I don’t believe my affliction is extraordinary; there are others whose mental illnesses are worse, but I would wish my depression and anxiety on no one, particularly anyone who wanted to create.
Would I give up my art for a mind more under my control? Obviously, this is purely hypothetical. I cannot make a Faustian bargain. Some try to claim medication is a fine stand-in for Mephistopheles, but my attempts at properly medicating my chemical deficits have only resulted in an increased ability to work. (I will leave it to my readers to decide if it has likewise resulted in increased quality.)
I do not think art and mental illness are intimately married, though they flirt with one another and too frequently and abusively cohabitate in the same head. Enough artists are mentally stable to sustain the industry. It is patronizing to assume the woman struggling through a panic attack just needs a paintbrush in her hand. When I am tense with anxiety, my ability to write is the first thing to go.
Yes, I cope by trying to turn my pain into something beautiful, something I can shine up to a cabochon in hopes I will one day find the right setting. If I didn’t do this, I don’t know if I would lose my mind, but I know I would no longer be myself. However, it is not the mental illness that drives me to write. I want to write because I feel I have things to say and this is the best way I have learned to say them.
It is a base insult to say that I need my mental illness to be productive, especially when it is so often the thing holding my tongue. Getting even a little better has removed some of the boulders that interrupted my streams of consciousness.