[vmsmith]

I am a musician, music is my life!
I've noticed that since I have been stable on my meds, I don't write as much. The ideas just don't come like they did.

Do I really need to be manic and delusional to write music?

[kaliope]

honestly, I think it helps. I think we are more creative in a manic state. our mind seems to be firing on more cylinders. that doesn't mean we aren't capable of doing these things medicated. we are just more prolific unmedicated. and we have to ask ourselves if it is really worth it for all the chaos it causes in the rest of our lives.

[insilence]

im the same, just did two vocal tracks and ended up deleting both

[RonPrice]

INCIDENTS IN MY LIFE I WITHDREW FROM
NOW
RECOLLECTED IN TRANQUILLITY

This poem is written with apprecation to Bruce Dawe for his poem with a similar title in Mortal Instruments: Poems 1990-1995, p.112.

Knowing when to quit is half the battle,
for some wars you are going to lose;
unless you like to fight these losing contests,
pulling the plug is what you must choose.

The time I worked in that grocery store
and had that boss I could not understand;
the game was over from the start;
I did not have the tools at my command.

Then there was the time at uni,
so overwhelmed by all those books.
Depression added flames to that fire;
so beaten was I by their terrifying looks.

Then, again, there was that first marriage,
that job in Tasmania I thought would be a rest,
that passion I had for Chris Armstrong
and those bosses up in the north and west.

They all seemed, in one way or another,
loses from which I just had to retire.
But as I look back I can see a victory,
buried underneath that steel and fire.

Ron Price 15 October 1999

[RonPrice]

CREATIVITY

The evolving system of the creative person is multicausal and unpredictable. The investment theory of creativity suggests that creative people are able to “buy low and sell high” in the realm of ideas. Buying low means pursuing ideas that are unknown or out of favour, but that have growth potential. The creative person viewed in the perspective of this theory can persist in the face of resistance. It is useful, if not essential, though, that such a person loves his ideas and focuses on his work and not on the rewards. Obviously, though, the creative person finds it encouraging that he has an environment that is supportive and rewarding of creative ideas.1

By means of a studied hindsight, an analysis of my life and society over more than sixty years, 1944 to 2007, I can hypothesize some factors that have led to all this creative writing and to the study of creativity itself.1 The modern impulse to study creativity first gathered momentum in the late 1940s early 1950s and it has continued into this new millennium. –Ron Price with thanks to Robert J. Sternberg, editor, Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge UP, 1999, pp.10-11 and 1ibid., p.108.

Some underlying matrix of
belief, attitude, values, ideas
has been carried about now
for decades; it never really
deserts me, rises, grows over,
under, beside me, in the gut,
aortic-blood flow to the brain,
over and over, trying to make it
compatible, relevant, somewhere,
sometime, closing the gap, modifying,
schematizing, a network of enterprizes
in my notebook years, new connections,
categories emerging from stabilization
and differentiation, freedom from
constrictions, from a whole system
of propositions, assumptions, emotions,
some would call it faith: this extremely
complex, truly life-span scope, cortical
arousal, bi-polar relation, lack of inhibition
and other degenerative stigmata, shifts,
tantalizing constellation, developmental,
childhood trauma, expansive, optimal fields,
beyond my control in a fragmenting world,
staggering diversity and perhaps constructed
after my death1 by generations of pioneers
who will succeed me in this contingent world.

1 This was the case with Rembrandt whose creativity was constructed by art historians after his death.-ibid., p.178.

Ron Price
21/2/06(revised 26/12/07)

[NanuConfused]

I went off my zyprexa for a couple days not too long ago and I had a creative burst, but the other things that came with it were not worth coming back. My creative kick managed to stay for the most part though. I think I've been in a hypomania lately though despite being diagnosed depressive type. It might be the Wellbutrin causing it I think.

[TaterChip]

ugh I know exactly what you're talking about. I write stories; it's my passion, actually. When I'm medicated though, I just kinda.. :l you know? I don't have any spurts of energized vigor to write.I'm usually overflowing with ideas ALL the time, but now that I'm on medication, I haven't written whatsoever. I'm very disappointed. I want that manic inspiration, but the psychosis was getting out of hand. I'm very sensitive to medication; pretty much it will affect every area of my "problems" even if it's predominately antipsychotic.

[Terabithia]

While being manic brought me a great burst of creativity, I didn't see the results when on meds. as I saw the results (the book) when I was manic. I wrote The Book of Life believing that it was the New Bible created by God's words which he spoke to me. After the episode, I realized how embarrassing it was and I threw it away - now I wish I'd kept it though, just to look back on. Others are probably much more talented than I am, though, so do write pretty amazing things. I'm writing right now though, and I tell my husband, God, if only I was going through some major depression or mania maybe I could write something with more depth to it. I'm stuck. Yet do I really want to go through that? Do I really want to put my loved one's through that? It's too risky.

[RonPrice]

I've enjoyed this thread and will, therefore, post more on meds and creativity below.-Ron Price, Australia
----------------------------
Mania varies in intensity, from mild mania (hypomania) to full mania with extreme energy, racing thoughts, and forced speech. Standardized tools such as the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale and the Young Mania Rating Scale can be used to measure severity of manic episodes. Because mania and hypomania have also been associated with creativity and artistic talent, it is not always the case that the clearly manic bipolar person needs or wants medical help; such persons often either retain sufficient self-control to function normally or are unaware that they have "gone manic" severely enough to be committed or to commit themselves. Manic persons often can be mistaken for being on drugs or other mind-altering substances.
-------------------------------------
Some are now attacking the increasing use of bipolarity as a lifestyle term: a cultural shift from the fad for depression of the 1980s to a more recent fascination with mood swings and the "creativity" of mania, as evoked by Claire Danes in Homeland, or Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Some are now blaming the forces of pop culture and pharmaceutical marketing for turning a categorical psychiatric concept into a dimension of symptoms: a mood spectrum wide enough to encompass almost anyone who experiences highs and lows.
------------------------------------------
The idea that psychosis, inspiration and revelation are closely related may be an old and recurrent one, but it is also a marginal one, and people with prominent psychotic symptoms are very likely to be stigmatized and isolated. By contrast, in many traditional societies these same people may be seen as visionaries and mystics and celebrated and sought out for their special insights and abilities. Owing to a lack of lateralization of function in the brain, people with schizophrenia and their non-schizophrenic relatives may gain in creativity from increased use of the right hemisphere, and consequently from increased communication between the right and left hemispheres. Interestingly, increased use of the right hemisphere also occurs in healthy people with high levels of paranormal and religious beliefs. In traditional societies people with psychosis or with high levels of paranormal and religious beliefs may project an aura of spirituality and religiosity and, as a result, may be conferred shamanic or shaman-like status. The term ‘shaman’ is generally used to refer to healers, medicine men, seers, sorcerers, and such like—important people whose role within a traditional society may include physical and psychological healing, but also divining the weather, following totemic animals, communing with the spirits, and placating the gods.

[hottoget]

I know what you are going threw. I am not a musician. The meds do it.