Correlation between Mental Illness and Handwriting

Is there a correlation between mental illness and handwriting?

Byz, pull some links out of your hat.

I was just wondering, because I've been trying to journal everyday lately, and apparently I have like 10+ hand writing styles.

For example, yesterday started out as print, to cursive, to print, to all caps, to big block letters that I colored in, back to print, then doctor scribble at the end that I can't quite make out.

My hand writing is terrible I am glad I can type.

I remember reading a book on hand writing interpretation during a flight from Chicago to Portland, and according to the author there is a correlation between hand writing style and mental well being. Don't have any links to share though!

My handwriting is HORRIBLE!!! I type a journal instead of hand written ones. I do the same as you, I will start off with print then go to cursive then back to print and keep switching. It got annoying when I would try to read back over it. So now I just keep a journal on the computer.

Mine is horrible. I don't even bother trying to write in cursive anymore. I don't know if its related or not, but I have noticed the weirder I feel mentally the worse my handwriting is. Not sure why though.

Here's something from someone with a color disability, LOL:

http://www.canadiancollegekineseography.com/page4.html

Here's a more serious paper: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/554792

I am ashamed of my handwritting. I am however a dyslectic and dysgraphic, so that's my excuse

But honestly,who can write decently by their hand nowadays?

wYeah, really. I used to be one of those kids in the 3rd grade who had really neat hand writing. Regular and cursive. Teachers loved my papers. But that was in the 80s.

Since I don't write anything anymore.. my handwriting is crap. I think my wrist is now deformed or something from using a mouse..because I can't even comfortably hold a pen and it's like I strain while trying to write. Takes way too much concentration on just holding the pen to make it neat. Maybe there's a muscle or something in your hand to hold it and mine is gone. LOL But who cares when I can type 90+ words a minute.

I think the meds we take often change our handwriting. I know mine changes with new pills. bipolarbearV

Look for the Laughter!

The severe deterioration of my handwriting at least roughly corresponds with my history of depression. My cursive signature is illegible - gave up cursive for anything else years ago, and if I have to handwrite anything, I write slowly in block letters.

My meds make my hands shake & I have really tiny handwriting to begin with, all in all it's a disaster - thank God I type almost everything.

Funny part was I work for a really tiny company and up until about 2 weeks ago, we were still handwriting all cheques for AP. And it was my job to write them. Bad scenario. Now we've got a process that's still manual, but at least I get to type them.

--splitimage

My handwriting is horrible too. If I couldn't type I would be in trouble. Mine also goes from cursive to print and back and forth. I have also noticed that the worse my mental state the worse my writing is.

Read away!

http://myhandwriting.com/FAQ/

Kinematic analysis of handwriting movements in
patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...v070p00605.pdf

Can Handwriting Help Diagnose Mental Illness?

http://www.articlesbase.com/health-a...ss-177216.html


Any number of things can change a person's handwriting style, some only temporary: what disorders you may have (such as bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder, OCD, ADD) which change how you feel and respond, whether you've had enough sleep, whether you're low or high on sugar from soda i.e., whether you're feeling blue and moody, etc.

I tend to agree on this. It makes sense.
I'm an artist, and normally anything that comes from hand must be above average, IMO...(I'm my own worst critic...), thus my penmanship used to be a work of art in itself. Since I began using the computer and typing/printing my letters, I have noticed a great decline in my control of the use of the pen. I fatigue much sooner. If I attempt to write anything longer than a paragraph, I notice I start out neat (nowhere as neat as it used to be), and gradually worsen to a scribble..then give up as it ends up looking like child's scratch.
I think we lose the use of the motor skills we developed when we first began writing...."Don't use it, lose it"...

I also think it's quite possible that the variation of style of penmanship that's used within a letter could be due to boredom or the because of the struggle of writing in itself..so we try a different style as an attempt to try to remain focused/interested in what is being written?

Shangrala

I get what you are saying Queen. My handwriting style varies widely like you described. All in one sitting I can write several different ways. I think part of it is when I am concentrating really hard I write faster? I don't know. Its strange because I don't recognize my own handwriting very easily because its always sort of different each time I write.

My handwriting is pretty neat and I like putting some effort into making it nice.

I have a very light touch when I write though. In school I kept being told I should press the pen much harder on the paper, but I can't. I also have a very tiny handwriting naturally, but if I have to make what I'm writing legible to others I can make it bigger with little or no effort.

A friend of mine once told me my handwriting says "I don't want to bother you", which made me smile, but I guess it makes sense since I have social phobia...

