Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: tayana on November 07, 2007, 10:28:02 AM
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I know there have been a lot of studies done on this in the past. I finally got treatment for my depression, and now it seems I'm experiencing a major case of writer's block. I'm trying to tell myself it's the result of too much stress, but it almost seems like I do my best writing when I'm at a low not when I feel good or normal. It's really frustrating. It's like all my creativity has dried up.
I don't want to feel bad just so I can write, but at the same time I hate not being able to create. It's very frustrating. When I open up things I've been working on, I can't seem to concentrate on them, or else I get bored and move on to something else. I just don't hit the level where I can keep my mind on what I'm doing and keep a story moving forward.
Does anyone else notice a connection between depression and creativity or productivity? I don't feel creative anymore, and I almost want the depression back just so I can feel creative again. Or maybe I should just contact my mother, so that I have a lot of feelings that I need to put on paper. It's not just that I can't get anything to come out, but that I can't think of anything new, anything that I feel like putting on paper.
I feel good, and I like feeling good. But I don't want to sacrifice my creativity to feel good.
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I think that the idea that you have to be effed-up to preserve your creativity is a canard that traps a lot of people. When I was in school I hung around with all creative types and encountered that idea a lot and I don't think it really worked for them, or for me. My artist's buddy's most creative time of all was when she was pregnant and wildly happy. Somehow is just got her going and she was massively productive.
It does seem there is scientific evidence that bi-polar is connected with creativity, but that doesn't mean that a bi-polar person must also, you know, suffer or go untreated in order to be creative. You know?
It may be that because you are in brand new territory, your creativity is not feeling motivated and inspired by 'old stuff' that used to work, but you have not hit a new vein of richness yet that will inspire you. Or maybe you have been doing so much outwardly right now that you haven't really had a chance to take a pause and just be and so open up the connection to inspiration and source that generates all the ideas and potentiality.
Or there's always the compost pile if what I'm saying just doesn't hit the mark at all!
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Thanks Iphi, I don't necessarily think you have to be depressed to be creative. I told my doctor I thought I'd been depressed all my life. I can actually point out major depressive episodes in my life. The one time I sought out treatment before, because I'd started scaring myself with thoughts of suicide and being unable to eat, I stopped going to the psychologist when he suggested I try anti-depressants. When my stomach doctor wanted to put me on lose dose anti-depressants to control some of my symptoms, I wouldn't take them. I'd heard that anti-depressants muck with creativity.
It isn't even so much that I don't feel creative, as much as I have NO INTEREST in writing at all. None. I read things I've written, and I have no interest in revising or writing something new.
I do seem to be my most productive when I have a low level depression going on, not a major episode.
I'm considering just looking through submission calls and seeing if I can find something to get my creative juices going again.
It's really frustrating that I can seem to get anything going, and I don't want to give up feeling good for my art.
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tayana - take a moment and look back at where you have just been! Finally out on your own, going NC, withstanding various manipulations and pushes and pulls, to court(!) for a huge issue, and just sent in manuscripts while you are at it, and not even one day of downtime and -wait a minute - are you 'on' yourself because you haven't been up all night tending the creative fire in addition to fighting the good fight during the day??
Girl! :D
It sounds you haven't had much time. However, I respect what you are saying about some consciousness states going with productivity. I am resisting seeing it as a hard and fast connection instead of one of habit - what has worked before. I'm thinking seasons - winter prepares the way for new growth in new ways and new connections.... I don't know... those ideas.
What kind of writing do you do? What are submission calls?
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Iphi, I write fiction--romance, erotica and fantasy . . .
See, I could buy the stress thing, except writing was my stress relief. I was actually more productive during all of that, because writing was my escape. Now I just stare at the screen and can get a single sentence to come out.
Submission calls? Looking for open anthologies and what have you for something to spark a creative idea. The manuscripts I've sent out are things that I'd already had written, just hadn't submitted yet.
I have to see my doctor this afternoon. I'm going to ask about the medication. I've just been reading that apparently drying up creativity is a common side effect.
I had a roommate once who believed she HAD to be depressed to write. I don't believe that, because I've been able to write happy, sad, etc. I've just never experienced this total lack of desire.
