#i have the schizophrenia of a chronically online teenager i think. or something like that

[the-adas]

on one hand me being abused was bad and the reason I have schizophrenia (although I could've developed it later anyways), but on the other hand I think if I was any more Normal than I was my schizophrenia would be much worse

[ganymedesclock]

These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user. 

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist. 

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

-

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Is Creativity Enhanced By Mental Illness?

 

Are people with mental illness more creative? Jackie believes there may be a link between the two, while Gabe thinks it’s just a bunch of hoopla. Get ready — they’ve both done their research and are ready to back their claims. Tune in to hear a lively (and friendly) debate on whether the science is valid, the difference between inspiration and creativity, as well as their own opinions and experiences on mental illness and creativity.

What’s your take? Join us on this Not Crazy podcast to see whose side you’re on, or if you’re somewhere in the middle.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Mental Illness-Creativity” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Not Crazy podcast. Jackie, how are you?

Jackie: Oh, I’m doing awesome. How are you, Gabe?

Gabe: I am fantastic. Today we are going to. I don’t know if we want to use debate, argue, discuss creativity and genius when it comes to mental illness.

Jackie: This is a topic that I candidly have not thought a ton about. But when I started researching it, I found some really interesting stuff and I don’t know if it actually supports the concept that creativity and mental illness go hand-in-hand or if it just sort of says like. Not really, but congrats on being creative.

Gabe: I live in the bipolar space, so I have I have severe and persistent mental illness. And, you know, I’m not playing the suffering Olympics with you, but you just have depression. You know, like I’m considered mental illness. You’re considered mental health. I don’t know who comes up with these categories, but in the severe and persistent mental illness space, this idea that, hey, yeah, you’re really, really sick you have a 15 percent suicide rate. You’ve sat in the corner and prayed for your death. But, hey, you’re probably a creative genius. Really gets discussed a lot.

Jackie: It does, and in what I read, to your point of like, I’m kind of like just depressed and anxious and you’re super bipolar. What I’ve read is that in terms of the conversation of creativity and mental illness, slash mental health, people who are living with bipolar seem to be on the top of this conversation. You are the top of the list where if we’re looking for a correlation between mental illness and creativity, it appears that those who are living with bipolar really win because they’re the super creative ones.

Gabe: This is where I wish our show was kind of like a morning zoo show and we had sound effects so that I could just slam a button that was like AAAYNNGHH. The best thing I can say is it’s just bullshit. It’s bullshit in every imaginable way. But I can never convince people of this. And one of the reasons that I can’t convince people of this is full disclosure. There’s a ton of studies that say that I’m wrong. There just are. There are a ton of studies that say that I’m wrong. People are like, Gabe, you love science. So why won’t you admit that you’re wrong?

Jackie: I don’t know that you’re wrong because, I didn’t read the studies, I read the abstract of the studies. Let’s be real here. Who’s got time to read studies? But the studies that I’m reading, aka abstracts that I’m reading are saying not so much that having a mental illness makes you more creative. I don’t think that that’s what they’re saying. And I don’t necessarily agree with that either. What the studies are saying is that the people who live with bipolar and schizophrenia and depression and anxiety seem to be drawn to creative careers more frequently. So there’s this one from 2013. It was published by the Journal of Psychiatric Research. And it said that people who make their living either through scientific or creative occupations were more likely to have bipolar or a relative with the condition. When I see that, I don’t see them going, hey, oh, you’re bipolar. Check once you get that diagnosis, now you’re super fucking creative. No, they’re just saying, like you probably have a draw to writing or art or something of the like. And more people living with mental illness tend to go that route.

Gabe: One, I have no idea. But here is why I have no idea this is all based on self-reporting. So it is really just obnoxious. It is absolutely, unequivocally obnoxious to think that defense attorneys can’t have bipolar disorder.

Jackie: No, I don’t think that’s what these are saying though, they’re not saying people who live with mental illness cannot do anything other than be wildly creative.

Gabe: I agree that they’re not saying that, but what they are saying is that people with bipolar disorder are drawn to creative fields. But the way that they know that is they interviewed all the people in creative fields and they said, Hey, do you have bipolar disorder? And in the creative fields, in the liberal fields, people felt more empowered to say yes. Then they went over to things like doctor, lawyer, or fighter jet pilot. And they asked all of them if they had bipolar disorder. And all of them said no because they can’t self-disclose. These are more conservative fields where people will not tolerate their mental illness. They could lose their jobs, their careers, their income, their money, their health insurance. So, frankly, they all lied. They just all straight up lied.

