Creative Chaos

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Dr. Richard A. Friedman’s account of a patient, named “Sheryl,” is a perfect example of this problem. Sheryl, a professional photographer, came to Dr. Friedman after witnessing the change in her boyfriend when he took antidepressant medication. She had been depressed for most of her 36 years and besides being skeptical that anything would help, was afraid medication may prohibit her creative output. Before beginning treatment, she brought a portfolio of her work so the doctor could witness any effect it made on her artistic ability. Dr. Friedman commented, “In stark black and white photos, she had captured the homeless and poor. Her kinship with the dispossessed was obvious, and the images were sad and moving.” (Friedman). She began treatment and within two months noticed her lifelong pessimism, insomnia and fatigue had lifted. The depression was gone and she finally felt happy. The only problem was, it not only improved her mood, but changed the content of her art. She judged the work, though commercially successful, to be artistically mediocre and inferior. She chose to stop the medication, but within several months relapsed into full depression again. Ultimately she chose to take the medication and opted for happiness over her artwork. (Friedman). Despite this particular ending, it is obvious that fear of inhibiting the creative ability is a major consideration among depressed artists.

One of the more well-known and tragic statistics among writers was the suicide of feminist poet, Sylvia Plath. Only 30 at the time, it is said she died for her art. The attractiveness of suicide, mentioned above, becomes a formidable mental picture, one that establishes itself in the mind and is allowed to develop and fester. Some believed she used her own illness as subject matter, offering herself up for the sake of her art. Her suicide became symbolic of the troubled female artist, and implied to the world that art had the ability to destroy. (Haven).

In the next narrative, societal pressures played a part in the writer’s suicide. Peruvian novelist, Jose Maria Arguedas, shot himself on December 2, 1969, in an empty classroom at the university where he taught, in Lima. Letters written to friends, journalists, academics, politicians, etc. appeared after his death giving the reasons why he killed himself. One letter said he felt finished as a writer; and no longer had any creative impulses. In another, he felt the repressed and exaggerated ways the crisis of cultural and educational life and liberty in Peru was represented, was too much for him. (Vargas 22-25).

The problems faced in Latin America were not discussed in the public. Strict media censorship was replaced by literature. The suffering was removed or distorted in the press. All evils that were buried by military power, not mentioned in political speeches, taught in universities or discussed in magazines, found a new medium for communication, in literature. Fiction became the substitute for a social conscience. All writers in Latin America felt the pressures urging them toward social commitment. If their personal convictions were aligned with society’s idea of the purpose, then novelists, poets and playwrights were allowed to create naturally, guilt free, confident they had support of their contemporaries. However, many writers weren’t equipped to deal with political and social problems. If they succumbed to the pressure and tried writing about these issues, they were bound to fail, and even considered to be accomplices to all evils – illiteracy, exploitation, injustice and prejudice, of their country! If nothing else, compromising themselves and not acting upon their real feelings frustrated them as artists. (Vargas 22-25).

It is most probable that Jose Arguedas felt this conflict. Despite being born in the Andes; the son of a lawyer, he grew up among Indian peasants, spoke their language and lived by their customs. For all practical purposes, and by his vision of the world, he was an Indian. Later though, he became a middle-class, Spanish-speaking Peruvian white, and lived torn between these two cultures and societies.

His early literature offered introspective pieces, reflecting back to the days and places of his childhood and his world of the little Indian village. He described the scenery and daily life in tender, poetic prose. Later he felt obligated to turn his back on these deeply-felt personal themes. In order to carry out the social responsibilities everyone expected of him, he wrote a book, and tried to describe the social and political problems of his country, but failed miserably. The book was a “classic failure of an artistic talent as a result of the self-imposition of social commitment.” (Vargas 22-25). His suicide was one way of showing how difficult it was to be a writer in Latin America.

I began this course of study after my research of the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper lead to the realization its author Charlotte Perkins Gilman had committed suicide. It turned my attention back several years, when a close friend took his own life, suddenly, at the age of 34. Grasping at any straw I could find that may offer answers and comfort, I began reading everything about suicide and the grieving process I could get my hands on. Despite the fact I had not seen or spoken to this man for a full year previous to his death, I never knew such raw, gut-wrenching and unequivocal intense emotions could exist. In my 40+ years, I never had experienced pain that was so profoundly devastating and crushing, it completely consumed me.

Not satisfied only dealing with the grief, I became rather obsessed with the subject of suicide in its entirety, determined to understand what compels a person to cross that fine line between contemplating suicide and actually taking action.

Now, if you knew me well, you’d find this ironically hypocritical or paradoxical at the least, as I’ve spent a majority of my life fighting mental demons of my own. Diagnosed with “major depression” as a teenager, the idea of “ending it all” was a regular objective of mine. Yet, depressed as I ever got, and often as I thought about “it,” planned it, wished and prayed to be dead, I never once even stuck my little toe over that ‘fine line’ and acted upon my thoughts. Why? Honestly, I haven’t a clue. It certainly wasn’t for religious or moral reasons and thoughts of “having something to live for,” or “something good is just around the corner,” are completely ridiculous to someone in the throes of depression. I just didn’t do it. Period.

I have since learned that depression, per se, isn’t, nor ever was my primary demon. It was just a symptom of something more encompassing. At the age of 45, I finally found a [female] doctor who really