We've probably all been in that place in our lives when we, for whatever reason, didn't live up to someone's expectations of who we were or what we should be doing with our lives. Maybe we didn't live up to our parents' expectation and become a doctor or teacher. Maybe you didn't live up to your own expectations when you changed jobs to forge a new career path to protect your happiness and your sanity. And you maybe didn't live up to so-and-so's expectations as they interrogated you over Thanksgiving dinner about your life choices (like why you might have dropped down to part time in college to be able to better manage your mental health condition or why you do/don't take medication for the aforementioned mental health condition).
I know I've been in plenty of situations like that. In some way, I didn't live up to someone's expectations. Many, many times I didn't live up to my own expectations. I have a habit of not doing what is expected of me, apparently. Sometimes it's intentional (like deciding in the second semester of my senior year of college to try to build a freelance career and write fiction for a living instead of going to grad school or law school). Other times, I didn't live up to expectations because of things outside of my control (like the sudden derailing of my life for a year or so because of my mental health).
People that are older and "wiser" than me comment on my life choices sometimes. Family members and some family friends had expectations that I missed along the path of honoring who I am, and those people tend to scoff or be disappointed because I took my life in a less conventional direction. Sometimes knowing that I disappointed someone, or seeing someone scoff at something I've been working so hard on because they may not understand just how hard I've been working, can really make me second guess myself. I'll catch myself asking, "Is this really who I am? Is this really who I want to be? Am I really happy with this life that I am creating?" The fact that they saw something or someone different can shake me up a bit because I start to wonder if I'm really living up to my full potential. Other times, my reaction is something like, "How dare you scoff and be disappointed just because I'm not the person you expected me to be. I am who I am, and I have worked hard to become this (mostly) happy person that I actually like (most days, anyway)."
Here's the thing that I always need to remember, and it's something that my therapist regularly talks about with me: I do not have to live up to anyone else's expectations. I have to honor who I am, and I have to make the choices that will keep me on the path to being a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted human. So what if someone else doesn't understand the choices that keep me happy and healthy. Other people's disappointment has nothing to do with me, really. Their expectations were a projection of their idea of me, and it isn't my fault that their ideas don't match who I am. It wouldn't matter if I had a mental health condition or a healthy brain, I still don't have to feel bad for not living up to someone else's expectations.
I'll end with this: You are under no obligation to live up to other people's expectations. You only have to live the life that makes you happy and keeps you healthy. If you want to change majors, career paths, or anything else about your life to protect your mental health and honor who you are, then do it. Don't let the weight of everyone else's ideas of what your best life should look like keep you trapped in a box that you didn't even ask to be put into.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
The Suffering Artist
Since my anxiety struggle began and I got my OCD diagnosis, I have found it more difficult to write than before I struggled with anxiety. With a mental health condition, it's so easy to get lost in the suffering and mental turmoil that comes with life with a mental health condition. Everything else becomes blurry background scenery and static when I'm just trying to survive from one day to the next. I can barely even hold it together enough to go to the grocery store, so of course I can't sit down and write a novel or short story or even a poem.
I am at my most creative when I am well. Sure, I write about life with a mental health condition, and that includes the mental turmoil, but I can only write about that after I have survived and come out on the other side of it. While I'm in the middle of it, nothing but survival matters. Art doesn't matter while I am in the middle of suffering through an OCD spiral. It's only later, after I have taken care of myself and gotten back to a healthier place that I can think clearly and logically enough to put anything down on the page.
I started to notice this suffering artist trope in movies, TV, and even online in articles and cute Pinterest pins. These things romanticized suffering, and they made it seem like the artist had to suffer to create something great. Some artists even refused help because they could only create so beautifully while they were suffering so terribly. I also started seeing things about the link between mental illness and creativity. Those articles pointed out that creative types are more likely to be mentally ill. The romanticizing of mental illness continues...
Here's the problem I have with the suffering artist trope: People romanticize the suffering with mental health conditions as the CAUSE for the creativity, like almost everyone that creates something beautiful must be suffering, which is an incorrect assumption. That makes it seem like if a person gets help, all their creativity will be gone, which, of course, is going to make some people afraid to seek help for a mental health condition, especially if they believe their art is all they have.