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I am actually suffering the opposite way... I am depressed and don't want to do anything. I finally finished a painting yesterday, but it is more an act of getting through than enjoying anything. I also started knitting again a bit, but everything seems sluggish and uninspired. I need some passion!!!!!
Love, Beth
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Beth, I know that feeling. I get that when I hit a real low. I finished off a knitting project over the weekend, and that felt good. It looked nice too.
Maybe it's just that for so long I couldn't enjoy anything, but the writing, and now that I'm starting to enjoy other things . . .
I don't know. I don't like the feeling though.
I feel for you. ((((hugs Beth)))
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Tayana,
Are you aware of this Writers website?
Overall, thought it might be of interest to you, and also, there is an article on the very subject of your thread.
http://allkindsofwriting.blogspot.com/2005/12/depression-sensitivity-and-creative.html (http://allkindsofwriting.blogspot.com/2005/12/depression-sensitivity-and-creative.html)
love,
Leah
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Leah, thanks! Interesting link.
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Tay - being a writer also, I can relate to the block. Have you thought of writing about the block itself? Where in your body is it - try to locate the actual location physically? What color is it? What's its shape and size? Does it speak, and, if so, what would it say to you? Can you move it to another location in your body? And any other qualities of it you can think of.
This exercise is elementary, but it has helped me on numerous occasions. To see it, visualize it, hear it, feel it, and put all descriptions of down on paper. It's an exploration, which, for me, has led to new creations.
Just a thought.
Kate
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Dear Tay,
I wrote you a long post earlier and it erased.It was "controversial""so I thought that maybe I would just let it go-- b/c I did not want to upset you when you had so much on your plate anyway. By reading ,now, I think that you could receive a different opinion--so I will tell mine. I could be totally mistaken.
I think that creativity is when a writer can take his internal landscape and make the reader feel things that bring the reader to a new perspective.
You are changing your emotional landscape with medication. So, of course, your creativity would be altered.You,of course, have to weigh all the pro's and con's of medication for yourself.
However,to me "depression" is a symptom that s/thing is not right. I want to keep mining my emotions to get to the root of the depression, rather than take a medication to alleviate the symptom. That is just how I see it from working in and studying holistic health.(I do not want to be in the middle of a discussion defending my viewpoint. It is just mine and I am not desiring to start a discussion on it,please.)
The creative person is a "different" person in that he feels things and sees things in a unique way. Then, he brings his revelations to the reader.
I would think that you would have a definite change in your thinking patterns and these are the source of your creativity.
I think that as you heal, on the board, you will be able to face the thoughts or feelings that are causing the depression. You will uproot the depression,in a 'natural" way and still maintain your creativity. Also, you will have gone through an internal journey that many great writers seem to go through. That is just my opinion. Compost what does not fit . Love Ami
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Hey Ami . . . you shouldn't have deleted your controversial post. I like controversial. My medication is actually for anxiety, and I haven't been having anxiety and panic attacks. I just got back from the doctor. I agreed to give it a couple more weeks, but I did express concern over the block. The medication does help me, and I don't want the panic attacks back.
I'm hoping I don't need the medicine permanantly, and I don't think I will. But I had to do something because the panic attacks had gotten quite crippling. I didn't want to be around people. I didn't want to do much of anything except hide out in my room. I don't need that kind of anxiety.
It's supposed to help me sleep too, but that doesn't work. And here I am drinking my caffeinated soda after I was just told no caffeine. :?
Kate, I finally decided to just sit and force myself to work through my "play" novel. It's not something I'm going to submit, just something that I spend a lot of time. It's really a collection of vingettes, but it's almost 400 pages long. There's no end in sight. I'm just trying to see how long the sucker will get. I managed to get almost 1200 words out and it was feeling pretty good. It's possible that feeling good and what I've been working on just aren't compatible. It might be time to do something totally off the wall again.
Ami, I'm working on the other symptoms of depression with my T, so I'm trying to get to the root of it, and hopefully when I do, I don't need the medicine anymore. I'm not a big fan of medicine. I tend not to take it unless there's a real need, and I had a real need this time.
