I live successfully with unipolar depression after a long
exploration through challenges to recovery – or a state in which I have learned
to manage my condition well. But this is
not a post about depression or my story in that sense.
There has existed the romantic view of writers being the
tortured souls, the often depressed often manic, borderline crazies who use
their alternate spin on reality to craft beauty and art. I do think that good writers have the ability
to see things from multiple angles, different strands and divergent vectors,
but I have often though about the relationship with depression and writing.
Does one need to be a depressive to be a good writer? Absolutely not.
I think when one emerges from the black hole of depression
to recovery it can (I say can) lend one a better understanding of emotions and,
hence, the human condition. Depression
can offer a unique objectivity when one is able to live with it – when it turns
off the ability to emote, you can see emotions clinically and coldly. While this may not be, to put it mildly,
pleasant, I think it can be useful after the event to bring such an
understanding to ones writing.
In essence, I am saying that when you rec over from
depression, it can offer useful insight into oneself and objective observation
of the human emotive state. If one has a
tendency and ability to write, this can serve to infuse the writing with
another angle – it can, in short, be another tool to add to the toolbox all
writers have. A better tool? Not at
all. A different tool? Perhaps, but in a mater os state rather than
scale.
Now that I am in a place of acceptance with my depression, I
can see a positive use for my experiences through depression in my
writing. I am not saying it has made me
a better writer – actually or relatively – but I feel it has given me an
insight that I might not have otherwise had.
I wonder is this true of other writers who happen to have
depression?
