Medicating the Bipolar Creative Genius

"Sharp Blues" Artist: ME (helpful, I know)

"There is no great genius without a touch of madness"- Aristotle

My mentor and therapist often say I have to contain my "creative genius". It's their weird way of saying that even though I don't find normality interesting, I should strive for stability. I am a singer-songwriter, painter, sculptor, and graphic designer. With that being said, my life is very abstract. The other day, my therapist said to me, "Your goal is to keep the creative genius while only gaining the beneficial parts of the madness." She said that we don't need another Janis Joplin because she killed herself. It's a recurring theme in our sessions. She said the same thing about Robin Williams. I'm not sure how I feel about being categorized with these people. They're legends, but they're also dead. I'm not suicidal, but I can see how my impulsive and obsessive tendencies can freak my mentors out.

Research has shown that mental disorders tend to be prevalent in creative communities, but other experts say those results are faulty. There is no hard answer for it, but I can understand both perspectives. 

Supporting research for correlation:

"In the 1970s, Nancy Andreasen carried out the first empirical study of creativity and mental disorder at the University of Iowa. Andreasen studied the mental histories of a group of 30 prominent authors, expecting to find a strong correlation between creativity and schizophrenia. Although she found no history of schizophrenia amongst the authors, she did find an unexpectedly strong history of mood disorders: 80 per cent of her sample of authors had experienced at least one episode of major depression, hypomania, or mania, compared to only 30 per cent of a matched control group. Andreasen followed-up the authors for the next 15 years and found that 43 per cent of them had bipolar disorder compared to only 10 per cent of the control group and 1 per cent of the general population. During the 15 years of the follow-up study, two of the authors committed suicide." (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/bipolar-disorder-and-creativity)

Let's assume that the correlation is true. Bipolar people experience mania and depression. When they experience episodes, creativity is an outlet to relieve them of their symptoms. Bipolar disorder, for me, means that I am hyperaware of my existence. When my feelings start to overwhelm me, whether it is because of circumstance or because of my disorder, I can't seem to find words to understand it. When I feel "abnormal" I have to create something new to dissect it. In a way, it's my survival tactic. 

On the other hand, this idea is romanticized. The research is flawed because it creates conclusions with loose correlations. How can creativity be measured? Even if the person is both creative and bipolar, does it mean the person is creative because of their disorder? Van Gogh is an idolized example of the "creative genius," but in one of his letters he wrote, "Oh if I could have worked without this accursed disease, what things I might have done." While mental disorder can fuel creativity, it can also hinder it. When I'm manic, I can't focus, and when I'm depressed, I am paralyzed. Although my art is often inspired by my dips and my highs, it is during the in-between that I am capable of creating. This is the case for many people who suffer bipolar disorder. 

This connection between insanity and genius creates a dilemma for those deciding to take mood stabilizers. Will medication hinder a person's creativity? Will it "flatten" them out? I can't answer that and the experts can't really answer that either. With medication, it's all about test and trial. Medicine can definitely dull a person, but the same medication can also allow another person to think more clearly. It's ultimately the patient's choice to go through those tests and trials. No one can be forced to take medication.

I personally decided to take the risk. I realized that I didn’t like the way I behaved during my episodes. However, It’s still not black and white for me. I’m guilty of liking my manic episodes from time to time and when I am in a neutral state, I fall into an immense boredom. I'm at a stage where I'm not sure my medication is working yet, but I know I'm still creative, so that's good. Anyways, thanks for reading my millionth ramble! I’ll keep you posted.

Is It Because Your Medication Isn't working?

     My room usually reflects the current state of my life. Clearly, I've got it altogether. My five year plan is going smoothly, I actually have a five year plan, my laundry isn't a million days overdue, oh, and I don't use my chairs as desks. I hope you could tell that I was totally lying because I know sarcasm doesn't read well on the interwebs. Also, I know in my first blogpost I said I wouldn't spill my feelings into this series, but that also was a damn lie. I am a bad, bad human. Consider this post a fat Freudian slip, a total accident that's way too honest. I'm probably going to read back on this and wonder "Why'd you this? Your past self was not kind to you." It's just like looking back at your Myspace page, which I totally don't do.  

     Let's get real, this week has been insane and makes me feel insane sometimes. Usually, I have weekly cycles between manic episodes and then depression, but this week, it has been daily. This is new to me, and I don't like new. I was finally befriending my bipolar disorder and my medication and then life threw me a damn curveball. I scrambled all week and it's almost like I blacked everything out. I just remember it like a shitty college dorm collage of madness. 