Jackie: Ok, well, what about this, another study and I don’t know the year of it because I didn’t write it down, so feel free to Google this shit. Was it a screened 700,000 Swedish teenagers for intelligence and they found it that those who were exceptionally creative were also four times more likely to have bipolar. And so my question for you with this study is this isn’t self-reported necessarily. And they were screening for intelligence, which to me I’m going to assume probably incorrectly that it’s some kind of like assessment test, especially if they’re teenagers. Right? Maybe like math, science. The whole jazz doesn’t say

Gabe: Math, science, history

Jackie: What kind of test it was.

Gabe: Started the big bang.

Jackie: I have no idea what that was.

Gabe: Aww, anyway, continue.

Jackie: Did you just show your age?

Gabe: No, that show just went off the air, literally.

Jackie: Well, what’s it?

Gabe: It was The Big Bang Theory.

Jackie: Oh, that show sucks, anyway.

Gabe: That

Jackie: So.

Gabe: That is horrible, but I’d like to point out that was also not an accurate representation of physicists. But people think that it is just like they think that a lot of these studies are accurate representations of what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder. I’m not trying to shit on your study. I’m really not. And I’m not trying to I’m not trying to shit on people who are creative, but to give the credit to your creativity to something awful. Why? Bipolar disorder is just shitty. Mental illness is just shitty. There’s not like this back end thing. You’re creative because you’re creative. You’re awesome because you’re awesome. Could you imagine if somebody said this: people with cancer are much more likely to be excellent engineers. What? What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense. That is nonsense. People with cancer are much more likely to have cancer.

Jackie: Well, I can see how if you’re attributing the creativity to the mental illness, that sucks, right? That doesn’t feel good. However, I don’t think that anybody is saying their creativity is exclusively because of their mental illness. Maybe it’s increased. Maybe it’s more vivid or more vibrant or, you know, you can tap into it better. I have a fine arts degree. I am not creative at all, like at all.

Gabe: You’re literally a graphic artist, right

Jackie: I am, but

Gabe: I mean, that, that’s awesome. That’s you’re an uncreative graphic artist.

Jackie: Well, what I’ve always said is I I’m really good at practical design, layouts, typography. I’m really good at seeing something for needing it to make sense and to relay information. In my classes, they were like, make whatever you want. Make it super fun. I really struggled. I would not a creative person. I struggle to tap into my creativity. If there was a way to turn that button on, I would gladly do it.

Gabe: What you were talking about was inspiration, not creativity. Yeah, I think creativity exists in a completely separate part of the brain now going through bipolar disorder, going through schizophrenia, going through major depression or I don’t know, going through any tragedy, just a trauma or an earthquake or the death of a loved one, that can inspire you. There are people who have written incredible books based on something very traumatic that happened to them and that did inspire the book. But their creativity existed beforehand and then they got inspiration from the negative event. So do people with bipolar disorder have a greater source of information? Can they write about things that are more interesting to the general public? I agree completely. But did bipolar disorder create their creativity? No, they were just creative. If they did not have bipolar disorder or any other mental illness, they would be just as creative. They just wouldn’t have that thing to inspire them.

Jackie: I don’t know if I agree with your assumption that people who are creative just have it and then they get inspired to use it. I’m inspired all the time. I don’t have the follow-through in terms of the creativity. And I’m a writer. I write things. People pay me to write things. I don’t think that that’s creativity. I think they go write about this. So I don’t know that I necessarily agree that like everybody or even just creatives in general are just waiting for that thing to turn them on to write about. But I don’t know. Again, I don’t live with these conditions. But my assumption, again, based on science, based on what we know, the amount of ideas that flood your mind or maybe like having delusions like those things could cause creativity. Right.

Gabe: I think they could inspire you to write about the things that you experienced when you were delusional. Your base premise and creativity, I think that’s yours. And one of the things that you said that was very interesting there is that you are a writer and you are creative, but you don’t sit down to write. You haven’t gotten it done. That has nothing to do with inspiration or creativity. That has to do with organization and time management. And I think in general, people with severe and persistent mental illness are very disorganized. And you’ve described before your anxiety, your anxiety is so high that rather than write something or create something or do the dishes, you’re in a corner trying to eliminate your anxiety. So I do understand that we’re kind of in a semantic argument. But here’s the problem that I have, Jackie, like, very sincerely. I just don’t like it when people are good at something. In fact, people are great at something. People are amazing and awesome and they just don’t take the credit for it.

Jackie: Are they not taking the credit? Or is it the people having these conversations are not allowing them to take the credit?

Gabe: I don’t really care who’s doing it. If you are an amazing writer. That’s because you are an amazing writer. It’s not because bipolar, schizophrenia, major depression, anxiety helped you become an amazing writer. I just think that’s bullshit. These illnesses are literally trying to kill us. I just have a problem with something that is trying to kill me and cost me marriages and friendships and connections, also shows up at the awards ceremony because I did something creative. It’s a bit like having a parent who beats you that then takes credit for your college degree. It’s like you beat him. You’re an abusive parent. Go away. He got a college degree in spite of you, not because of you.

