Weighing In On Mental Health

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There was a bit of a theme in Kate’s posts over January, and one in particular struck a chord with me. This one, Depression is  a Difficult Beast to Tame, in which she discusses her personal struggles with depression, especially lately. Her post happened to fall on Bell’s Let’s Talk Day, so mental health was really on my mind. That same week, on Friday, after I had a topsy turvy day of my own, I came across this bio of Janet Frame (I bolded the important in case you don’t want to read it all):

The fate befalling the young woman who wanted “to be a poet” has been well documented. Desperately unhappy because of family tragedies and finding herself trapped in the wrong vocation (as a schoolteacher) her only escape appeared to be in submission to society’s judgement of her as abnormal. She spent four and a half years out of eight years, incarcerated in mental hospitals. The story of her almost miraculous survival of the horrors and brutalising treatment in unenlightened institutions has become well known. She continued to write throughout her troubled years, and her first book (The Lagoon and Other Stories) won a prestigious literary prize, thus convincing her doctors not to carry out a planned lobotomy.

She returned to society, but not the one which had labelled her a misfit. She sought the support and company of fellow writers and set out single-mindedly and courageously to achieve her goal of being a writer. She wrote her first novel (Owls Do Cry) while staying with her mentor Frank Sargeson, and then left New Zealand, not to return for seven years.

The lobotomy section made me sick, as the idea of anyone’s frontal lobe being played with does. And it made me mad –hell, the whole thing made me mad.

Irises, 1889 by van Gogh

Artists are weird, and that’s me being really blunt about it. Mental health struggles are largely the norm, too, hardly the exception, in creative communities. It’s likely how artists are so well suited to relaying emotion through words and visual means –we’re a too sensitive lot.

That though, that intuitive ability to connect to the world around us, is not weird. The opposite is weird as far as I’m concerned. It baffles me that across history those who rubbed (and rub still) against the grain of “normal” are ostracized, stigmatized, and abused. Destroy what you don’t understand at its finest.

I’m not an open book. I’m the type who struggles solo because that’s how I am. I have a hard time reaching out. Part of me thinks it’s safer that way, though I know the opposite is true in most cases. That doesn’t mean I want anyone to be like me, or to feel that they need to be like me. I’d give anything to be as brave as Kate and tell people I feel like I’m drowning. I applaud her new tactic to speak openly about her depression so that those around her can offer their support.

I do my best to focus on writing when I blog for Anxiety; I’ve deviated a bit today but I think I’m also speaking to things the writing community is closely tied to. And we called ourselves Anxiety Ink for a specific reason. Besides, I really felt the need to weigh in –especially after all the signs telling me to do so.

I want to conclude with my hokey advice:

Please, go out there and be sensitive. Write. Create. Be weird. Be sad. Be happy. Share. Talk. Be. And know you aren’t alone in a sea surrounded by “normal.” “Normal” is a fallacy. You’re your own normal.

Plus, the writing community -most artist communities- are super supportive! Even Janet Frame found a bevy of people to bolster her. And that is my positive end note.

Sunflowers, 1888, by van Gogh

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