Writers Are Twenty Times More Likely To Suffer From Depression
Sunday, June 10, 2007Posted in: Bloggin In Black, writerly depression
Over At Bloggin In Black, the latest post is about writers and depression:
According to the NYT:
“Kay Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and the author 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 manic-depressive or depressive illnesses, which lead to suicide more often than any other mental disorders do.”
Monica continues:
“The symptoms of depression are lasting sadness, feelings of doom and inferiority, but they also might be more subtle. Isolation, no longer able to concentrate or write. Inability or difficulty doing other things that were once routine. A change in sleeping or eating habits. Hopelessness.”
According to Shelia Goss, many authors suffer from depression, but feel too embarassed or ashamed to talk about it, and thus they have no way of knowing that they aren’t alone.
I know at least one author who constantly suffers from self-doubt and depression, and she’s a great writer. I wonder how prevalent this really is.
December/Stacia
June 10
11:54 pm
Awfully familiar to me…
Caro
June 11
12:31 am
It’s not uncommon, from what I’ve seen. Writers, actors, musicians — we’re putting little pieces of ourselves to be rejected, judged, and discussed by people we may never meet. When I was a child actor, I had the beginnings of an ulcer at the age of 14 because of the stress of putting myself out there for auditions. (And, no, this wasn’t because I had stage parents; they wanted me to stop.)
Most creative types are, I think, looking for some type of outside validation and it hurts when we don’t get it. Does this mean we’re fragile little flowers that have to be coddled and you don’t dare say a bad thing about them in case it might drive them over the brink? No. Like anyone who suffers from depression, the burden is on the individual (and perhaps those closest to them who act as caregivers) to manage the problem.
And before anyone says I don’t understand, let me admit that I suffer from depression and it can be a constant struggle. If I don’t manage it, there have been times it has seriously impacted my life.
Jaye
June 11
12:52 am
I’d say it was very common. Maybe it’s shrugged off as writer’s block, or frustration with the current writing project or the way one’s career is fairing, or doubts about your abilities/talent, but sometimes those reasons aren’t sufficient to explain away what’s going on inside your head.
Anne
June 11
1:16 am
I had depression before I started writing, but, yes, at times it pulls me under when I start feeling bad about my creativity. So, I think this is very true.
Selah March
June 11
1:42 am
I wonder if it’s a chicken/egg kind of thing. Do writers/other artists suffer from depression because the difficulties associated with being writers/artists? Or do the kind of people naturally drawn to the arts also happen to be the kind of people whose brains are wired to suffer from depression?
I spent the better part of my life — including childhood — suffering from various degrees of depression. Therapy did little, medicine did less. It was only when I started writing every day that I found my way out from under the black cloud that seemed to hang over me through my entire life. Writing is my Prozac, my therapy and my recreational drug of choice. It’s entirely possible that I might already be dead if I hadn’t discovered it.
Wow. Downer. Sorry. 🙁
raine
June 11
6:01 am
Agree. It’s very prevalent. I know I’ve dealt with bouts of it for years, and I know several other writers who do too.
And whether it’s due to a chemical imbalance or psychologically induced, it affects every aspect of your life.
Sarah McCarty
June 11
10:14 am
I, thank God, have never had a depressed moment, but there have been many times over the years that I have been writing that I’ve thought that if I had the least tendency to be depressed, I would have flown over the edge into it.
As many have already pointed out, this is a very brutal business when it comes to self esteem. There’s only so much that’s under an author’s control, and even if they do everything right, write the perfect book, 90 percent of the factors that see it published are strictly luck. Meanwhile, while the author waits for the right place, right time, with the right book scenario to occur, they are getting a steady stream of feedback, usually in the form of rejections. It’s not uncommon for this to go on for years. So yeah, I wouldn’t be the least shocked to learn there’s a much higher level of depression among writers.
Anonymous
June 11
11:04 am
I spent many years battling depression, and my writing really suffered, of course it didn’t help that at the time I discovered that my husband of 12 yrs had been having an affair with one of my best friends. The feelings of helplessness used to overwhelm me to a point that I did actually coinsider ending it all. Then I remembered that I had a child who deserved to have its mother see her grow up, so I fought. I sought help, and emerged on the other side a much better person
I still get depressed, especially when I’m told that my writing isn’t good enough, but now I’ve learned to turn lemons into lemonade and not focus so much on the bad stuff.
My advice to any writer out there who increasingly find it difficult to get out of bed, or to do the everyday things in life without crying, GET HELP! It may just save your life.
Dee
June 11
2:44 pm
I was a lot like Selah, I had serious bouts with suicide and depression and anorexia as a kid and into my teens. Months of insomnia only made it worse. I was a world of black depression unto myself. Writing pulled me out. Gave me a goal and an outlet. It’s been fifteen years, but I’m very lucky to have learned my own triggers–holding emotions in, not venting–and I stay away from letting things effect me. If I feel myself getting too close to the edge, I back up and remind myself that I was never meant to do it all in one day. Then I make myself a liveable schedule and try again. If I didn’t write, I’d most assuredly be dead.
Dee
Amie Stuart
June 11
3:12 pm
What Caro said…and like Anne I struggled with depression from my teens on up–so a good 20 years or more (damn I sound old).