Although I probably should have skipped the gas station hot dog for lunch . . . something tells me that's not going to sit well on my stomach.
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Dear Tayana,
What an interesting post; thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this!
Yes, I think learning new ways for coping with depression, as well as gaining psychological health generally, has totally changed my motivations for being creative , absolutely.
I used to be driven to create for its own sake, but now I tend to be a bit more focussed with it, and concentrate on using my creative skills to make a living and to teach others in my fields. Those are by far my biggest sources of motivation right now and bring me a much greater sense of fullfillment than when i was in my twenties. I think down the track I'd also like to contribute to the evolution of music and 3D animation (two of my passions), but right now I'm happy with how things are going.
X Bella
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Dear Tayana,
I am glad that I can be honest with you.( Sometimes people can get very offended with a differing viewpoint)In this case, you and I don't really differ very much, though. .I would like to talk about "plain" depression, if I could. I am really "noticing" depression. I think that I used to medicate it by shopping, worrying , having my mother go round and round in my head(I guess you could call this obsessing), being "numb", caffeine ,food ,relationships etc.
Now, I feel it and see it. It is scary. It has the feeling that I could fall down in to a hole and stay there. However,today, when I really felt "oppressed", I wrote down my feelings. I asked my inner child ,"Why was I depressed?". I found out some amazing insights..
I realized that I HAD to become nothing as a way of taking care of my M. She could NEVER feel badly. That was the number one rule in the house. She had to have her feelings catered to--in any way and in all ways. If I was 's/thing special" she would feel bad and maybe,jealous. So, I had to become" nothing 'as a way of making sure that she would never feel' less than". I could never take the chance of outshining her and ,thus, making her feel bad. I had to simply sink to the lowest that I could in order not to threaten her.
It was a huge insight.I felt better. Without you , on the board,I could not face these "new" feelings.Inside, I feel panicky about how I feel and think. However, I see it as just "lies' about myself. I need to get to the bottom of them and then they will be harmless.For example, a lie could be that,"I am worthless." It is a lie b/c we HAVE value. That is what I mean by lies. Another would be ,"I am only worth s/thing if other's approve of me.". That is another lie.
As I look inside when I have a "bad' feeling like fear and depression, my inner child tells me 'why" I have these symptoms. .
Thank you for being there. I took a little foray in to "regular" depression. Back to depression and creativity. Thanks Tayana . Love Ami
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Bella, you're right. I had the option of doing something else, and I told my doctor I would let it go for a few more weeks and see. I think it's just an adjustment of "feelling good" versus feeling overwhelmed. I know I used writing as an escape. There were days I would sit and crank out thirty pages in a day because I needed the distraction. It was almost like an addiction. I couldn't wait to get back to what I was doing because it was an escape. I think I've done a lot of that creating for creativity's sake. Some of what I put on the page wasn't so good.
Amber, you might be right. Maybe just having energy to do other things is eating up some of that creative energy. Or else I'm just so exhausted at the end of the day that I collapse.
Ami, one of things I started doing was really looking at why I felt "depressed." It's such a catch all term, so I had to sit down and really think about what I was feeling. I wasn't always feeling sad. Sometimes I was angry. Sometimes I was sad. Sometimes I felt guilty. Sometimes, I felt numb. I once told a counselor that I couldn't feel anything, and I think the truth is I felt things, but those feelings were all jumbled up and I didn't know what was what. One of the things that I noticed as I started breaking "depression" down into how I was really feeling was that the depression itself wasn't the major issue. It was the anxiety. The depressive episodes started out with mounting anxiety. As the anxiety built, the more depressed I felt. So in addition to feeling sad, guilty, angry or whatever, I was very afraid.
