Depression, SI, and Creativity...

[savethenerds]

So. Hi. *waves*
newb here.
lurked around the board many years ago, and then again more recently in the last few months.
don't really know where to introduce myself, but I figured I'd dive right in with something that has been bothering me for a little while.

***this is a lot of backstory, if you don't have the patience or time to read it all, you can jump down to the second set of stars...that's where my real question starts***

Basically, I'm in a really transitional part of my life right now. First time I'm not in school in...oh...20 years, not really sure where I'm headed career-wise as I've begun to head a somewhat different direction, and did some...cleaning of my life; removing all the toxic people and things in my life. The last month or so, after a long down period (i'm talking years) and subsequent breakdown, I'm feeling stable and, dare I say it, happy...ish for the first time in a very, very long time. Maybe not 'happy', but, not depressed, not as moody, and my anxiety is at an all time low. As my friends put it, I'm "not even emo anymore". (I was/am a very emotional person, and often my depression was openly worn on my sleeve)
So, everything seems all peachy-keen, right?

Well. My creativity has seemed to dwindle down to nothing. Which, I suppose could be okay - except, that I'm a musician. And, that's how I plan to live.
You see, I've been SI free now for...4 years...after having dealt with it on and off for 7. The first year wasn't so bad. I actually had gone over a year before I relapsed again. Then the second year became increasingly difficult to cope with. Between a number of factors and then a random event that occurred, I can pinpoint the exact second I fell back into a deep depression, ha. I had just moved to a new city and didn't really know anybody, so I was very easy to hole up, be antisocial, or just be alone with my thoughts. That was a difficult time. But...I didn't go back to SI. Unfortunately, I found a more socially acceptable form of hurting myself, I suppose, binge drinking. So the few times I would go out, I would drink. A lot. It was self medication. It helped me deal with social anxiety and SI all at once. Yeah. Bad idea. Anyway, there was one terrible night where I surely had alcohol poisoning and blacked out for many hours. A little bit of a wake up call, but after a couple weeks, I was back to my routine. Then, I also started to develop this thing where I would blackout whenever I would drink when I was stressed, no matter how much or little I drank. I guess my brain was trying to shut off or dissociate for a bit. Then I had a break-up, and again, that was another wake up call. She had broken up with me because she couldn't deal with the depressed side of me, and how I wasn't dealing with it, etc. So. Yeah, I was miserable for a day or two. Stayed in bed, cried, the usual. But I had just begun a new job around then, and I told myself, you know, she's right. I can't just sit here and whine about it, I need to DO something about it.
Now, I have two (and a half) degrees in music, but, outside of school, I hadn't really done much with it. Well, this is when I really turned to music and it truly became my savior. I start playing for MYSELF. I joined a band, and then another. I started recording, and then I finally started writing music again after not doing so for many years (for various reasons). And you know what, it worked! It became how I coped. I didn't really feel the need to SI, and my drinking was under control (for a little while, anyway, before another multitude of factors came into play). But even then, it was how I got by. I met most of my amazing friends through music and these various groups, I started to make money from playing, and most of all, I rediscovered my passion for writing. It really did help me get through some miserable times. Notes manifested on a page are far better than cuts on my arm or an empty bottle of vodka.

**********

But now, as I feel I am coming out of my darkness and 14+ years of depression, I am finding I've lost my ability to write and much of my passion. At first it felt like, excuse my term lol, musical constipation. You know, I had these ideas in my head, but I couldn't get them out. Now, it's gotten to the point that I feel like there's nothing there. I don't know if it a coincidence that my first real writer's block has decided to come upon me now, but I know for a fact that a lot of my work came when I was upset, sad, or just generally emotional. But it's becoming increasingly frustrating, esp. as I'm preparing to begin a new program in writing and arranging.
Has anyone else had an experience similar to this? Some sort of artistic pursuit that seems to be fueled by your depression and becomes an outpouring of your emotions? Now that I do feel stable and not depressed, I feel a weird emptiness. 1.) I suppose because I had dealt with depression for so long, it had become such a huge aspect of my life. And, in a sense, somewhat comforting because I knew what it was and it would always be there. I couldn't say that for anything else in my life.
and 2.) because I feel this 'artistic' emptiness.
How do you cope with NOT feeling depressed?
...it kind of makes me feel like this is going to be one big cycle. As time goes by, I feel increasingly frustrated and unmotivated. Will this just end up bringing me back to where I was?

ugh. Now I think I understand the whole 'tortured artist' thing. I really do believe art grows out of adversity.

So, that begs the question. Which do I cherish more? My health, or my art?



Hey, if you got through this, it is GREATLY APPRECIATED. This turned to a long wind-winded post. But any thoughts are welcomed, and if you've gone through something like this, I would love to know and talk about it!

[mirroredinsets]

Depression can certainly influence creativity - I can think of multiple songs about that connection off the top of my head, and the proportion of great artists and writers who have suffered from depression or bipolar is impossible to ignore.

For myself, I can't write without my mood swings. I'm full of words when I'm manic, but the only things I've written that are of any real quality I wrote when I was suicidal. When I was on valproate, and later lithium, my creativity just dried up.

When I'm put in a situation where I'm forced to write when I'm (hypo)manic, my brain refuses to come up with original ideas, so what I've ended up doing is taking several pieces of my older work and turning them into something new. Definitely not as good as it could be, but usually better than not writing at all.

<3

Molly

[NobodyToYou]

I may not be the best person to answer this, because I have never been able to write songs or poetry well anyway.

But I have found for me, my "deep thinking" has changed somewhat. When I was depressed, my thinking was certainly centered around it, and it inspired a lot of my philosophical ideas. When there isn't such an overwhelming emotion going on, I can feel a lot less focused and my ideas seem a lot less important. For a while I didn't even do much real "thinking" about things.

But I don't think that means you need to choose between your art and your health. I suspect what might help is to start learning your other feelings, as they are now, and then how to write from something other than depression. You still have feelings, and probably have a much wider range of them now than you did when you were depressed. You are still capable of seeing things through the lens of those feelings, and expressing them in words and music. But since they change and shift rather than being one overwhelming constant feeling, it will probably take some practice to learn how to use those feelings as inspiration.

Just like depressed and desperate feelings can inspire a song, a sense of peace and calmness could too... you just have to learn how to tap into the other feelings. This may end up being a really good thing for your creativity... it makes me think of someone moving from black and white drawings to using color.

[guff]

I too am a musician. Although after many years of public performance, I decided that I don't want to make a living from music. Or let people here my music (except a select few). I digress..

I only write music about what I feel. When I'm in a bad patch, everything seems a lot bigger than when I'm in a good patch, and it is much easier to write about. Because it all seems more.. obvious? Does that make sense? In the bad times, I write about the pain/anger/hopelessness/etc, because it is the predominant thing in my life at that moment in time. In the good times, there isn't anything as obviously dominant, so writing is a much slower process. So I write about how I feel about something, a person, a world event, a Lovely Horse, a pet, the past. It does take a lot more time, but usually something half-reasonable appears at the end.. Well, sometimes..

Hope the writers block disappears soon..