life.’ In January 1990 he lost control of his retail stores and his company filed for bankruptcy protection."

John Mulheren Jr. - "Described by writer Connie Bruck in a New Yorker article as a ‘legendary Wall Street trader,’ broke the code of silence about manic-depressive illness when he protested in court that his manic-depressive illness, while it often enhanced his abilities on Wall Street, also distorted his reasoning and judgment. Mr. Mulheren was a former fello-arbitrageur with Ivan Boesky, an admitted felon whose cooperation with the government precipitated a rush of Wall Street prosecutions. Mr. Mulheren was convicted of manipulating Gulf + Western stock by driving up the price as a favor to Boesky. His conviction was overturned on appeal."

Mulheren said through the New Yorker article that , "’The depressive part of his cycle, which rendered him so profoundly anergic that he would take to his bed, unable to process even simple information, robbed him of perhaps 30 days a year…In his excited, hypomanic state, he did his most inspired trading.’"

"’When I would finally get high enough that it impaired my judgment, I’d lose – and I’d get so bummed out by losing that I would just leave. I’d say, Let’s all to Atlantic City. Or I’d go out on my boat. Or I’d go shopping. I love to buy stuff when I’m high. I say, Gee, I really like this shirt – I’ll by nine of them, in every color.’"

F. Scott Fitzgerald - "wrote, ‘I was drunk for many years and then I died.’"

Earnest Hemingway - "Suffered from a mood disorder, reportedly drank 16 double frozen daiquiris in one night at a Havana bar."

Memphis Slim - "Dr. Hagop Akiskal and his wife, Kareen, a psychologist…suggest that the song Born with the blues by Memphis Slim, a prominent blues musician who died recently, shows an insight into the nature of mood disorders ‘deeper than that of many professionals.’ The haunting lyrics are in part: ‘My mama had them, her mama had them, Now I’ve got them too…I’ve got something, something you just don’t learn in school. You’ll never find them in no books…You just got to inherit the blues. When I’m sad and lonely, even when I am happy too. All of the sudden, I find myself singing the blues. That’s why I know I was born with them.’"

ryanjosef

our life is like a rose some times we bloom sometimes we grow and some times we do nothing. when it is dry and hot we wilt. when it rains and the sun comes out we blosom. we are covered in the thorns of our past but that is the way to our fragran flower at the end of our rough road.And yet threw it all we shine for all to see our beauty and devinity.

By me.

Live

I wondered a long time about this legend.
Today I am sceptical.
What an incredible list it would be to list the highly creative and successfuls who do not have bi-polar!

live

shutterbug

Other interesting excerpts from "A Brilliant Maddess" - The Creativity Connection.
"Dr. Fieve describes what he calls the 'manic-depressive entrepreneur,' Long, hectic days, marked by no sleep, non-stop talk, risky deals and boundless energy --abruptly truncated by plunges into bleak depression -- characterize some of the country's highest profile business leaders."

"'Personnel departments of many offices look for this type of person --the kind that has an upbeat approach to things, who is a workaholic, who is overactive, overproductive, and who is full of ideas,' says Dr. Fieve. 'And if they don't go crazy over the top or retreat into the pits of depression, as long as their judgment is not impaired or they are surrounded by people who can keep them from going over the edge with disastrous business decisions, these would be the ideal people to staff a very productive office with. They are envied by their colleagues...until their mania goes too high or a depression washes over them. Then the accomplish nothing --or they get into trouble.'"

"Jay Jamison cautions that not everyone who is unusually creative or productive is a suspect for manic-depressive illness. Making that claim, she says, ‘mocks the notion of individuality.’ Highly creative people may be slightly to one side of the mean in terms of emotions and sensitivity. But that’s not the same as having a crippling, disabling condition such as manic-depressive illness."

"It is equally wrong to confuse ‘workaholism’ with manic-depression….Only when a person’s family and personal history have been considered, when mood swings have a cyclical, perhaps seasonal, pattern, when they have interfered with a job or family relationships, or when they have stimulated thoughts of suicide, would you be inclined to call a person manic-depressive."