     I'm not sure what happened this week, but I managed to get a full band, new gigs lined up, a commission to illustrate a book, a collaboration with a music event planner, and made progress for my music video. From an outside perspective, I got super lucky last week. What really happened was that I went absolutely manic. Many people who are bipolar that tend to be more manic are described as "creative, goal driven, and outgoing." I use Lamictal, a medication that deals the the depressive side of bipolar better than the manic side. When a manic episodes happens, I start to get this buzz on my face and then this overwhelming feeling that the apocalypse will happen and it'll all be my fault because I didn't achieve my goals. After my manic episode, I'll crash and my speech will lag and my body will revert to its bed.

     On one hand, I can't hate that I go manic like that. It's just how I function and if I think of it that way, I don't feel so crazy. A lot of my success has come from my madness. On the other hand, it's shitty to have a lot of my actions be fueled by fear. Also, all of these plans I make for myself replace the practical things in my life like school and physical health. 

     Like I did in this post, I spilled super hard to the boo thang during dinner last night and he asked me a question I didn't have the answer to: "Is it because your medication isn't working?" Maybe it is. Or, maybe it's because my grandma recently passed, maybe it's because I'm balancing school with my career, maybe it's because I'm being bipolar about being bipolar. Maybe it's all of the above or none. Maybe I'm just me. It's impossible to diagnose a life and it's impossible for one pill to figure it all out for you. 

     This little rant of mine is pretty heavy, but surprisingly enough, I can still end it on a good, and horrendously cheesy note. I don't have the answers. Unfortunately, this blog doesn't have any closure. It's like in the Giver when Jonas just sleds into nothingness. Like, what a cop out, right? What I've learned is I am not insane, I'm just me. And that's pretty dope! I'm taking action to just take a step back, even if it means putting some parts of my life on hold for a bit. No, I didn't make it to some of my classes, no, I didn't make it to all of my music business meetings, and yes, I'm pretty damn behind, but I don't feel bad about it because it's not me being defeated. It's me being active in self-care. My life is still parallel to my messy, stinky ass room, but it was just the mess I needed                                                                            

P.S. My doctor and I have decided to stay stable on my medication because of the recent events that have occurred. We can't really compartmentalize what's causing the madness. Let's see how it goes, gang. Wish me luck!

The Mental Health Generation Gap

     If you couldn't tell from my favorite text of all time, English is not my mom's first language. Also, I am not a disrespectful daughter, my last name is Vietnamese and it's ho without the e. My dad was a refugee from Vietnam and my mom had a half American stepbrother so she was able to immigrate to America with her family under the Amerasian Immigrant Act. Clearly, my parents are badass. Sometimes I think they're fictional characters. With that being said, it's very hard for us to understand each other at times. Growing up in a warzone, my parents have a survival mentality and inevitably, they implemented that in me. My parents have always taught me to work your ass off. That’s it. Simple…right?

Mental healthcare in my family was never spoken of so when I learned about it in middle school, it seemed like a luxury to me. Therapy? Medication? Why not just talk to your friends? I’ll have you know, that this was very stupid of me to think at the time. No one fucking likes middle school. Everyone has braces and acne, girls are getting hormonal as shit, and the boys become ass holes. I remember when I tried talking about my parent’s divorce and our financial instability at the time to my guy friend and he replied on AOL messenger like “omg. do u lyk mi or wat?”

I was lost until I met my fairy godmother. Her name is Kate and her son and I were friends. She learned about my story and for some reason, she took me in as her daughter. We used to always joke that she was my token “white mom.” YAY RACISM. Forreal though, when she said she was basically my mom, it was no joke. She got me a scholarship to a private school, gave me music lessons, drove me to my new school everyday, and years later, she introduced me to my therapist.

It took me a while to grow the courage to get a therapist. My dad doesn’t live with me so it was easy to not talk about it with him. I figured my mom would find out eventually so I just told her. We didn’t go into much depth about it. She just handed me the money to go and that was her way of showing her support. To me, that was more than enough.

       Therapy didn’t make my mom comfortable, so medication was something I wasn’t excited to talk about. When I told my mom I needed it, she just told me I should just be happy. “Honey,” she said, “we have food and housing, what is there to be upset about? I had to work in the fields with my fifteen siblings in Vietnam because the communist didn’t let us have an education as southerners. I’m happy. You’re so lucky. Be happy.” Like, damn, mom! Way to make me sound like a total bitch! Honestly though, it wasn’t wrong of my mom to react like that.

