What’s the link between writing and depression?
My good friend Sarah McCarry, aka The Rejectionist, is kicking off a seriously important series of posts on writing and mental illness. As she puts it, “There’s the myth, right, of the Tortured Artist, and then there’s the reality, which is most often exhausting and difficult and not at all glamorous.” She has kicked off the first entry with an interview with Mairead Case.
Subscribe to her blog, follow her on Twitter, and reach out to her if you’re interested in contributing.
Art: Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh
Everyone should be reading this.
Thank you for highlighting this, it is vital. I have been open about my struggle with Bipolar Disorder (and the other disorders that accompany it) and it is so important to remember we do not battle on alone.
Thank you.
~bru
Awareness leads to understanding.
Being understood can save a life.
As writers, we are better equipped than most to create awareness and understanding.
It's a responsibility we should accept IF we are up to it.
Thank you Nathan for helping.
A friend pointed this out to me since I'd posted my own blog about depression today. Yes, please, let's beat the stigma on this battle. https://alyssaday.blogspot.com/2014/01/on-one-writer-and-depression-aka-life.html
Thank you, so so very much, for sharing this.
Cool cool cool
Get the story line up in the dialogue. Break your chapters down into scenes after the format used by screenwriters. That gets you closer to the movie deal. Your symptoms will disappear in a cloud of optimism.
I say, embrace your depression, for five minutes,
It's there for a reason.
Comes back around to the question: Which came first? the angst, or the art?
There again, embrace the artist, we are one, in the same.
Depression is a paradox.
It is the self-centered disease, closed into a little space.
Yet it gives you empathy for the sufferings and struggles of others, opening you up to the world.
Maybe this is why so many good writers are depressed.
Or maybe it's just that, if you're depressed, you can't accomplish much else!
Writing does help work through depressing thoughts and sorting what is critical from what is superfluous.I've additionally experienced periods when the writing itself was depressing for me,yet that was on account of I was carrying on with the life of the individual I was fleshing out.
@Sue Houston.