"Human beings have speculated about the relationship between inspiration and insanity for centuries. Even pre-Grecian myths drew a connection between being mad and being singled out by the gods. The notion was already a cliché when Shakespeare wrote, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact."

"The romantic-period fascination with the link between genius and insanity has been studied anecdotally since the mid-1860s, when Cesare Lombroso, an Italian psychiatrist who explored genius and insanity, concluded in his book The Man of Genius that ‘genius, whether in the study of philosophy, in affairs of state, in poetical composition, or in the exercise of the arts, has been inclined to insanity…It seems as though nature had intended to teach us respect for the supreme misfortunes of insanity; and also to preserve us from being dazzled by the brilliancy of those men of genius who might well be compared, not to the planets which keep their appointed orbits, but to falling stars, lost and dispersed over the crust of the earth.’ Lombroso suggested, too, that both creativity and mental illness seemed to run in families and referred to a ‘hereditary taint.’"

"In 1921 Emil Kraepelin, the pioneer in identifying manic-depressive illness, also commented on its connection with creativity. But it is only since the mid-1970s that several scientific studies have taken a hard look at such questions as: Is there really more psychiatric illness among creative people than in the general population? If so, how common is it? Does it occur among people who have specific kinds of talent, such as writing or painting or composing? Is creativity different from intelligence?"

"No matter whether the study includes painters or poets, architects or actors, the conclusions are remarkably the same. Creative people tend to have a mix of characteristics –intelligence, independence, and sensitivity, combined with strong egos. They are often non-conforming, introspective and socially detached; they enjoy being challenged and are self-assertive. Their personality style allows them to be more adventurous and more willing to take risks."

"Most important, they have the capacity to tap into a rich and mysterious resource deep inside themselves. It is a resource which opens a window into a world only they can see, and which gives them a unique ability to translate the world into music or poetry or paintings –or theater. The ‘flight of ideas,’ speed of thought, and exquisite heightening of the senses – the most common symptoms of mania –allow the artist to conceive, without restraint and inhibition, his most original, imaginative, and often awesome creations."

"A manic-depressive artist in Boston said that when he was hypomanic he felt "juiced up" and knew he could paint brilliantly. And for a while he could. But as his manic symptoms speeded up, he became scattered and totally disorganized. Once his studio was littered with a hundred paintings, none of them finished. His mind was racing so fast that ideas toppled over one another. He would begin a painting, get an inspiration for a new one, abandon the old and move on. Finally he collapsed in exhaustion, realizing the disaster he had created."

"It is a common scenario because someone in the grip of mania is so distractible that he moves from project to project, expending a lot of energy but accomplishing little."

"…’Certainly, depth and intensity of human feelings must be a part of great artistic achievement,’ [Dr. Jamison] concedes. ‘Maybe it always takes a certain amount of suffering to do something marvelous in the arts."

"Of course, not all people with manic-depressive illness are creative. Many resent the focus on the creativity connection because it doesn’t reflect their experience –one characterized by lost jobs, broken marriages, and fractured relationships because their moods seesawed out of control. As Dr. Anthony Rothschild of Boston reminds us, ‘For every Hemingway, there are thousands of manic-depressives whose lives are ruined."



ABOUT WRITERS:
"A much quoted 1987 study of 30 writers –27 men and 3 women –who had served on the facultyof the University of Iowa Writers’ Wordshop, was conducted by Nancy J.C. Andreasen, of the department of psychiatry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. The Iowa workshop is the oldest creative writing program in the country; its students and faculty have included such distinguished writers as John Cheever, Robert Lowell, John Irving, Philip Roth and Kurt Vonnegut."

"During her 15-year study Dr. Andreasen found that 80 percent of the writers had had an episode of mania or depression at some time in their lives. Four had suffered from severe manic disorder that required prolonged and repeated hospital stays. In contrast, only 30 percent of a control group not in the creative arts had mood disorders."

"The families of manic-depressive writers studied by Dr. Andreasen, including brothers, sisters, and parents, were also strikingly more creative –and had more psychiatric disorders. Forty-one percent of writers’ brothers and sisters showed creativity, as did 20 percent of their parents. Relatives included several highly successful journalists, an accomplished pianist, and an award-winning choreographer."