What my mom and I had to come to terms with was that we grew up in very different contexts. Maybe my Vietnamese parents will never fully understand and that’s okay. I can’t claim to understand my parents. My dad saw someone was stealing his grapefruit in Vietnam and then hid out all night to attack the dude with a machete just to find out it was his neighbor. That shit is crazy. Dad, why? It’s kind of like that with my medication to them. Maybe that was a stretch. What I’m trying to say is, their crazy ass stories have taught me many lessons. I wouldn’t have the work ethic I have now if it weren’t for them. I’ve learned from them and who’s to say they won’t learn from mine? Different is okay. Anyways, I gotta bounce now. I hope this journey summary contributed to your super cool life somehow!

                                           Best,

                                           Your coolest friend

Here's a token funny photo:

My mom doesn't know what WTF means, but she thought this shirt was cute. I love my mom so much. #blessed

Don't Forget Your Medication, Especially at a Funeral

 Funerals are funny. At funerals, you expect time to stop because time has stopped for the person in the casket. Everyone is taken out of their context and put into black, business-casual wear, and then gathered at some somber place. It’s almost like you’ve walked into an old black and white Hollywood film, a familiar and cliché setting. Oh, and it’s always grey outside.

     At least that’s what I thought my grandma’s funeral would be like. I mean, it was grey outside and the place was dreadful. Time did stop for me, but only for like 5 minutes. When the ceremony began, I noticed a damn Starbucks cup two feet away from my grandma’s casket, then I hear my cousin-in-law, Tom, smacking on his gum. In the back, my niece is messing with the new snapchat filters, and next to me, my cousins are making sex jokes. Traditional Vietnamese funerals last for days. I could only make one of the days and that one was from 10am-9pm. Eleven hours of this crap was not the way I wanted to say goodbye to my grandma. To make things worse, some asshole leaves in the middle of the family gathering for God knows what. Welp, that asshole was I. I forgot my fucking medication and I needed to go to the Kaiser pharmacy.

     Let’s backtrack a little. Two Fridays ago, I went to my English class and pitched my blog idea about medication for mental disorders. This is ironic because after class, I went straight to the bus heading to San Francisco, and I forgot my medication. I panicked. Why? Because the last time I decided to stop my medication, my bipolar brain went haywire. Let me just vaguely explain how I reacted to stopping my medication a few months ago: I was basically bedridden and when I had to go outside, I felt like my anxiety was going to push against my skin until I exploded into a million pieces, just like that dynamited whale. If you haven’t seen that video, by the way, you really should. Actually, here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwxH3PPWiU Watch it now. Isn’t it just the best? Anyways, on the bus, I texted my doctor and asked her if my brain was going to crash if I didn’t get the medication. She didn’t answer my question. She just told me to find the nearest pharmacy to my destination so she could call in for my prescription.

     The one time I chose to stop taking my meds without my doctor knowing was because the medication wasn’t working, but without new medication, my brain was left to do as it pleased and what it did was go through a withdrawal. A lot of people downplay how important medication is. Not very many people think about how untreated illness and nonadherence to medication can lead to psychosis, mania, hypomania, mania, relapse, and suicide. So, if you happen to be thinking of stopping without doctor supervision, DON’T. Please, please, please don’t. If you have a friend taking medication, be supportive and if you can, make sure they’re making their appointments.

Here are some links to read about medicine adherence. I ordered them from audience friendly to analytical:

http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2010/09/medication-non-compliance/

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/managing-compliance

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ps.52.3.378

     So, even tough I was at a funeral, I decided to pick up my medication. When I returned to the funeral I cried a lot and weirdly enough, I laughed a lot. Yeah, my day was inconvenient, my family annoyed me, and they made really inappropriate sex jokes while my dead grandma was lying in the same fucking room, but life is just fat satire with tons of contradictions. Time didn’t stop at that funeral and it will never. Starbucks will still be open, Tom will keep on chewing his gum, my family will always be crass, and I will always have more to learn about my mental health. It was God's bizarre way of telling me that even though my grandma passed, life goes on for everyone, even for her. I see her in my wonderful and annoying ass family and I see her in me and god dammit, we are one good-looking family. You did well, Grandma.

