Depression as a writing tool

[thorjansen]

Is anyone here a writer? Not just pro, but anyone who journals, etc. If so, do you get some good writing out of your depression?

I've been a writer since my teens, and depressed since then too (that makes 40 years, yikes!). Though I take an AD (wellbutrin), I still get depressed. When I do, I find myself drawn to the keyboard not to screw around on the Interrnet, but to write. I find that I write more when I'm depressed than not. Of course, most of the subject matter is a bit down and pessimistic, but then when the depression eases off, I can edit my writing and clean up what shouldn't be there.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that though I hate depression, I've found a way to use it, and use it profitably, since it's inevitable anyway. And sometimes I think that if they ever came up with a real cure for depression, I don't think I'd take it because I'm afraid my output would drop like a stone.

[resonance]

I tend to write more when I'm mildly down, or dealing with life issues, as a way to help work things out. Note that neither of those are the same thing as depressed. When I am depressed, I can't write can't think feel horrible. It's not a creative state for me at all; it's the antithesis of creative. Writing does nothing to help, because the problem isn't cognitive, i.e. it's not a problem I need to figure out, it's a problem that needs treating.

If someone invented a pill to fix bipolar disorder, I would take it immediately. I would love to not have my output dragged down by reduced ability to function.

[Panz]

I am hoping to go pro and I DO find being mentally interesting has led me to some marvolous writing as well as mind expanding new thought. Depression or the mixed anxiety/depression lends a weird dark urgency to my writing, so yeah, I think that you are really on to an under-used path way to creativity.

[Loon-A-TiK]

it isn't depression or mania that contribute to me writing well, it is actually ptsd. when the world isn't moving and it is me and my ocean in time, i need to write to keep myself anchored in the NOW and not be engulfed in memories of days gone by.

depression makes me just want to hurt myself, and mania makes me want to celebrate constantly (read=party and be irresponsible), so neither of those really helps at all.

i'd trade both my bp and my ptsd for a cure any day. my writing is generally fine and i don't feel that i benefit so much from being in a psychotic state.

[ldo]

If I write a lot, I feel better, but I can still write. Haven't done it much lately, tho. When funcitonal have addressed more immediate problems, or else paid attention to my s.o.

[sepia]

When depressed I tend to get somewhat obsessive on a set of dark themes. I have two full crates of notebooks filled with my writing about such things 80% of the time. In the other 20%, I sound almost healthy, if hopelessly naive.

[Miguel A.]

Depression is a recurrent subject in my amateurish jottings, I guess, though I try to amble about it rather than to tackle it directly (it's that kind of subject that it's either boring or blinding to stare fixedly at for long). I can't write while depressed, though, as it's too much mental effort to my slow, attention-spanless depressed brain. Mixed episodes - which I by the way find more interesting as a subject than pure depression - do yield some stuff sometimes, when it's not too debilitating as well.