Bipolar and Creativity

I'm a playwright, and I'm not sure whether bipolar mood episodes enhance my writing (I can write some really fun, witty stuff while manic though that I can't always access otherwise) but my experience as someone with bipolar definitely gives me plenty of experience to draw from and write about.

I am a music teacher and singer. I feel like I am a better performer and teacher because I think creatively and feel deeply. I feel like I am more sensitive to my students because of my emotions that I have felt on a deep level.

I taught music independently (self employed with about 25 students a week) for most of my career, and I agree that bipolar made me instinctive with my students. Somehow, I "just knew" what type of music and what pieces every student would want to play. I was right on, most of the time, and we were like "one mind" when we were working on something in the lesson. We totally synced. Unfortunately, I sense that these days are not a time when one-on-one music lessons are a wise thing for a person to do. Things were getting kind of creepy near the end of my work. I was threatened more than once by a parent would charge me with possible child abuse. I also had one six-year old boy who told me he was being pinched hard on the face by his mother's boyfriend. No marks to be seen, so the children's services office would not do anything. He mother terrified me -- she was mean to the boy, and I could see she might be dangerous to just about anybody, including me. I finally came to the conclusion to talk to the boy's school counselor. She was just wonderful, said she personally had lunch one-to-one with every child in the school at least once a year. I told her what was going on with the child, and she promised to keep on eye on him. That was all I felt I could do under the circumstances.

I've always had manic depression. Now called bipolar.
I think I've overcome some of what could happen when you struggle with this disorder.
Yes. Creative. Smart. Accomplished.

Have always been creative here as well, in writing, music, and innovations in one the strategy games I play. I've sometimes wondered whether the free associations and pattern recognition comes from having the 'N' (Intuitive v. Sensing) in the Myers-Briggs personality classification rather than a mood disorder, per se. I would think that N's are more likely to think outside the box irrespective of having bipolar, schizophrenia, or something else. There's no doubt that the elevated states of course do promote creative output.