 

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This Post is not Funny

Sajatovic Martha, M.D. Davies Marilyn, R.N., Ph.D. Hrouda Debra R., M.S.S.A., L.I.S.W., 2004, Enhancement of Treatment Adherence among Patients with Bipolar disorder, Psychiatric Services Volume 55 Issue 3, pp. 264-269

     This study explores the noncompliance of bipolar patients with their medication. Because this is a scientific research article, it is very straightforward, basing its writing primarily on science rather than philosophy. Its outline is also very clear: conflict, research, results, and finally, the possible solutions.

     According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, about one third of patients take under 30% of their medication. The article makes a point that researching this is a matter of urgency because nonadherence is a frequent cause of relapse and suicide. Hypomanic denial, psychosis, age, etc. can lead to noncompliance.

     This study is transparent with its research methods, making sure its reader understands how the results are retrieved. It is also easy to understand, even for a nonmedical student. There is an organized list of how adherence is measured (self-report, physician report, visit frequencies, etc.). It also points out some flaws in the methods, implying that some studies do not always lead to clear conclusions.

     Based on the results, they selected the methods that produced the best adherence. This includes group therapy and interventions alongside family, friends, and partners. In its conclusion, they acknowledge that this issue is still needs more research. However, it also ends on a positive note: there is sufficient research on adherence to schizophrenia medication that can be used to better understand adherence amongst bipolar patients.

     This article can be used for papers researching: mental disorder medication, bipolar, effective therapy, and adherence to medication. 

Hello, world, I am medicated!

Hello, world, I am medicated!

    I’ll have you know that I don’t usually start my conversations like that, but I needed a hook so, what the hell. Disclaimer: this blog is not meant for you to feel bad for me and it definitely is not a place I’ll be spilling my problems. You can go on any teenage Tumblr page if reading angsty sadness is your favorite pastime, but if that’s really the case, you should probably consider getting a therapist too.

    Last summer, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and over Thanksgiving break, I was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was given these little white pills and those didn’t work so we maximized the dose. That made things worse. Then I had to try different little white pills paired with other little white pills. I felt like a lab rat. In this blog, I am actually going to intentionally use myself as a lab rat. Healthy, right? RIGHT. As of recent, I’m trying to befriend these pills rather than hate them; I want to understand them rather than be anxious about them. 

    You’re probably thinking that I’m a very sad human being and my life is just a terrible hellhole. WELL, you’re right, but you’re only half right. You have shitty days don’t you? You also have good days and so do I. In fact, I’m a very happy person. Most of my close friends, the ones who know about my disorders and the ones who don’t, would agree with me. I’m not living in denial or anything. I know myself very well; you’re just going to have to trust me. I don’t suggest you trust any stranger on the Internet, but just trust me, because, reasons.

     I am weird. My life is weird, toes are weird, and you’re also weird. My therapist says I should use more descriptive words and stop using the word “weird” because it doesn’t really mean much. Sorry, therapist whom I respect very much. What I’m trying to say is, we all have our unique experiences and I am here to share mine with you, friend. Can I call you that? Since I can’t receive your answer right now, I’m just going to assume your answer is, “No, we are not friends,” and to that I respond, “Right on, friend!” and proceed to give you finger guns and a fantastical wink. I’m getting off track. Anyways, friend, in this blog, I want to share with you what I’ve learned so far about mental health medication and what I will be learning in the next 15 weeks. Here are some questions that will hopefully be answered by the end of this series:

-How do doctors give a diagnosis?

-How do they prescribe medicine?

-What are the different philosophies concerning mental health medication?

-How far have we come in medication and what information are we lacking?

-How much does our chemistry and genetics play a role in our overall happiness?

I will do my research to make this blog seem more legit and useful. I hate research, but we’re friends. So, you’re welcome.

     Why am I blogging this, you ask? Because this is a school assignment and I’m paying for tuition, BUT also because there is a lot to be learned. According to a study from the CDC (2009-2012), 48.7% of Americans have taken at least one prescription drug within a given month (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-therapeutic.htm). Look, we’re learning already. That’s a lot of people. You or a loved one can be suffering from mental illness and it’s important to be educated in the subject to better aid yourself or those around you. Consider this post syllabus day, my friends. It’s going to get real, a little uncomfortable at times, but most importantly, it’s going to be damn fun. Until next time, gang.

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                        Friend                                                

P.S. If want to read other blogs about mental health, I made the extra effort of reading horribly boring blogs so that you don’t have to. Here are the hip and fun ones. WOO! Happy reading! 

1. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mentalhealthweek
2. http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/
3. http://chipur.com/