I have the neatest handwriting & printing. It is so consistent that even when I go over it again, the letters are exactly the same as the first time. From the beginning of the page to the end, it looks all the same. My hand writing is very similar to my printing also.......& on top of it all, I am left handed. Everyone that I know that's left handed writes with their hand over their writing, but I couldn't write like that as it was very uncomfortable. My writing hasn't changed much in all my 50 some years of writing.....but especially hasn't changed since I was in college 40 years ago.

A few times when I am in a hurry & want to get something written out quickly, it's not as neat, but it's still in basically the same form. My printing & writing is basically straight up & down without any slant. Very similar to the Comic Sans style in my signature. From the time I started to write in school & even when I was printing, they always complimented me on what wonderful writing/printing I had. I also was able to type (back with the old manual typewriters) at 65 words/minute, so I didn't really have to bother writing.

I always thought how easy my handwriting would be to forge...lol, but maybe not.....wonder if anyone would actually forge such neat writing...lol.

I don't know if there is a correlation with my mental illness but I also have different writing styles. I have had banks refuse my checks because my signature does not match the signature on file. Also when I was working as a critical care RN I had to speak with an attorney who was representing my hospital in litigation. The attorney was reading my notes and asked me if I wrote those. Yes, I said. Who wrote this, he asked. I did, I said. But your handwriting is totally different from the earlier note, he said in confusion. Yes, I explained, the morning started with a stable patient and I had time to write my notes but the patient became unstable and I was very busy so my handwriting changed because I was rushed. He thought this peculiar.

When I was fifteen or so, a long while back, my family and I were having dinner at a local restaurant when a person (apparently authorized by the restaurant) approached us and said she was a handwriting analyst. She inquired if we'd like to have our writing analyzed and we said yes. So we all wrote something out for her and gave her the papers. She went off for a while and studied the samples and then came back, giving each of us an interpretation. When she turned to me she looked very confused and distressed and kept looking at the paper and looking at me, over and over. Finally, she said that from my handwriting she would have to think that I'd been raised in a German concentration camp! Little did she know about my family!

my writing is like a hybrid of print and cursive since I do use cursive but have forgotten some of the letters... my friend also pointed out that when I write my letters tend to melt together and my d's look like cl's, my handwriting is larger then it used to be but still nice looking. I've had a lot of people compliment it...

Interesting question. I have noticed in the past that I have different handwriting when I'm in different moods. Some of them are so different that it's hard to tell it's the same person, actually. My mom has expressed concern that she thinks I have multiple personalities,but she's not really one to talk. The woman smoked crack with me when I was 14, I even overdosed to which she responded with offering me even more... but- the handwriting thing, I think it links to mental "stuff" though I don't think that messy or neat is really the key. I think it is more like what I experience- different writing in different moods. It also depends on my general perspective at the time, like where I'm at in how I see life- I've gone through many different "phases" in life, and feel like I've been several different "people" though not necessarily multiple personalities. Everyone experiences different moods and perpectives, just like most people don't write in on uniform way throughout their wriitng. Journal writing especially because it should by nature be uncensored. We shouldn't have to worry how neat we are writing there, just about the fact that we get it down.
Kriya

with the German Concentration Camp and your family. My stepmother and her first husband went to Germany immediately after the War for his job, I can identify.

I can identify with the 10+ different handwritings (though my reasoning is that each of my alters has a somewhat different handwriting). But I suppose you could relate that to mental state, because certain alters come out when I'm stressed, scared, sad, depressed, angry, etc.

Interesting that you point this out because the different handwritings were actually my first clue towards having DID. And it was key in leading to the "diagnosis" of DID. Interesting topic...

My handwriting has deteriorated over the years. I attribute the deterioration to not writing very often since my last job. Because I have been dealing with depression for decades, I do not see a connection.

The comments have been enlightening.

OO. MY TURN.
I actually have a friend (how insane..) who showed me her different ways of writing. Put it this way: She doesn't have any mental illnesses to date, and her fonts need to end up on Microsoft. As for me, my handwriting's been crap since five years ago. If there really is a connection between MI and handwriting, then I'm not suprised about my handwriting.
I looked back to some of the things I wrote 5 yrs back, and it's hard to read..but the year before, when I was mostly carefree, it was sloppy, but legible. I was never a mentally sound person to begin with, so there was probably a slow deterioration occuring without my recognition (Until now, of course. ).

It's pretty funny I'm reading this because I considered buying a handwriting book. Is there a "Handwriting for Dummies" published, perchance?