“Depression is not uncommon to those who are drawn to work in the arts, and then the lifestyle contributes to it.” – Deborah Legge, a licensed mental health counsellor in Buffalo, New York.
Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, some of the most influential writers in human history all died by their own hand, and this can simply be another unsurprising fact that plague many artists of all kinds alike. Novelist Simon Brett once noted that writing “can be wonderful therapy, but you are digging into yourself and if you are writing fiction and creating character, a certain amount of self examination and self doubt is inevitable.”
Writing, or generally, creating something whether it be music, movies, art, poetry, prose, or more, can often be subjected to this romanticism that we see in popular films such as La La Land, where creatives are seen as desperate people trying to strive to some form of greatness through their work, both personally and outwardly, as they craft their projects “through the smokescreen of the crowded restaurants.”
But there are also times when even the darker side of the creator can be romanticised, with this idea that writers are mostly these drunk loveless men in their forties, sipping out their scotch glasses and typing up their next novel in the dead of night, too drunk to recognise their genius and yet still somehow being arrogant all the same.
The point is due to an almost bohemian lifestyle and the complex cultural view when it comes to art in all its many forms, as well as the processes of actually finding it within yourself to make something to share with the world, a lot of creators can suffer from this mentality of burden. The idea that their work will never be good enough and as a result they will never be good enough.
I’ve reflected on some of these thoughts in my previous post ‘Being Good Enough’, confronting the idea that sometimes just being “good enough” is okay, and not every single thing you make has to be this flawless work of art.
But when it comes to mental health and the patterns that can affect many creators it can be quite troubling. As good as it is to always enjoy the idea of how bohemian creators can be, and how much they are sometimes needed (as we see in works like once again La La Land), it’s always good to take a step back and realise how much you could be sacrificing for your work.
Who you are is not reflected by the quality of your own work.
The idea that because your first, second, or third novel wasn’t the best or how your painting wasn’t perfect, or how your album wasn’t popular or how something you made wasn’t totally great, must mean that you are a person are just not good is incredibly ignorant.
People get better. If I gave up every time I realised my writing was just shit, I wouldn’t bother writing at all. You can be sad, you have the right to be angry, that something you made just didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. These are all normal reactions. But time and time again we see people with unhealthy habits that affect their mental health plaguing their work, and this can contribute to the development of many mental illnesses that have burdened a lot of creators in the past and still do to this day. I’m not saying this is 100% the case as the development and relationship of mental health and creativity is far more complex, but it’s hard to deny how much one can contribute to the other.
You should not be risking your own mental/physical well being over what you made and certainly not your self image.
Creators can sometimes go to great lengths for what they make and it’s amazing to have that much passion for something. It is great to share that passion with so many people and to see the success that it can bring and the ways it can positively influence so many other people. But there are times when you need to take a step back and realise you need to care about yourself as much as you care about your craft.
Thank you for reading.
harjit singh 