Jackie: I agree with you if they’re saying the only reason why you’re good at art is because you’re bipolar, that sucks. It took all these things away from you. You’ve had to fight all the stuff, blah, blah, blah. But everything you just said. But what if you’re also a phenomenal painter and you say the silver lining to being bipolar and having all this shitty stuff is that it’s enabled me to be an amazing painter.

Gabe: First off, how people choose to live their own lives and manage their own experiences. That really is up to them. I do believe very strongly that people have their own right to tell their own story in the way that makes the most sense to them. That said, I think they’re wrong. I think they’re wrong on it, like in an opinion level, in the same way that I think that you’re wrong for liking pineapple on pizza.

Jackie: I do not like pineapple on pizza. For the record.

Gabe: But if you did, I would not tell you that you were wrong. Because

Jackie: Oh, you are wrong. I’m sorry. You’re wrong. If you like pineapple on pizza, you’re wrong.

Gabe: You understand what I’m saying, right? Like, I’m not trying to make it illegal to put pineapple on pizza. Unlike my co-host, Jackie apparently has very strong feelings about pineapple on pizza, which I do share. I’m just trying to make a point. But I think about like things that have inspired me. One of the best episodes of a podcast I ever did had to do with my father in law’s death and grief and how this rippled through me and my family. It was a powerful episode. It was a popular episode. I still to this day get a lot of pats on the back for being willing to so openly talk about death. This does not make death good. It just doesn’t. A bad thing inspired me. It is true. But I’m not going to give my father in law’s death credits for all of that success that came from me and how I chose to process it. It doesn’t retroactively make that death a good thing. We should all not go around killing our loved ones so that we can be inspired to do the grief podcast or write the grief blog or give the grief eulogy. I just I think this may be something positive that comes out of a negative. But make no mistake, you made the positive.

Jackie: Ok. But I’m not even so sure this is an argument of semantics anymore. I think this is an argument of perspective and I’m going to use a controversial example, which is religion. Oh, here we go. The reasoning is, so when you’re very, very sick, if you are somebody who believes in God or a higher being or whatever it’s called, I am not that person, obviously, because I don’t know what it’s called. But let’s say you’re a believer in God and you say it’s OK. Right? This is all in God’s hands. I’m gonna pray, he’s going to handle it. I’m gonna be all right. This is his plan. And I am going to live my life how he wants me to, because that’s how this goes. And you’re me who does not have that same faith and looks at the situation you’re in. We’re obviously talking about something bad happening. And I almost wish I had that faith, because then I would have the reassurance. It’s gonna get better. I would have the reassurance that somebody is looking out for me. I have often said I thought it would be easier to be a person of faith when I was really sick because then I could kind of like wash my hands of it and be like, it’s cool. Somebody else is driving this train. To me, that’s perspective.

Gabe: We’ll be back in a minute after these messages.

Jackie: And we’re back talking about creativity in mental illness.

Gabe: I am often offered supplements and coaching programs and CBD oil all to treat my bipolar disorder. Now I know many people who have well, frankly, fallen for this scam. They have ignored their psychiatrist advice. They no longer go to therapy. They are no longer taking any formal or researched or scientifically proven medications. And instead they treat their bipolar disorder 100 percent through this coaching program or website or whatever. And they are so happy. They are just so happy. I mean, they’re like, oh, my God, I got off the medicine. I’m doing an all natural cleanse. And for a while they’re living great. But I worry so desperately about them because. Yeah, for a while they’re doing great. I’m not denying that they’re not doing great. They may do great for three months, six months, a year, a year and a half. But in the case of bipolar disorder, it’s cyclical. It’s cyclical. Sometimes you will be manic. Sometimes you will be depressed. Sometimes you will be somewhere else on the spectrum. And maybe for that year, they’re right in the middle and everything’s fine. But because they’re not controlling the symptoms, they will hit up mania or fall down to depression. It’s just a matter of time. It’s just a waiting game. But for that year, their perspective and their reality is that they’re doing fantastic and they’re doing better than everybody else that’s relying on big pharma or these unnatural poisons you put in your body. I understand that they’re happy now, but I want them to be happy forever. I want to be happy forever. So I don’t know. You’re right. It is controversial. I don’t want to fall down a rabbit hole of defending or bashing religion. But just because something gives you comfort doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Jackie: No, but again, like I think your example of taking medication is a little bit different here, because I think anybody who is sick in any way, shape or form all of us. I think it’s human nature to want to find meaning in it, you know. And I think that the meaning could be because of your religion. It could be because of your art. It could be because of the career you have. You want to correlate a meaning to it because otherwise it’s just shit for the sake of shit. Otherwise, everything just sucks for no reason. And most of us cannot handle that mentally, we can’t process that, of why this shit is happening for no other reason. And maybe people do say I am super creative and it’s because of my bipolar disorder. I can’t tell that person that they’re wrong if they’re seeing the meaning in that, and that’s how they get through their day and their life and they continue to be happy and healthy and productive people. How can you tell them their wrong?

