The Neurological Similarities Between Successful Writers And...

The Neurological Similarities Between Successful Writers And The Mentally Ill

…of course, it’s not just the Fitzgeralds who battled depression and led lives that eventually spun out of their control. Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Stephen King, Anne Rice, David Foster Wallace, even J.K. Rowling are just a few of the writers who have been struck by the illness that Hemingway once referred to as “The Artist’s Reward.”

The common theory for why writers are often depressed is rather basic: writers think a lot and people who think a lot tend to be unhappy. Add to that long periods of isolation and the high levels of narcissism that draws someone to a career like writing, and it seems obvious why they might not be the happiest bunch. Read More >

I’m actually a rather happy person (and at least when I took an online test of narcissism really not narcissistic.) But maybe I’m not that successful of a writer and that’s why I don’t fit the mold? Or maybe my mild Aspieness and dyslexia have given me enough grief in my life to fill my mental illness quotient?

As for narcissism, maybe as you become successful you become more narcissistic? But that could be true of most people in most professions. And a horrible trap! Then you wouldn’t learn anything new.