I think some people come into the world innately creative, and then some of those people develop a mental health condition while other creatives do not because mental health is unpredictable. Then the people that were already creative use that creativity as a way to cope and process life with their mental health condition. They use creativity as an outlet, but that doesn't mean their mental health condition caused them to be creative. I think the creativity is a way of healing and recovering. I also think that if a creative person got help for their mental health condition, their creative powers would flourish instead of vanish because the turmoil and suffering wouldn't weigh the mind down.
Your mental health condition didn't make you a creative genius. You were already a creative genius, your mental health condition was just the piece of life that made you feel deeply enough to realize you needed to say something about it, much the same way love, anger, and heartbreak make people realize they NEED to say something to the world.
If we're going to romanticize anything about mental illness, we should romanticize recovery. Romanticize the strength it took to fight your way out of a spiral and get the help you needed, and think of yourself as the hero of your own epic story. Romanticize the kindness you show yourself in getting well instead of the suffering you're clinging to for the sake of art.
I'll end with this: The suffering artist idea is a myth. Creativity isn't a side effect of mental illness, and mental illness isn't a side effect of creativity. An untreated mental health condition and the suffering it brought didn't turn anyone into a creative genius. Suffering with an untreated mental health condition isn't something we should romanticize. You don't have to cling to the stereotype of the suffering artist to create something beautiful because beauty also comes from being kind to yourself and allowing yourself to recover.
I am at my most creative when I am well. Sure, I write about life with a mental health condition, and that includes the mental turmoil, but I can only write about that after I have survived and come out on the other side of it. While I'm in the middle of it, nothing but survival matters. Art doesn't matter while I am in the middle of suffering through an OCD spiral. It's only later, after I have taken care of myself and gotten back to a healthier place that I can think clearly and logically enough to put anything down on the page.
I started to notice this suffering artist trope in movies, TV, and even online in articles and cute Pinterest pins. These things romanticized suffering, and they made it seem like the artist had to suffer to create something great. Some artists even refused help because they could only create so beautifully while they were suffering so terribly. I also started seeing things about the link between mental illness and creativity. Those articles pointed out that creative types are more likely to be mentally ill. The romanticizing of mental illness continues...
Here's the problem I have with the suffering artist trope: People romanticize the suffering with mental health conditions as the CAUSE for the creativity, like almost everyone that creates something beautiful must be suffering, which is an incorrect assumption. That makes it seem like if a person gets help, all their creativity will be gone, which, of course, is going to make some people afraid to seek help for a mental health condition, especially if they believe their art is all they have.
I think some people come into the world innately creative, and then some of those people develop a mental health condition while other creatives do not because mental health is unpredictable. Then the people that were already creative use that creativity as a way to cope and process life with their mental health condition. They use creativity as an outlet, but that doesn't mean their mental health condition caused them to be creative. I think the creativity is a way of healing and recovering. I also think that if a creative person got help for their mental health condition, their creative powers would flourish instead of vanish because the turmoil and suffering wouldn't weigh the mind down.
Your mental health condition didn't make you a creative genius. You were already a creative genius, your mental health condition was just the piece of life that made you feel deeply enough to realize you needed to say something about it, much the same way love, anger, and heartbreak make people realize they NEED to say something to the world.
If we're going to romanticize anything about mental illness, we should romanticize recovery. Romanticize the strength it took to fight your way out of a spiral and get the help you needed, and think of yourself as the hero of your own epic story. Romanticize the kindness you show yourself in getting well instead of the suffering you're clinging to for the sake of art.
I'll end with this: The suffering artist idea is a myth. Creativity isn't a side effect of mental illness, and mental illness isn't a side effect of creativity. An untreated mental health condition and the suffering it brought didn't turn anyone into a creative genius. Suffering with an untreated mental health condition isn't something we should romanticize. You don't have to cling to the stereotype of the suffering artist to create something beautiful because beauty also comes from being kind to yourself and allowing yourself to recover.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)