If you really think about it, could writing be a type of mental disorder?

Medievalist said:

Varieties of Insanity Known to Affect Authors

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Love it!

I don't scream at my characters or wish they were real.

The overwhelming majority of people use our imaginations to one extent or another. Even telling or hearing a joke involves imagination. And, as somebody already mentioned, people dream.

This just doesn't compare to mental disorders as far as I'm concerned. While it's true that writers can have vivid imaginations, and while it's true that some people with mental illnesses are writers or other, creative sorts, there's a huge difference between what happens in my mind--a chat with a character, for example--and a break from reality.

I know a woman with schizophrenia. When she breaks from reality, it's not a happy, fun romp through Imaginationland. She's been hospitalized because she was posing an immediate threat to herself and others. When she doesn't take her meds on time, she suffers. The same thing happens when the meds stop working like they should. She suffers from extreme paranoia--it's not hard for her to become convinced that people who truly care about her are out to get her.

She's mentally ill. I'm a writer with an overactive imagination. These things, from where I sit and observe, are worlds apart.

Susan Littlefield said:

People with mental illnesses are business owners, lawyers, doctors, artists, paralegals, writers, teachers, unemployed, independently wealthy, etc. etc. Therefore, it does not make sense that writing and mental illness have any link at all except that a person who likes to write happens to have mental illness.

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Actually there is a high positive correlation on the link between mental illness and creativity. Yes, all types of people have mental illnesses, but creative types are more likely to have one. I did a paper on it for a psychology class once. People who are authors & artists are 80% more likely to have a mental illness compared to a scientist who has a 30% chance.

Enigami said:

Actually there is a high positive correlation on the link between mental illness and creativity. Yes, all types of people have mental illnesses, but creative types are more likely to have one. I did a paper on it for a psychology class once. People who are authors & artists are 80% more likely to have a mental illness compared to a scientist who has a 30% chance.

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Until I see your sources, I can't, of course, accept your conclusion as is. One possible flaw is the chicken and the egg scenario. I see that immediately because among the large number of MI I've met, creativity was not an obvious common denominator. Granted, my experiences are anecdotal - but I really would like to see your research, rather than just accept your conclusion.

I don't know about that. After all, it's the scientists who are usually labeled "mad."

shadowwalker said:

To those of us with actual mental illnesses, the answer is obvious.

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QFT.

Creativity =/= mental illness.

Shelley

Enigami said:

Actually there is a high positive correlation on the link between mental illness and creativity. Yes, all types of people have mental illnesses, but creative types are more likely to have one. I did a paper on it for a psychology class once. People who are authors & artists are 80% more likely to have a mental illness compared to a scientist who has a 30% chance.

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I would like to see a published, empirical study that provides statistics like this.

To answer the OP, this discussion is skirting the line of romanticizing mental illness. I'm fairly certain that having an active imagination and creative drive are not to be found as symptoms of a disorder anywhere in the DSM.

Enigami said:

Actually there is a high positive correlation on the link between mental illness and creativity. Yes, all types of people have mental illnesses, but creative types are more likely to have one. I did a paper on it for a psychology class once. People who are authors & artists are 80% more likely to have a mental illness compared to a scientist who has a 30% chance.

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That number is way way way way off and the general assertion is not universally true. The risk differentials run in single figures in most studies that I have seen. And some artists--sculptors, for example, are actually less likely to suffer from depression than the average person.

Yeah, from all my research it's just a high correlation. There is no proof that having a mental illness makes you more creative or that being creative causes you to have a mental illness. It's just a correlation between the two. For example, if I grouped a bunch of creative types and a bunch of uncreative types according to the correlation there will be more mental illness in the creative group. It's just correlation. It's highly based on the group you select and where you are observing. I mean we could do a study on handwriting and how many horror movies one owns. And depending on the group and where in the world we are observing we could come up with a whole number of correlations.

I wasn't trying to prove it. I suppose I should have said more than I did. I did the paper out of curiosity and just found out that there is just a high correlation and hardly any actual proof. Just these famous so and so's and these random college students. It's an interesting thought though and many people are researching the idea.

The statistics were from a graph in my textbook: Psychology: Themes and Variations (Eighth Edition) by Wayne Weiten

The voices in my head insist that I'm not schizophrenic; I'm just lazy because I'm not writing about them enough.

I'm dx'd with bipolar. I'm also absolutely certain my writing isn't tied to the bipolar. There were several years after my symptoms became severe enough for dx before I found a decent doc, and a couple more years of experimenting with different combinations of meds until we found a combination that allowed me to be something other than a zombie, suicidal, severely manic, or practically mentally handicapped (to the point I couldn't write a check, pay a bill, hold a business conversation, follow a recipe, read a novel, follow a tv series).

In that time, I started a few novels, wrote a couple thousand words, then promptly forgot what I wanted to write. Looking back, I have only vague memories of that period, but the amount of time I wasted is incredibly frustrating - and I know the time wasn't actually wasted, per se, but it feels that way.

Having lived with those demons having free reign in my head, I'm absolutely certain there are no similarities with my characters living their stories in my imagination.

A couple of folks have mentioned imagination as universally human, and I agree that at least most humans have some form of imagination. But I've also seen animals exhibit imagination. There's nothing quite like being on a young, half trained horse's back when he imagines there is a bear behind the clump of grass. Young rats seem to pretend to be parents, even when they're not part of a colony where they're expected to help with the care of the young. I've seen them force another smaller rat to try to nurse, and cradling them they way mother rats do neonates.