"Dr. Andreasen suggests that a trait or traits fostering creativity –curiosity, a tolerance for ambiguity, a dislike for the conventional –are transmitted through families. Coupled with high energy, those traits in a person whose brain is ‘wired’ for math may produce an engineer; someone better wired verbally may become a writer; a person with organizational acumen may become an outstanding business leader. A single faulty gene or genes added to that combination could result in bipolar illness "

"Another leading study –this one of 47 top British artist and writers –was conducted at Oxford University and St. Georg’s Hospital in London by Kay Jamison. It revealed, too, a startlingly high number who said they had been treated for depression or manic-depression, Ninety percent of her subjects were men and were chosen to be part of her research because they had won at least one of several top prizes or awards in their field."

"The playwrights topped the list of those who had suffered from mood disorders with 63 percent having sought treatment for depression or manic-depression….More than half the poets had been treated with drugs or been hospitalized. This high figure is especially significant because men are less likely than women to seek treatment. Interestingly, the biographers, while outstanding in their field, were the least likely to be associated with ‘creative fire’;they also reported no history of mood swings or elated periods."

"Overall, about one third of the writers and artists reported histories of severe mood swings and one fourth said they had had intense, elated mood states. All of the poets, novelists and artists, 88 percent of the playwrights, and 20 percent of the biographers had a past peppered with intense, creative episodes, which lasted from one hour to more than a month at a time. During these periods, they were enthusiastic, euphoric, full of energy and self-confidence, and flt that their mental associations and thoughts were faster and more fluid. Just before these creative spurts came, they needed less sleep, ofen awakening abruptly at three or four in the morning. Half said they felt a sharp change ion mood just before the beginning of an intensely creative period. They said things such as ‘I have a fever to write…’"

Many writers also suffer from alcoholism as well as bipolar disorder. "In the preface to his book (Alcohol and the Writer), Dr. [Donald] Goodwin writes: ‘As a researcher, my first discovery was that writers drank a lot—maybe more than anyone else. Six Americans had won the Nobel Prize in literature and four were alcoholic...Through the years I have become more and more convinced that alcoholism among American Writers consittutes and epidemic.’"

"Nonetheless, many alcoholic creators acknowledge that their best work was not done while they were under the influence of alcohol, just as manic-depressive artists achieve little when going through the tortures of depression or the wastefulness of mania."

"…The Akiskals studied 750 psychiatric patients at the University of Tennessee’s mood clinic in Memphis, they discovered that those with mild manic depression or mood swings, rather than other mental illnesses, were more likely to be creative artists."

"Over the past eight years, the Akiskals have been working on a sample of Parisian artists –including writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians –to further explore these provacative leads from the Memphis study. Their main finding, not yet published (when this book was written) supports the high rate of cyclothymia rather than major mood disorders among them,"

"’This is an illness that torments,’ declares Dr. Kay Jamison. ‘And no one who is confined in a psychiatric hospital is being creative. No one who is spending six or seven months a year sleeping 14 hours a day is producing anything. No one is achieving when he is dead."

"In his book Movie Stars, Real People and Me, Joshua Logan, the teatrical director and producer, once said that over a period of 20 years he experienced manic elations during which he ‘would be going great guns, putting out a thousand ideas a minute, acting flamboyant -–until I went over the bounds of reality’ and then got to a point where ‘I had a profound wish to be dead without having to go throught the shaming defeat of suicide.’"

Live

[QUOTE] no matter the painter or the poet...." I can't figure out how to insert the quote. but that paragraph certainly describes me to a tee.

And so I get called crazy and it is attributed to my genius IQ.
I don't think I am crazy. Maybe that is why I don't like this legend/idea

Anna

I'm not sure what you mean by legend Live.

The names I listed are all people who have either spoken or written about their bipolar disorder.

Anna

Live

I mean the idea that highly creative or highly intelligent people are all a bit mad (as in crazy). The idea that the two go together period.

shutterbug

Anna (Oops - fixed) -- WOW, thanks for the list of names!!

Ryan -- I can't even begin to describe how very beatiful your words are!