I was afraid my mother would call. Before NC I would go home at night and literally be on pins and needles until after the call. I'd start cooking supper because I couldn't just go home and relax. I had to do something. And if she was coming to visit, then the panic I felt was even worse. I felt that panic just as bad going to visit her. I could just feel the panic start in my stomach, like a nervous feeling, and it would just spread outward. My heart would race. My head would pound. And it would culminate with me in tears. I would break down over a math problem in homework. I would get panicked if it was 9pm and M didn't have homework done and we still fighting about it. I would start to feel overwhelmed if I was working on a project at work and got interrupted with something else. My chest would get tight, and I would start to shake. I'd go home at night and the house was a mess, the laundry not done, the grocery shopping wasn't done, M didn't want to eat what I fixed, homework had to get done, we had to go back to school for something, the dog had to go out, my mother called to yell at me for something, I couldn't get my work done at work. I was tired. I couldn't sleep. And then something would snap and I'd sit in my floor crying, feeling like a failure because I couldn't do everything and nothing was working out. I started to be afraid to answer my phone, even with caller ID. I was afraid of coming to work. I was afraid of the homework folder coming home. I just had all of this irrational fear, and it was getting worse.
That was why I sought out some sort of intervention because I was doing all of those other things, trying to eat healthier, exercising, working on a positive outlook, rewriting tapes, and I was still feeling like crap. I think that realizing that part of my depression was actually anxiety was a big help. Definitely keep looking at your feelings and what you really feel.
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Dear Tayana,
Today, I realized that I was really, really angry at my M b/c she denuded me b/c she was jealous of my "internal" qualities. She was jealous that I had a "personality" and she was insecure. She was jealous that I had values and she didn't..
I had a vitality and she was jealous. I had to throw it all away b/c the FOREMOST thing in the house was that she feel good about herself. My personality made her feel bad so she had to manipulate me and shut me down.
Steven King wrote a book called the "Tommy Knockers"where zombies take over the towns people. Once a person gets taken over they are very sly and manipulative in the ways that they try to get other people to give themselves up to become a zombie----bleh.
I never really felt the "appropriate " anger for having to shed my trust in myself for fear( or love) of her. The inner child book says to beat the bed with a pillow or a towel. I probably should.
These feelings seem like a huge hole that is bottomless.
I know that I could have an "addiction"( even shopping) to make them go away for the moment ,but it is not worth it
. I might as well face them b/c I have been running from them all my life. I don't want to run anymore.
Love Ami
It feels so bad that it is not even funny. These deep feelings of sadness are like being at the bottom of the ocean--you just want to sink and sink until you are gone--bleh
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Hi Tay,
I needed medicine. I have written better than ever since I got appropriate medicine. I won't be on it forever but I think it was a gift, for me. There are other times when I confront everything raw. But struggling to find work, deal with my mother, my daughter, and a lot of upheaval for several years, I needed the help and I'm grateful the doctor had some. I know they're overprescribed, but I think people can also get phobic about taking them. Neither makes sense to me. But I'm an cafeteritarian about medicine. If I had time to identify safe standardized herbal extracts that wouldn't interact with another medicine I have to take, I might go that route. Meanwhile, it's helping me get by. When I asked for Rx I was at the point of serious health breakdown. That's when I step back from absolutes.
(Along the same lines, I'm breaking my veggie vows now and then. Feel sad about it. But can't help notice the rush of energy from the animal protein. I'm hoping Ami's doc's stuff will eliminate that need.)
About blocks...I believe for writing, there are times when the field is fallow. Fallow isn't barren. It's wise.
Is there a chance you're being perfectionistic about a need to write All The Time? To be, say, Constantly Productive?
Gotta go...
hugs
Hops
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Hops and Tayana,
I learned about the effect of depression on my creativity from taking meds too. It was a big eye opener, having been depressed most of my life in a low-level kind of way, and then suddenly having that feeling lifted completely. I was taking one of those meds which boosts noradrenaline and dopamine, which was great for really figuring things out, accelerated learning, and raising my consciousness.
I didn't like some aspects of taking meds, so I gave them up after 6-8 months. But they did give my life a good kick start, once I'd figured out how to motivate myself differently.
Hops, its great to hear that the effect on writing ability can be really good on meds. I can believe that, after my own experiences. Thanks for the info!
X Bella
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Tay, care to share the topic of your play? I am working on editing mine now and it's fallen subject to my procrastination.