So I don't think imagination, in one form or another, is exclusively human. We just happen to be the only ones capable of writing our imaginings down.

Enigami said:

Yeah, from all my research it's just a high correlation.

The statistics were from a graph in my textbook: Psychology: Themes and Variations (Eighth Edition) by Wayne Weiten

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In which case I have a different point of view on what represents a "high" correlation. Also research would, in my book, involve reading the actual research papers cited in this textbook which do not relate to creative people per se but a certain very small sub-group.

Weiten made no claim about a strong correlation between these two categories, he wrote "some connection may exist between truly exceptional creativity and mental illness"

The very small (double digit) samples cited are of artists who have won major international honors, not a group I would tend to identify myself with as if there were difference between what I do and folk who won the Booker or Nobel.

Extreme achievers do tend to have more disorders and be general atypical. It has also be suggested that the disorders (depression is common) stem from the difficulties encountered when the exceptionally talented strive for wider recognition....

I just don't see it, personally. But I dislike the stereotypes of artists, because I think we all have the capacity to be creative if we choose to explore it and develop whatever level of innate talent we have. The stereotypes, to me, either get in the way of that or encourage people to play to stereotype rather than being themselves.

Wow, this is a totally interesting thread! I mean, wow.

I am creative in just about every way possible. I write, I decorate wedding cakes, I scrapbook, I did a huge stint as a photographer, I like to really do anything that is creative but would I say I have a mental illness? No.
My brother, who no longer is here, had severe schizophrenia and probably a few other things, spent a great deal of time in a mental health facility, and honestly, he didn't have a creative bone in his body.
The flip side, he was probably one of the smartest people I know, so smart that if he could have just... not let the illness take over, could have done a great deal of important things.
I think mental illness closer relates to scientists and mathmaticians, and what not. Not writers.

My father has said, "Creativity is controlled insanity."

I have to agree that there is a difference between wishing characters were real and believing them to be. I also agree with the saying that "writing is the only acceptable form of mental illness". The reason I agree is because there's not really any schizoaffective disorder tied to it, but a writer can tend to be obsessive and can also isolate themselves for hours.

But hey, we wouldn't be writers if we couldn't walk the thin line between art and madness right

There is also the assumption inherent in this concept that creativity exists mainly in those who use it for artistic pursuits. Plenty of incredibly creative people use their creativity to do everything from get out of doing chores to decorating their home to setting up a business.

Now, if you were to say that people with mental illness of certain manageable types may be more inclined to escape through creative pursuits, such as writing, I could see that. My personal brand of doctor-certified crazy and my childhood and adolescence spent escaping into my own head and writing about it are testimony to that. But cause and effect is still messed up.

My creative pursuits stemmed from the amount of time I spent in my own fantasy world, which stemmed from a desire to escape reality, which stemmed from the severe bullying I was experiencing, which stemmed from my innate inability to navigate complex adolescent social trends, which was at least partially related to my mental illness, the symptoms of which were exacerbated by the trauma stemming from the more severe sides to the bullying I experienced in a lovely little feedback loop that led to the creation of the worst Redwall-inspired book ever written by a sexually confused teenager which I later made damn sure I had destroyed every copy of.

Aaaaaaand breathe.

I find this near-flippancy about being 'crazy' quite insulting. There is no 'controlled insanity' unless one is on meds - and then it's maybe. There is no 'acceptable form' of mental illness. There should be no humor or winks about even the possibility of having a mental illness. But apparently it's still okay to make jokes about it, so my bad, right?

pandora said:

Ya got it backwards, if we don't write, we go crazy....

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*sighing in relief* Yes.

shadowwalker said:

I find this near-flippancy about being 'crazy' quite insulting. There is no 'controlled insanity' unless one is on meds - and then it's maybe. There is no 'acceptable form' of mental illness. There should be no humor or winks about even the possibility of having a mental illness. But apparently it's still okay to make jokes about it, so my bad, right?

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I find this thread to be on the verge of insulting, also. But I've had far worse lies told about me because of my mental illness. Still not saying it's right, but.. *hugs*

Enigami said:

Actually there is a high positive correlation on the link between mental illness and creativity. Yes, all types of people have mental illnesses, but creative types are more likely to have one. I did a paper on it for a psychology class once. People who are authors & artists are 80% more likely to have a mental illness compared to a scientist who has a 30% chance.

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What are your sources for this information? I have a difficult time believing those stats.

shadowwalker said:

Okay, so not so obvious.

My point is (and I doubt this was the OPs intention, but it clicked nevertheless) that many people seem to find MI somehow 'quirky' versus being a set of serious illnesses. Like so many celebrities who claim to have depression or be bi-polar as if it were something chic.

As you say, many different people in many different walks of life can be MI. Just because one writes is no indication one has, will have, or should have, a mental illness.

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Thank you so much for clarifying.

shadowwalker said:

I find this near-flippancy about being 'crazy' quite insulting. There is no 'controlled insanity' unless one is on meds - and then it's maybe. There is no 'acceptable form' of mental illness. There should be no humor or winks about even the possibility of having a mental illness. But apparently it's still okay to make jokes about it, so my bad, right?

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No. Not your bad. This thread really isn't doing anything constructive. Locking it.