The Question I get asked a lot

The question I get asked a lot is: Does medication affect your creativity? The answer I give is: It did before I became an advocate for myself.  Many people with mental conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia don’t want to take medications because the drugs dampen their creativity. They tell me medication makes them feel lethargic and not themselves. It’s as if a gigantic hand has come down and squashed them. I know the feelings. I used to have them. I spoke of it somewhat differently. I said I felt like a round rock, as if I were a rock no different from all the other round rocks one finds at the edge of a river or a stream. Fields of round eroded rocks can be found along most waterways lying there peacefully unmoving. If the rocks are under water, the flow polishes their slick surfaces a little more each day.  They look nice wet; dry them off; and they are dull and indistinguishable one from the other. Just another old rock you toss back.

I didn’t want to be tossed back.  I didn’t want to feel comfortable nestled in with my fellow round rocks.  I wanted my jagged edges back-the points and fragmented surfaces that made my rock interesting, that made my rock tumble in the currents of the stream. That action made me feel alive. I wanted my cracks, my crevices, my broken planes back.  I wanted to look as interesting dry as wet. I wanted my colored veins in my surface not to fade into a uniform grey with the rest of my granite. I wanted to be anything but ordinary. Medication made you ordinary- even less than ordinary. It made you round and flat.

I told my psychiatrist the situation was intolerable. I could not live this way, and she agreed. We worked with each other to find a solution. We tested different drugs and different dosages until we found a cocktail that worked – a cocktail that provides me the creativity I need to be me and yet the control over my manic-depression that keeps me safe. This prescription of many drugs we have to visit monthly to monitor if it is working properly. It generally is, but we have had to adjust the medication here and there to keep me steady.

Steady and creative is what I want. What I don’t want is what I had before — wild creativity (bouts of mania) that always ended in the deepest of depression, where I was in constant danger of suicide. What I have now is OK. It’s not perfect. I don’t get as high as I used to. I miss that, but I no longer get as depressed as I used to, either. I accept the trade-off. The top of the high is sliced off. The bottom of the low is cut-off. I will survive now. No more jumping or think about jumping off bridges. Fewer antics. Fewer confrontations. The jagged edges are a little less jagged. I still get to tumble in the stream, and I like that.