Kate
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Ami, I have noticed that when I feel depressed, I want to spend money. I won't call it an addiction, just a lack of impulse control. When I feel depressed, that's when I make impulse buys. That's when I go buy things I don't need or won't use. I buy clothes that hang in my closet with the tags, and then later on I wonder what I was thinking. I would do it to make myself feel better. I'd decide that I deserved a treat, and so I'd make a purchase that I didn't really want or need. Spending the money never made me feel better. Usually it made me feel worse, and then I'd just continue on a downward spiral. I've noticed with relief of my symptoms that some of these urges have gone away. I can go into a store and buy exactly what I went to buy, on my budget without a problem.
Hops, yes I'm probably perfectionistic about having to write all the time. when I have an upswing of productivity it makes me feel good, you know. Th eproblem has been though that I have the upswing of productivity, but then I just keep producing. I don't stop to perfect anything to submit. It sort of defeats the purpose. So I finally had to stop and rework a piece to submit. For a long time, writing was my escape. I could lose myself in the story, and I would just sit and crank out the words. That was all I wanted to do. It was scary, and I did recognize what I was doing. I managed to write quite a lot yesterday, although I didn't feel that good about what I'd done. That's why I told the doctor I wanted a few more weeks with the meds. It might just be that I don't know what to do now that I feel better.
Bella, I resisted doing this for a long time because I was afraid of what would happen. I'd heard mixed stories, but the side effects aren't too terrible. I get really tired with it, but other than that and the issue with my writing, it's good to feel this good. I'm not irritable. I'm not panicking. I'm not anxious, well, a little. I just feel normal. I don't want to be on the meds forever, that's why I still go to the T, but it's been an enormous help.
CB, I had the option of switching meds, but I'm going to stick with this one until my next appointment. If I still have problems, then I'll switch it. I'm already taking the lowest dosage. Exercise helps me too. I've lost quite a lot of weight just walking my dog. I've never looked at the Artist's Way. I might have to check that out. I love your image of land lying fallow. Maybe the right idea hasn't hit me yet.
Kate, my play story is about a young man who was abducted and rescued. He suffered rather badly with his abductor, and he's dealing with those issues. He's also dealing with issues of sexuality, and once his family learns he's gay, they turn away from him. It's mostly little vignettes about his recovery and learning how to keep his life moving forward in spite of what's happened to him. It's been a very therapeutic book to write, even if it has no plot. Like I said, it's my play piece, although I think some of the scenes might find their way into a different book eventually. This one is a spin off of a series I started, a series of thrillers where my main character becomes a sort of amateur detective. It was a real departure from what I normally write, but I really had fun with it. I swear these books and this cast of characters helped get me out of my parents house.
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What is so hard for me to understand reading this topic is how everyone is able to have their creativity, which is a great joy, even through all their lives with Ns? My creativity is a blasted radioactive wasteland. I'm not even sure Mad Max characters fight over the contaminated water there. How did you escape?
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Iphi, my creativity is the one thing that I refused to sacrifice for my Nmom and my COD dad. Here are some of the criticisms I have heard:
"Why don't you write something besides that fantasy crap? No one wants to read that."
"Get your head out of your fantasy world and into the real world."
"You better find something else to do because you can't make a living writing."
"I don't know why you're wasting your time with this. Why don't you write something like those little articles. Those would sell."
"Why are you wasting your time writing, when you aren't going to sell what you're working on."
"Is that something you can sell."
"Romance? Anyone can write that."
"I guess its one of those hot romances." (To this one I have to say, she had no idea).
I could just keep listing. I just refused to sacrifice this one little thing. My mother started writing poetry at one point and would send things to me she had written. She started telling me what a great book she could write if she knew how to type. But writing, and being creative, whether it was knitting, scrapbooks, photography or whatever, that was the one thing that made me feel good, and it was the one thing that I refused to let her take away. Does that make sense.
At least in a story, I could be treated the way I wanted. Even if my own mother treated me like a glorified 12 year old.
Writing and all of the other creative stuff was sort of my escape from the N world. I especially like stories where I could do awful things to the characters I created that reminded me of my Nmom. Writing was my way of fighting back.