Manic-Depression, Suicide, and Writers
Q.From an article from the New York Times by William Grimes, about a conference in New York on "Wanting to Die: Suicide and American Literature," sponsored by the American Suicide Foundation.
A.Novelist William Styron recounted his own battle with depression..."I now realize that depression and thoughts of suicide have been an integral part of my creative personality thoroughout my life," he said..."I began to realize all my work was of an incipient depressive personality struggling to provent the demons of mood disorder from crowding in." Styron joins a long and illustrious roster of literary figures who battled depression and despair. Kay Jamison, a professior of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and autor of "Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament," said writers were 10 to 20 times as likely as other people to suffer maic-depressive or depressive illnesses, mental disorders that lead to suicide more often than any other. It is not surprising that these mood disorders seem most at home in the artistic mind. "The cognitive style of manic-depression overlaps with the creative temperament," Jamison said...."When we think of creative writers, we think of boldness, sensitivity, restlessness, discontent; this is the manic-depressive temperament." Researchers have found that in a mildly manic state, subjects think more quickly, fluidly and originally. In a depressed state, subjects are self-critical and obsessive, an ideal frame of mind for revision and editing. Neither ... The statement is merely that there seems to be a higher incidence of manic depression (depression in general, actually) among writers and other artists than there is in the general population. Looks to be an interesting book. I've been flipping through here and there -- had it a while, just hadn't spent any time with it. The whole last THIRD of the book is notes ... This is the chicken and the egg question all over again. The only difference is that dish washers can also be manic depressive and damn good at what they do. SO WHAT! Who cares, because there are manic depressive people in all forms and types sharing this world with near normal folks like myself. Some manic's go on to become actors or writers or presidents, or just plain folks with real problems and concerns. Mental disorders are not limited to an imaginary boundary of "artist". I know many depressed persons who are not writers. Why would they even care to share their dark world with anyone? I very seldom get depressed, but then again I'm also a red-head.
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