Bipolar Support Group

I am starting this discussion to ask folks to share how being bipolar affects their creativity. If their medication helps, hinders or has no affect. It doesn't matter what form your creativity takes. Whether it is painting, writing, computer programing or gardening. It's all great.

I haven't painted in over a year even when people want to pay me. It sends me into a panic to even look at my supplies. I have been dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety for a while.

Welbutrin was great, could work for hours and stay totally focused. It also made me manic and my muscles cramped up so that I couldn't hold a pencil. My self-esteem is taking a beating with not doing anything for so long.

My creativity has become more focused. Before I was so manic in my creativity that I was all over the place until I finished whatever project I tackled. Now I can start a project and complete it. I have noticed that I have to think a bit longer before starting now but I think that was because before I would jump in feet first in my manic moments.

I am actually begining to focus now that I'm on seroquel. I started doing some drawings a few days ago and it feels pretty good. I was just wondering, because I've heard people say that medication made them less creative. I have never really found that to be a really big problem. I do know that when I had those bursts of creativity it always left me feeling worn out, I'd kind of dread them. I never really liked the high feeling - it made me anxious and afraid I'd say something off.

my writing and paintings have been i guess better. i come up with ideas better and im not soo scatter brained since im on lithium. i feel better with my creativity.

This is my first post, but its very personal and important to me. I have really lucked out with my meds. My main problem in the past is that I had intense periods of productive creativity that lasted about 1 year. However, they would turn into psychosis and then all that creativity would turn into disorganized crap. I am currently on 200mg of seroquel, 10mg of ambien at night and 200mg of Lamictal in the morning. I am writing better than ever(more lucid and articulate). In the past I was more focused on the visual arts as well as music, but it seems that writing is really my gift. My meds seem to allow better focus and continuity. Now, I'm not saying this is 100% smooth sailing, but its a heck of a lot better than before. The drama of mania ruined much of what could have been truly creative and worthwhile. I will never go off my meds and replay my past(getting on top of my college student center and proclaiming that I was the Second Coming is not the highlight of my life). I know a lot of people dont like the effect that meds have on creativity, but I have lucked out. However, I sometimes doubt what is inspiration and what borders on delusional.... Good luck to everyone in this predicament...

good luck to you with your road to recover on biopolor i am biopolor to i take seroquel 100mg at night.

My new tdoc and I discussed this last week.

He shared an example of a client of his who was an artist. When this person was manic, his paintings were very vivid. When he started taking meds and was level, his paintings were less dramatic, but more meaningful and easier to interpret.

My tdoc told me the same thing is true for people like myself who love to write.

When manic, I write dissertations for posts and can write 6 chapters a day in the book I'm currently working on about bipolar and psychosis.

However, I find that when I'm level, the things I write are clear and concise. For me, being on meds means greater creativity because I'm able to express myself better than I can when I'm manic. I may *think* I express myself well when I'm manic, but I don't.

Others on MDJ have told me I'm very sharp, witty, perceptive and pick up on things quickly when I'm manic, but I actually prefer myself when I'm level because I feel as if I can express myself in a clearer fashion.

I've always loved to write for as long as I can remember. I also love music. I sing 1st Soprano, participated in my high school's advanced choir and play 4 musical instruments. This summer I will be learning a 5th as well as continuing private voice lessons which I've had over the past 4 years.

I think my bipolar adds to my creativity, but it has been there for years long before I was diagnosed.

I was also considered gifted throughout school and participated in Honors courses, so my bipolar didn't really change anything as far as my intelligence is concerned.

Yikes. I hope my post didn't sound conceited. I didn't mean for it to. It's difficult to talk about this subject without explaining where I've been all these years before I was diagnosed, so I apologize if my post came across as if I were bragging.

Post edited by: neondreams, at: 06/22/2009 05:18 PM

I think this comes and goes for me. I'm a scientist, and I think creativity is uber important if you're to succeed in science....it's what's gonna get you published in a rag that people read versus one that people within a field read.

I go through spurts where I have tons of amazing ideas....and then there are these droughts where I can think of nothing and think everything is lame and dumb, including everything I'd thought of before.

So maybe I'm not completely stable, but maybe my self image isn't...not sure which...probably the latter.

It comes and goes with the mood swings, as well as whether I'm taking all meds prescribed. I have the tendency to quit some meds for a while because they make me feel a bit numb in the head, and bring my creativity level to a halt. When I'm on a roll, I want to stay on it , instead of feeling like the meds have taken an ice cream scoop or two of brain tissue.

Left brain, right brain? I am an artist, or I WAS an artist. Do I still have talent? I still have pastels and pencils and calligraphy pens. For 25 years, I made a good living in the casino industry, spouting numbers and odds and probabilities, did I smother my right brain entirely? I WANT to create, I want to apply color to paper, I want to write, but the idea terrifies me and I bake something instead; I know how to do that, it's kind of artistic. The bipolar has made me incapable of casino work - I can't remember an instruction or a bet or who I just dealt to. Where is the bridge to the right brain which lies dormant after all these years.

I want to write about Katrina. I was there for every minute of it. I survived the storm and the aftermath. I have a story to tell, but when I sit at the computer, sure this is the time I will begin to write, I panic. Somehow I feel if I can access that story, the other things I used to love will come back to me. I miss calligraphy, it was so flowing, yet precise.

I don't have a clue who I am or what I know how to do. Casino is over. Artistic expression scares me. I feel that if I relax for a moment and disappear into the fantasy, the shaky walls I have pieced around me will, -- poof -- blow away.