Okay, so hypergraphia is the unrelenting compulsion to write. I had to go to Mass General (the best hospital in the US) to find understanding and treatment for it. Dr. A.F. wrote the definitive text on the disorder, The Midnight Disease and s/he also wrote The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Neurology which is the most “widely used neurology text in its class.” S/he is a big believer in brain functions being responsible for psychiatric disorders, as am I.

Dr. F. enjoys hypergraphia. S/he first experienced it after giving birth to twins who died. Later, after s/he gave birth to twins who lived s/he experienced hypergraphia again... and continues to wrestle with the compulsion.

I was fortunate to find her/him when I did as I was under the control of the disorder, writing 200+ pages per day, going through 2-3 notebooks per day. No paper was safe if I had a nearby pen.

Many people have told me that I “write too much” and I know that’s true. I don’t write as much as I did three years ago, though. Dr. F. has been a tremendous teacher in helping me to control the disorder. I’m down to a little under 50 pages per day and less than one notebook (my notebooks are where I write words, phrases or sentence fragments that I like — most are mine but I’ll note words and phrases from poetry, prose and song lyrics that move me. An example from V.N.’s Lolita: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” One of the greatest opening paragraphs in literature).

The disorder is not uncommon. It is believed to be caused by Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) or brain chemistry resultant from (in particular bipolar) severe depression. For me, it feels like ‘manic-lite,’ maybe. Hypergraphia can contribute to literary creativity but it seldom means that the writing is ‘good.’ There are extraordinarily great writers who’ve had hypergraphia (Dostoevsky is the first that comes to mind) but most of us write poorly; poorly and at length.

I, the poor rake, cannot help but do what I do. As I write, I am not cognizant of misspellings, poor grammar or unusual punctuation. Not here.

I think that the reasons that I’m writing this are 1) I feel that I need to explain the quantity of my words, and 2) I’m wondering if anyone else might have this disorder?