Bipolar Disorder And Reclaiming Creativity

Bipolar Disorder and art seem to go hand-in-hand. I, myself, am both a writer and live with Bipolar Disorder. As a result, I've been on both sides of the equation with unstable creativity and medication blunting. I want to offer you some thoughts that may help if you're struggling with that yourself.

The relationship between emotions and creativity

Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder, and mood disorders influences emotions. Unwellness, instability, and medication can all affect the emotions that drive inspiration.

To me, it seems like there are two types of artists. There are the people who ride their emotions to gain inspiration and create, and then there are people who create regardless of how they feel.

Personally, I view myself more like a carpenter. I don't need inspiration or emotions to build a chair. I develop a plan (outline), gather my materials (a word processor), my tools (spelling and grammar), and build my chair (first draft).

After I'm done, I go back and sand, polish, and finish into my final draft. Behold! A chair!

The carpenter is no less of an artist because they can produce multiple chairs, and their final product can be as gorgeous as any painting.

Periods of stability with bipolar disorder

Stability is going to be a shock if you are the kind of artist that rides the waves emotions for inspiration and creativity. If those emotions are no longer there, then you can't rely on them for inspiration, right?

But what if that's all you know? What if you don't know how to tap your creativity otherwise? Then it's easy to conclude that you've simply lost it due to stability. Emotional blunting certainly happens, but then there are a lot of people who just give up because their internal environment is now different.

You shouldn't give up. Instead, try approaching the problem from a different angle. You still have all of the skills and abilities you had before stability. They're in there. You just have to find a different way to access them, to tap the well.

My suggestion is go back to the basics. Are you a painter? Pile a bunch of stuff up and paint a still-life. Are you a musician? Go back to some of the early things you learned to play. Are you a writer? Pick anything around you and write about it.

Currently, I'm looking at a printer that I could write about. If I did, I would contemplate its manufacturing, its journey to the store, my buying it, its journey here, and finally why the hell it won't ever stay networked correctly! God, I hate this printer. I'll write about that, too.

Yes, you probably won't start at the level you were, but that's not the point. The point is to set your creativity free again so that you can create.

And I have to say, the ability to sit down and write a few hours a day helped me improve my craft so much more than writing for 80 hours in the span of four days every couple of months.

Encouragement to use your gifts and talent

I know it can feel bad listening to all of these other people with bipolar disorder talk about art if you're not an artist, but know that there are plenty of people with bipolar disorder who aren't artists. We all have our gifts and talents to nurture and grow. What's yours?

Be well. And remember - take your meds as directed. If you're having a hard time on them, want to quit or change them, talk to your doctor before you do anything.