Gabe: I think that truth matters. And I think that facts matter.

Jackie: It is their truth and the facts support it.

Gabe: I disagree with the findings because of the self-reporting nature, which I understand is such a slippery slope, because there’s people out there that say, Gabe, how do you know you have bipolar disorder? Because there is no definitive test. It’s all self-reporting. And so I hear what you’re saying. And you’re right. You’re right. I know people who are just incredibly happy and they firmly believe that the earth is flat. But I just I feel so bad for them. I do. The earth is not flat. It is not flat. It’s not flat. It’s not flat. It’s not flat.

Jackie: But we know that because of the facts that support that.

Gabe: But I think these facts are suspect. You’re right. I can’t say that they’re wrong, but I do think that they’re suspect. My fear is, is that somebody who’s newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or depression or just any sort of serious mental illness will think that they need to find a creative endeavor, because that’s where they’re most likely to excel statistically. But I know all kinds of people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depression who are engineers and lawyers and doctors and they don’t have a creative bone in their body. And I also worry about pigeonholing. And what I mean by that is I do not consider myself to be creative at all. I have not a creative bone in my body. Jackie, you can back this up. I tried to design a logo for something and you were like these colors. Remember what you said to me?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: I just, it was very harsh, but it was ugly. What I created was ugly. And I say to people, look, I have bipolar disorder and I’m not creative at all. And they say, yes, you are. You have a podcast. Well, well, OK. Yes, you are. You’re funny. OK, well, but isn’t everybody funny sometimes?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: Isn’t everybody creative in some way?

Jackie: No.

Gabe: I mean, I think we’re just always looking for that link. So no matter what, we find a way to make somebody with mental illness into a person who is also creative.

Jackie: I disagree because in the research and also in the world generally, the term creative is somebody who is a writer. They are a painter. They are a fine artist. They do some kind of categorically artistic thing. It’s not so much like how do you approach your day? Is it creatively? We’re talking literally about the fine arts. And that’s as a career choice. I still maintain that the data just says people with mental illness tend to lean more towards that way. At no point does it say if you’re bipolar, you should be creative, and if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong. And I don’t think that it implies that everybody should be creative, whether you have a mental illness or not. It’s simply stating a lot of people tend to go that route. It’s not saying you can’t do anything else or you won’t be good at anything else.

Gabe: That’s the message that I just want to make sure gets out there. I know what the data says and I do appreciate data. There’s just a part of me that just worries so much. And this is my question to you, Jackie. Now, honestly, how do you feel about somebody who gives the credit for their creativity or their intelligence or their genius to an illness that is trying to kill them and that has caused them suffering? How do you feel about somebody giving a positive quality to such a negative thing?

Jackie: I would say that scientifically we know that the placebo effect is real. And if that person in this instance is using something like their illness as their placebo, as the catalyst as the result, it’s real for them. And if they feel more creative because of their mental illness, then that’s why they are more creative. It’s all how what you believe in the human mind is annoyingly powerful. And again, in this situation, if the placebo is their illness. Right? And they are like, I’m so creative. Before I was diagnosed, I was not creative at all. And now I’m a genius painter, then that’s true for them.

Gabe: Jackie, I completely agree that perception becomes reality. And if your reality is positive and good, then who the hell am I to mess with it? I do sincerely believe that. I just want everybody living with a mental health issue, serious and persistent mental illness to live their best life. And however you arrange that in your mind. I couldn’t be more behind.

Jackie: Yeah, I think that we can both get on the same page for that one.

Gabe: Amen. Listen up, everybody, creatives, non creatives, agree with Jackie, agree with Gabe. No matter what, we all need to be on the same page when it comes to subscribing to our podcast. Please leave us as many stars as you feel comfortable with and use your words and write us a review. Share us on social media. Email us to a friend. Tell everybody about us. And here’s a little trick. If you email show@PsychCentral.com, we will send you Not Crazy stickers if you PayPal us a dollar. It’s the best deal going. That’s Not Crazy stickers for a dollar at show@PsychCentral.com. Email us for instructions. Please stay tuned after the credits for an outtake because it turns out Gabe and Jackie have more to say.

Jackie: We will see you next Monday.

Podcast: Is Creativity Enhanced By Mental Illness? syndicated from