Alt-Health: A Touch of Madness

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” Aristotle

Beethoven suffered from severe depression and had been self-medicating with alcohol for many years before he died of liver failure in 1827. Vaslav Nijinsky was considered the greatest male dancer of his era. His innovative modern choreography in ballet bordered on heresy, once inciting a riot. He was 26 when symptoms of schizophrenia began affecting his work; he spent the rest of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Many artists have swung dizzyingly between genius and madness. Both Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf struggled with depression and bipolar disorder, and Van Gogh’s afflictions are legendary. The lives of creative giants such as these have fueled the semi-romantic notion of the artist as a mad, albeit creative, genius.

At first glance, scientific research on the link between creativity and mental illness seems to bear that theory out. Studies show strong evidence that creative people have more personality traits in common with the mentally ill than they do with so-called “normal” people. But does this necessarily mean that creative people are mentally ill as we tend to think of it? The truth may surprise you.

Contrary to popular belief, visual artists, dancers, directors and scientists suffer from mental disorders at significantly lower rates than the general population. What makes this all the more paradoxical is that creative thinking can be tracked to unusual activity in the frontal lobe, the same brain region affected in patients suffering from manic depression and schizophrenia. But that is where the similarity ends. There is a distinct separation between healthy creative thinking and that of a destructive, pathological state. What artists do with their unusual brain activity is altogether different. It is possible that the translogical thinking of creative individuals is, in reality, an extremely healthy method of coping with conditions that we would call mental illness.

For any of us who appreciate the arts, it is clear that there are distinct advantages to having a brain that is wired differently. In addition to producing works of beauty and thought-provoking commentary, creative thinkers are capable of problem-solving to a degree that goes far beyond the capacity of most folks. They are not limited to existing bodies of knowledge and they don’t need an instruction manual in order to start working. They WRITE the manuals and they forge the way to new thinking. This phenomena is not limited to the arts; there are visionaries and innovators in every field who have pushed beyond the accepted borders and made amazing discoveries. Their unusual brain wiring may have caused conflicts in their social or personal lives, but it did not prevent them from achieving success in their creative endeavors.

So how did “crazy artists” get their reputation? It has a great deal to do with the high profile they often occupy in the media. The World Health Organization estimates there are over 350 million people on the planet living with depression. Some of those people are artists, but far more of them are not. One of the reasons that we are more aware of the meltdowns of artists is that their antics tend to get a lot more press. Kanye West’s peculiar public rantings were so outrageous that they sparked repeated mention in the news. When he finally cracked, it was like the season finale of a highly hyped mini-series, making headlines across the country. In contrast, so-called “normal” people who suffer from depression and bipolar disorders tend to manifest in a way that is merely sad or annoying; it is scarcely newsworthy. It is only when these “normal” people become violent and begin spreading terror throughout the community that we hear about them.

Unfortunately, artistic reality can be a very mixed bag. Artists who struggle with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are seldom at their most creative when their symptoms are out of control. Creativity is usually at its highest peak during periods of remission and clarity. Many artists say that they cannot work when they are depressed or manic; their ability to concentrate during such episodes is impaired. The reputation that creative thinkers have gathered as “crazy” was probably gathered during fallow times. Even Kanye West can seem relatively sane when he is performing.

But sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you. Sadly, even highly creative and successful people end up committing suicide; writers in particular are prone to self-immolation. Sometimes the struggle becomes too much to bear. At times like that we need to realize: We do not remember artists because of their pain or their suffering … we remember them for the work that they managed to create in spite of it.