My personal view on creativity and bipolar:

In doing some geneology work I have come to find a long list of disturbed relatives. It will be an undertaking, but I plan to do a lot of research to find out what kind of jobs they all held.

There definetly seems to be a link in my family to creativity, bipolar disorder and alcoholism/substance abuse. Starting with me, I grew up with many different intrests and felt bad because I couldn't master all areas. The Bible says something about using the talents God gave us and I always asked, "How can he possibly expect me to use ALL the talents he's given me." I felt burdened by them, but always knew I could conquer anything I put my mind to.

I began learning to play the violin in the sixth grade and it took me onto college where I was offered several music scholarships. I also longed to design things like clothing. I enjoyed writing and preformed extremely well in a Bible-based sort of knowledge bowl that I was involved in for three years in high school and where I went to nationals and placed third place in the nation, in our division (there were 3 divisions). I've always had a nack for business stuff. I've got a better than most voice and won several awards in that area too.

In college, I found my calling for journalism and set my sights on photojournalism which is where my passion lies. I never wanted to write , but was forced to in the job I got as a reporter/photographer. In my first journalism contest for the state, I was surprized and even disappointed when I won a first place for writing yet didn't get anything better than a second place in photography. From then on...I began to give in to my writing talents and now have developed a passion for that too. Only recently have I turned my photography efforts toward more abstract or artistic ventures rather than records of life through photojournalism.

Now my father, is exstremly artistic as a painter, amature photographer, sculpter and taxidermist (yes that's a odd profession, but he ranks among the best in the world). He is also alcoholic and recently disovered his bipolar disorder as the cause for his life-long battles with depression.

His sister, my aunt, was an extremely beautiful voice and recorded a few songs that were aired on the radio. She was offered a singing contract, but turned it down out of her fear of failure. She died in 2001 of a prescription drug overdose. She was an undiagnosed bipolar at the time of her death.

My younger sister is a good actor and an excellent debator, but gave up those ventures in college to study business. She is now working on her master's degree. I have been unable to discern if my sister could be bipolar or have some other mood disorder, but her husband certainly does.

My cousin, at only 16 years old, is showing signs of great creativity. She is planning to go to college and into the field of creative advertising. Her imagination and eye for detail without any schooling in the subject is astounding to me. She also carries her mother's voice (my aunt who died). She has already been hospitalized in May 2005 for attempted suicide, says she hears voices at night and is very (overly) paranoid at times. She shows classic symptoms of bipolar disorder in teenagers.

There also has been some slight speculation that my family is related to a very popular and well-known actor who was born and raised in my home town and who later married another very well-known actress. (When they got married....she took his last name and now her name is exactly the same as mine. heehee)

That's all I know now about the creativity connection in my family (which all comes from my father's side). I am not aware of anyone involved in the arts on my mother's side.

That's all about me....NOW TELL ME ABOUT YOU...if you wouldn't mind sharing your stories?

Hugs

shutterbug

Live, I don't think of myself as being crazy either. I can understand why you may be apprehensive about the idea.

I don't think bipolar = crazy. I have a brain disorder. It's a physical illness where the chemicals in my brain are unbalanced and that in turn affects my moods, but more importantly, it affects the way my body is able to function or not function. This doesn't make me crazy. I even struggle with slight paranoia, but I don't consider myself crazy for that either...I am always paranoid that when people are whispering or go off by themselves that they are talking about me...I think that comes from being overly sensative (rather as a result of my bipolar or from the abuse I received growing up).

But I am intriqued by the connection. I think, mainly, because I think it may be the key to getting rid of a lot of stigmas in our society about mental illness. From what I've read...there's something like 40 percent of people that think depression is a character flaw rather than a lagitament illness. There are still others who become afraid to be around anyone if they know they have a mental illness or still others who think that anyone with a mental illness should be locked up in a asylem somewhere.

If those same people were told, for example, that Abraham Lincoln was bipolar, that might open their minds enough for them to realize the truth about mental illness instead of thinking back to all the old movies with grusome ECT and straight jackets and such.

Make any sense?

ryanjosef

Thank you, most every thing i write in poems or meaningful thoughs come from my heart. thank you shutter bug that means alot to me

shutterbug

Ryan, feel free to post some of your other writings or poems! I'd love to hear them.