Sadly there’s still a lot of stigma attached to it and I got a lot of flack even from my own family. I’m not medicated now, and changing my diet has helped tons but I’m very watchful of my moods.
Sarah McCarty
June 11
3:14 pm
*reading everyone’s comments* Depression is such a debillitating insidious disease. Getting help is impertive and to keep trying (I know, especially hard when depressed) to get help even when the first or second treatment plan doesn’t work.
My ex suffered from depression. It was horrible to watch him go through his down times and to not be able to help him out of it. And I so wanted to. There just wasn’t anything I could do for him. Fortunately, he was always, ultimately, able to help himself out of the downward spiral.
I wish they knew more about this disease. It effects so many.
Anonymous
June 11
3:17 pm
I have been on medication for years to treat clinical depression, OCD and social anxiety disorder. I still have to watch for the black thoughts as I take only enough meds to keep me ‘out of the pit of depair’, or I am unable to write. And writing is my life.
However, there are huge benefits to my illnesses. The compulsion to write and desire for isolation make me well suited to the eight hours a day I have my bottom in a chair and the resulting copious word count. I am also scrupulous with research and facts, and enjoy revisions. And I believe my quiet, introspective life has allowed me to truly ‘get inside’ my characters and their lives, so they come alive for the reader.
I shall not sign my name to this, sadly a stigma exists for us who must battle mental illness. I’ve had friends who believed I should just, “Snap out of it.” Some family members hold the opinion I use meds as a crutch and simply don’t try hard enough to be happy.
One day, I hope depression will be looked upon similiar to a broken leg; it requires treatment or we should suffer needlessly and remain crippled.
Meankitty Says...
June 11
3:49 pm
I was not depressed until I started a serious run at writing for publication in my 30’s. That being said, this shift in my life coincided with becoming a stay at home mom :). Yarrgh! And really, my difficult period didn’t hit until kid #2. Double yarrgh! But I think it takes all kinds.
B
June 11
11:04 pm
I’m not sure about the U.S. but I think depression is regarded as a normal illness here in the UK. A GP is said to see depression at least once a day and I’ve seen the expression that it is the common cold of illnesses. Saw a statistic that about 1 in 3 people or so suffer from it once in their lives.
I remember a neurologist from Oxford University roughly saying, in a lecture I was in (no notes though, it was an aside comment), that depression is one of the most horrible diseases across the world and it is a global problem. I think the only thing he put above it was cancer/AIDS and that class of diseases. They’re doing research about the pleasure centre in the brain and all sorts of other related things in their medicine department.
But the UK also has high levels of depression as well. And A high output of authors, is it not?
I would agree with the chicken and egg comment. I’m more likely to think that depression makes you more likely to want to write about it, get it out, ‘writing as therapy’. The arts are an outlet but also a way of feeling productive. An awareness of self and the nature of humanity comes with good writing that makes it all the more likely oppression of the self occurs. I’d like to know more about the study e.g. what they took as depression? Diagnosed or not?
Have you taken a cruise around the internet and viewed a lot of the written work of teenagers looking for connection through the internet? There is so much angst poetry. The levels of depression may be rising.
There is a guardian article I’ve read some time ago which made an extremely good argument relative to depression: it indirectly sheds light on why a writer, who is isolated in their world and a plotter of human experience, might be more susceptible to it: http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2047969,00.html
I think the ’emo’ trend, however, might make some people view depression with some contempt and mistake it for some sort of attention seeking. Despite that, levels of awareness are rising and I do hope that in my younger generation those attitudes of ‘snap out of it!’ have hopefully been reduced considerably.
Karen Scott
June 12
6:00 am
I think the ’emo’ trend, however, might make some people view depression with some contempt
B, within the health and safety bumph that I get from the government for my employees, there’s a huge emphasis on employers looking out for employees who are suffering from depression, and the insistance that we treat depression as an actual illness, rather than viewing it as an excuse that people use to explain poor performance.
As for cruising the internet looking out for angsty teens, no thanks, that way leads madness.
Anonymous
June 12
7:23 am
OCD, bipolar, schizophrenia, substance abuse – my family has it all. Mom raised me to watch out for the signs of mental illness, and sure enough, it crept up on me in my late teens.
The women in my family all have brown hair, long legs and depression. My aunts and my mom and me, we’re different ages and races but people always know we’re family when they see us together. We paint, we write, we sew. We wear miniskirts at any age just because we can. We laugh too loud in public and we cry behind closed doors. And we all have our orange prescription bottles – no two alike.
Mental illness is as heritable as heart disease, and just as treatable.
I don’t think writing causes depression, but I do think it makes a lovely distraction from one’s problems. Maybe that’s why so many writers are depressives – problems are so much easier to solve on paper than they are in life.
Marianne LaCroix
June 12
7:39 pm
I have depressive episodes, but less often since taking my medication (Zoloft). I remember friends (writers) telling me not to go on meds as it would stifle my creativity. No. The DEPRESSION did that.
I don’t care if people know I have depression or not.
Anonymous
June 13
2:51 pm
Whether it’s part of the cause or the effect, for myself I know that there’s one aspect of the writer’s life that doesn’t help at all when I’m battling depression: working alone. In those times, being inside my own head all day frequently causes me to try crawling up walls. Though it’s not the ultimate solution, I know it gets better when I work with others.