Honoring Van Gogh—Are Creativity and Madness Linked?

Honoring Van Gogh—Are Creativity and Madness Linked?

We are all familiar with the story of the “tortured artist” but is there a unique creative force in the mood swings of bipolar disorder?

By the time I was sixteen years old, I had convinced myself that I was a creative genius. I knew nothing yet of bipolar disorder, but the budding manias of my teenage years had flowered into an obsessive pursuit of literary greatness. Inspired by poets like William Blake and Emily Dickinson, I wrote constantly, often into the early morning hours. After writing page after page in my journals, I shoved the pieces of paper into my very own secret box.

When I think about those years, and then the eventual tumultuous years of my early twenties, I often ask myself: Was such intense creativity the result of madness? Or was madness the result of creativity? I ask the same question when I consider the lives and creative contributions made by the many great poets, writers, musicians, and artists who may have had bipolar disorder.

 

Read the rest of my article at https://www.bphope.com/blog/world-bipolar-day-honoring-van-gogh-are-creativity-and-madness-linked/.

Working with Bipolar Disorder: Choosing Your Profession

Working with Bipolar Disorder: Choosing Your Profession

Many years ago, I skipped the exit on the highway that led to my job and just kept going. I drove south, and while my inner monologue rose to a frenetic pitch, I decided that I would live as a jobless poet in the Alaskan countryside. After several hours of driving, and as reality set in, I turned around. The next day, when I finally showed up to work, I no longer had a job.

For me, and for anyone with bipolar disorder, simply showing up to work can be the greatest challenge. During the early days of my career, I was just too unstable to fit into the structure of an 8-to-5 job. My life was like a rollercoaster, and every day was unpredictable, so how could I fit the mold of a predictable schedule, with the predictable everyday requirements of a job?

Later, as time passed and I began to stabilize, I found that the structure of a daily, 8-to-5 job was just what I needed. I still need it. I go to bed at the same time every night and I wake up at the same time each morning. I pull myself up and out of bed at 5:00 a.m. every single day and, even if I am cycling through the mood swings of bipolar, I pull on a suit jacket and skirt out of the closet, and I go to work. 

I did not enjoy going to work every day at my previous job. Even though I made six figures a year and held a high-status position, I was bored and unchallenged. As time went on, I realized that it was not just structure that I needed. I needed something to be passionate about.

Why do I go to work every day? I go to work because I have a job that allows me to be creative. I go to work because I am passionate about what I create, and the changes that I can make in people’s lives. At work, I get to write. I get to create, and like so many individuals with bipolar disorder, being creative is a fundamental part of who I am. Even though we face great challenges in the workplace because of our passion and sensitivity, we can use those feelings to motivate us to get up every day and go to work—but only if we choose our careers carefully.

 

 

Hope is the Thing with Feathers: Taking Wing Out of Bipolar Depression (bp Magazine)

Hope is the Thing with Feathers: Taking Wing Out of Bipolar Depression (bp Magazine)


Creativity can offer relief from bipolar depression, and it can help your hope soar as you realize your potential to help others through self-expression. Read and share my first article for bp Magazine:

https://www.bphope.com/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-taking-wing-out-of-bipolar-depression/

I’m Out: See my Blog Article at PsychCentral– Mania: The Side Effect of Genius

I wrote earlier in this blog about struggling to come “out” with my bipolar on the internet. Well, I’m out. On August 10, “Mania: The Side Effect of Genius,” was published on the World of Psychology blog at PsychCentral. See the article here: https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2017/08/10/mania-the-side-effect-of-genius/

Another article is being published on OC87 Recovery Diaries in late September. I will keep you posted when that is published.

 

The Smartest Girl in the World

I wrote a book several years ago about living with bipolar in the extreme landscape and seasons of Alaska. I wrote it because I had to– I had so many stories to tell, and I needed to “get it out.” I also wrote it because I’d been inspired by the many books about bipolar, especially, of course, The Unquiet Mind, and I felt I could help other bipolar people living with the disease.

I’ve always been a writer, and I finally put it all down on paper– well, on 350 pages of paper. Since finishing the book, multiple times as I edited and revised, cut and culled, I have tried to find an agent or a publisher. I’ve given up several times and put it away in a drawer. The most recent time I put it away was for two or three years.

I’m not sure what to do with the book or how to keep enduring the rejection. I have had such positive feedback from some agents (the quality of the writing, the idea behind it– but it just didn’t “fit” with their agency) and from all of my readers, I am just not ready to give up yet.

Either way, I won’t give up. Bipolar needs to be written about. We need to share. It can be a devastating illness but so many of its sufferers are blessed with creativity. Share. Share. Share.