*NOTE/CLARIFICATION* I just wanted to explain that my reference to "grusome ECT" in my above post was in reference to the old process of doing it without anestetics. And that I think more people should be educated about how beneficial it can be and that these days there is little to fear about it.

Live

shutterbug, you know I haven't read the whole thread, but I was quite interested in this idea for a time myself. Guess I am just not ready to be open minded about it right now. But you really made an astute point about how if people knew about those famous and successful people like Honest Abe they might think differently. I wish I had that hope. I am very aware of the stigma. I no longer tell others that I am mentally ill, presuming them to understand it is a physical/chemical disorder. I have seen too many times and felt the stigma and how it damages me. I will never again let any one I work with know.

I do think science has shown that these things are passed along in our DNA. There is no doubt my father's side has had some real eccentrics.

Just for fun, would you mind going to the recovery follies and do the quiz, what tarot card are you? I am curious what yours would be. It blew my mind how accurately it pinned me and my hubby. Can't wait for my sis to take it.

love,
live

utopia

what an interesting thread.

i instantly thought of the russian composer pyotr tchaikovsky. he suffered depression and he conducted a grand composition of his great works (symphony no.6 'pathetique') before committing suicide.

i find for me that i do get those stirrings around midnight to 2-3 am when my creative juicse get flowing and i write music, paint, write stories and philosophies and plan short movies. its is a fire and my passion and makes me feel mostly alive more than anything else. i have a history of depression and so does my family, i know my fathers side has a lot of painters and singers and actresses etc.

i dont know if there is an actual link but there is something ive noticed about artists, especialyl actors that is not exactly settled. but what is the defitnion of mental heath being on the par, just what the majority of people are feeling?

insanity is not a medical term, it is only a legal term used to defend certain people. i find when my mental illness affects me i do feel im in the crazies, but sometimes my best creations have come from when i was feeling the most out of control in my life.

shutterbug

Utopia...thanks for telling me about the Russian composer and for giving a little background into the creative nature on your father's side.

What seems interesting to me at this point is...I'm wondering if maybe creativity mostly comes through from the father's side? Seeing as how that's seems to be the case with me, Utopia and Live...hummm...very interesting.

I too get those firey hours when I HAVE to create...something...anything...actually, I usually get so many ideas at once that I usually grab the nearest pen and paper and start trying to get as much of it down as I can. This way...I can go back later and evaluate it all and add to what I have. It makes me feel more at peace with the flight of ideas because this way I know, at least, that they are not all lost.

Utopia...you reminded me that I recently came up with my first idea for a movie. I don't know the first thing about writing a movie script so I'm planting the seed of thought into the minds of so people who might could help me later down the road...

I too have composed music in the past, but not much...and never a whole peice (the closest I've come is to writing a lullaby in highschool that I still remember and started singing to my twin nephews when they were born...these days...it often happens when I'm driving so I will call my own answering machine and record the verse or melody...that way, again, I can know that my idea won't be lost and when I have time or feel complelled I can go back to it and go from there.

And, even if I wrote 24 hours a day, for 5 years that I still wouldn't be able to finish all the books I want to write.

I love it...but at the same time it is VERY exhausting when I realize that I can't do everything that I feel passionate about and probably won't be able to complete so much as an eighth of it all before I die.

Live...it's okay...I'm not trying to make you buy into the idea...I mean who really knows for sure. I know I don't know what the truth really is.

It's just an intreging idea to me and I like knowing who else, that I may have heard of or seen on t.v., has the same illness that I do. It makes me feel normal...it makes me feel like I'm not alone and that it's okay to be me. That gives me great comfort.

I mean, you were the first one and really the only one who has made me feel like someone else has been through the same horrors and that I don't have to be ashamed because I couldn't do better than what I was already doing. I hope you know how much you helped me by just telling me, "been there...done that." And the more people I know about who has felt the same way or gone through the same things....the less I feel guilty and ashamed.

I totally understand where you are coming from about never wanting to tell anyone at work about your illness. It sure burned me too.

I guess I'm just so new to all this that I'm too stubbern for my own good and keep thinking that people are better than that and more understanding, but I know you are right.

All I know for sure right now is that when I do find a good job, that I will be very causious, at least, and I'm definetly not going to advertize it. But in the same token, I don't like having a part of me that I feel I have to keep hidden from the world and those around me...and I'm so use to being completely open that it will be hard for me to keep it totally to myself. Does that make sense? And if I do tell someone...I'm sure it will probably be to my demise.

I just can't get away from the feeling I have of being driven to help educate others and to try to knock down the stigmas. I know that I can only do so much...which isn't much, but I still feel compelled to try. It's just something that I can't really explain.

P.S. I haven't played my violin in about 8 years, but I went and auditioned for the community orchestra tonight. It's just one thing that I want to get back into as a part of my personal recovery efforts because I use to really enjoy playing with an orchestra. I won't know for a week or two if I made it or not.

I love you guys and think of you often,
Hugs,
Jenna

(LIVE) Oh yeah, I will try and find the forum follies you spoke of...if I find it I will come back here and tell you what the results are. I still would like to read some of your poetry. I never could track down the post they were in. I just get so scatterbrained and easily distracted so I often get overwhelmed if I try to move from one forum to the next and then back again. If I don't come back and report the findings that means I got lost....so will you then post the link within this thread (to that post and to the post where your poems are)?

To be honest, I've forgotten how to do it, but I think you go to the post you want to send people to and you right click on the screen and choose "save link" or "save (or copy?) location" or something like that....Then basically you go back to the new post and insert it by choosing "Edit" and then "Paste". But I'm really just guessing here because it's been a long time since I've done it. But I believe that Morning Glory can tell you how.

shutterbug

Oh....I'm SO MAD!! I found the forum and then found the thread....and then my stupid computer won't load the page!! It just came up saying "Page cannot be found"

URG!! I need a new computer!

shutterbug

Tena...took me long enough but i found the thread and was able to take the tarot card reading....here's the results:

<img src="http://images.quizilla.com/K/Koshari/1072668043_Temperance.jpg" border="0" alt="The Temperance Card"><br>You are the Temperance card. Temperance is the<br>blending of elements to produce stability. We<br>say that someone is temperate when they are<br>pleasant and easy going. Temperance achieves<br>balance through merging, so a temperate person<br>is one who feels whole. Creative genius is<br>often found in the ability to unite two<br>previously unconnected ideas. Aleister Crowley<br>considers this one of the most important facets<br>of this card and names the card Art. He refers<br>to a generation of a third element out of two<br>previously existing elements. In the same way,<br>the artist has the ability to create a painting<br>from canvas and some tubes of coloured paint.<br>The temperate person is also inclined to think<br>about philosophy. Temperance leads to a calm<br>and rational logic but can also look beyond<br>everyday knowledge for the truth. Image from<br>The Stone Tarot deck.<br> 2 % had this same result <br>http://hometown.aol.com/newtarotdeck/
<br><br><a href="http://quizilla.com/users/Koshari/quizzes/Which%20Tarot%20Card%20Are%20You%3F/"> Which Tarot Card Are You?</a><BR> <font size="-2">brought to you by <a href="http://quizilla.com">Quizilla</a></font>

shutterbug

Are Creativity and Mental Illness Linked?


Courtesy of Today's Science On File

All poets are mad," asserted English writer Robert Burton in his 1621 book, The Anatomy of Melancholy. Burton was exaggerating, of course. However, many people do believe that artists are more likely than others to be mentally ill. Many well-known artists, writers and musicians had a history of mental illness, in some cases leading to suicide.

Writers Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, painter Vincent van Gogh, and musician Kurt Cobain all committed suicide.

Painters Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe, and musicians Cole Porter and Charles Mingus suffered from depression.

Is there actually a link between artistic creativity and mental illness? Most artists are not mentally ill, and most mentally ill people are not artists. However, several studies have suggested that artists are more likely than others to suffer from a class of mental illnesses called mood disorders.

Mood disorders

Mood disorders include major depression and manic-depressive illness. Major depression is characterized by prolonged deep despair. Alternating periods of euphoria and despair characterize manic- depressive illness. Suicidal thoughts are common in people suffering from either of these disorders.

One of the first controlled studies of the creativity/mood disorder link was completed by University of Iowa psychiatrist Nancy C. Andreason. She compared 30 creative writers at the University of Iowa with 30 people holding jobs that were not inherently creative. She found that 80% of the writers said they had experienced either manic-depressive illness or major depression, while only 30% of the people in noncreative jobs said they had.

Andreason published her results in the October 1987 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

In the late 1980s, Johns Hopkins University psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison also examined the link. She studied 47 painters, sculptors, playwrights and poets, all of whom had received high honors in their fields. Jamison found that 38% of the artists had been treated for a mood disorder. Only about 1% of people in the general population report manic- depressive episodes and about 5% report major depression at some point in their lives.

Skeptics have criticized both of these studies for two reasons. First, both researchers studied very few people. Studies with few people are more likely than large studies to include a group of people that does not accurately represent the population at large.

Second, both researchers interviewed the artists themselves or had the artists fill out questionnaires. It is possible that the interviewers were biased or that the artists misrepresented their true mental state.

Biographical clues

A third study attempted to avoid the flaws of the previous research. For 10 years, Arnold M. Ludwig studied the lives of 1,004 men and women prominent in a variety of fields, including art, music, science, sports, politics and business.

He studied these people by reading 2,200 biographies.

Ludwig argued that biographers were less likely than psychiatrists to believe in advance that a person has a mental illness. This would make biographies less biased than psychiatric interviews. Biographers also typically draw information about their subjects from a variety of sources, which would make misrepresentations of mental state more difficult.

The Guilford Press published the results of Ludwig's study in 1995, in a book called The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy.

Ludwig concluded that "members of the artistic professions or creative arts as a whole suffer from more types of mental difficulties and do so over longer periods of their lives than members of the other professions."

He found that, as teen-agers, between 29% and 34% of future artists and musicians suffered from symptoms of mental illness. In comparison, only 3% to 9% of future scientists, athletes and businesspeople suffered similar symptoms.

As adults, between 59% and 77% of artists, writers and musicians suffered mental illness, while only 18% to 29% of the other professionals did. Ludwig's findings seemed to confirm the link between mental illness and the artistic temperament. But what is the nature of that link?

Why?

Some researchers, including Jamison, speculate that mood disorders allow people to think more creatively. In fact, one of the criteria for diagnosing mania reads "sharpened and unusually creative thinking."

People with mood disorders also experience a broad range of deep emotions. This combination of symptoms might lend itself to prolific artistic creativity.

Ludwig's studies provided some support for the theory that mood disorders can improve creativity. The artistic achievements of about 16% of the artists, writers and musicians he studied improved during times of mental upset.

Ludwig, however, believes other factors also contribute to the high rate of mood disorders among artists. He argues that people in many professions, including sports, politics and business, are extremely creative. He thinks that more people in artistic professions have mental illness because those professions are more accepting of mental illness. As a result, Ludwig speculates, people with mental illness are naturally drawn to artistic professions.

Still others believe that artistic occupations might by their nature magnify the symptoms of mental illness. Artists, musicians and writers often work alone. When they begin to feel upset or depressed, they would not have as much support and encouragement as do athletes, scientists and businesspeople who work with others.

Everyone agrees that treatments for mood disorders need to be improved. Between 60% and 80% of people who commit suicide suffered from a mood disorder. Many people with mood disorders medicate themselves with alcohol or illegal drugs. Despite the pain of mental illness, some people with mood disorders avoid treatments because of potential side effects, such as mental sluggishness.

These side effects can be particularly debilitating for people, such as artists, musicians and writers, whose work springs in large part from states of intellectual fluidity.


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This article was originally printed in the December 1996 issue of Today's Science On File, which each month publishes for students the latest developments in science, medicine, technology and the environment.

The complete Today's Science On File reference package--back issues and cumulative index housed in a sturdy red binder--is available at school and public libraries throughout the United States and Canada. For more information, see our online brochure or e-mail us at [email protected]

Copyright (c) 1996 Facts On File News Services. Reproduction for non-profit, noncommercial uses only.


Last modified: October 26, 2003