The first novel-length work I wrote was inspired by Twilight. I’m not ashamed to say it. I was fourteen and in love with werewolves. I’d devoured all three of the series in one sitting on my couch during a particularly muggy August, crying my eyes out at the first flush of fictional love and heartbreak. Reading those books inspired me to write my own — a darker version, but the werewolf still had eyes that changed colors and rode a motorcycle. The protagonist, Faye, had been thrown into a mental institution after a near-death accident left her ranting and raving about how he’d saved her. But of course, like in all stupid love stories, he broke her out and whisked her away on his motorcycle.

One day when I was fifteen, I absolutely freaked out. I have no idea what the cause was (although I suspect it had something to do with my father) and it sent me into a panic attack and a subsequent episode where I ripped up the entirety of the werewolf novel, which had been written in one single composition notebook. I also got into a tepid bath with my clothes on. There was no reasoning there — I just lost control.

I regret that I ripped it up to this day. That was my first real attempt at a book, my first foray into the world of novel-writing. Crafting that book had been a labor of intense focus and creative fervor, one that I’ve felt many times since, but never again in such a raw and focused way. I was powerless, at least it felt like it: mental illness had struck me for one of the first times that I can recall and its cry was heard loud and clear throughout my soul.

Instead of giving up, I threw myself into my work. I wrote more in high school than I have at any other point in my life, inspired by the reality of becoming an adult and creating my own future. I wanted to be published before I graduated, and as the deadline approached, I knew I’d have to push it back. I wasn’t ready, just yet, for that to come.

Today, I’m twenty-six. I’ve still yet to be published. But over the years, instead of railing against the bombs that go off inside of my brain, I’ve learned to redirect that frenzied energy into my creative work. It hasn’t been easy — in fact, my career as an artist was put to the wayside for years while I got a handle on my mental illness. For that reason, I recommend only using this sort of energy once you’ve done the same, otherwise you may fall into the trap of relying upon your mental illness for creativity.

Many lives have been lost in that hopeless journey, and I do not advocate forgoing treatment just because creativity may help in certain moments. Mental health is something that should be approached from many different angles, and in this essay I will explore just one angle: how to use creativity to thrive with mental illness. That doesn’t mean the other angles should be ignored — so go to therapy if you need to, take meds if you need to, eat healthy if you need to, exercise if you need to. There are so many ways to help yourself!

The Research

Before we get into my methodology, I’d like to explore current scientific thought about the link between mental illness and creativity. Not only am I interested in harnessing my own creativity energy, I wanted to find out if the idea that mental illness is prevalent in creatives has any weight.

The “Mad Artist” trope has been depicted across millennia and across cultural lines, particularly when it comes to painting and writing. A number of writers that are heralded in the canon of English literature had some kind of mental illness — for instance, Ernest Hemingway and his depression, which led to such beautiful art it still resonates within the human soul but also led to his eventual suicide. I will specifically focus on writers in this section because of the overwhelming amount of research into this phenomena in my particular profession.

So, how common is it for writers to have some kind of mental illness? The answer is a bit overwhelming — one study found “being an author was specifically associated with increased likelihood of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.” Another study produced this grim finding, one that hit quite close to home for me, “Female writers were more likely… to suffer not only from mood disorders but from drug abuse, panic attacks, general anxiety, and eating disorders as well.”

It’s quite clear that there is indeed a link between mental illness and creativity, especially in the case of writers. I can think of countless examples off the top of my head of writers who ended up killing themselves: Hunter S. Thompson, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf. I could go on, but you get the point.

My Own Journey

It has always saddened me to feel as though I might end up doing the same and just become another statistic, perhaps before I’m even published. I never felt like I could do anything about it. I wasn’t even sure what was wrong with me for most of my life— I was twenty-one when I realized I had anxiety, twenty-two when PTSD presented itself. It’s fortunate that around this time I was also allowed access to drugs that bent my mind in new and incredible ways, and I finally saw beauty in myself and found a reason to care. I was determined not to become like those other writers in my struggle, and so for years I worked on my mental health, intermittently writing when the mood struck and the time was right. I finished one book and then another, starting several more in between. Healing found me during this time, healing that was sorely needed, and I pressed that healing into my work like fruit through a juicer, squeezing out the bits that I thought might resonate with others.

This past November and December have been the most prolific months for me in years, with thirty thousand words of a novel written and several thousand more in passionate Medium articles.

Psychotherapist Diana Pitaru says, “Anxiety is a common emotion experienced by creative people… Anxiety can be a double edged sword: it can either help you move forward or keep you stuck and paralyzed. Creativity and anxiety share a commonality: possibility.” This is exactly the change that came over me during this healing time: I began to look at my mental illness not as a burden, a thorn in my side, but instead I learned to use it as fuel. If I’m going to suffer, I might as well create beauty from that suffering, explore the possibility that not all suffering is worthless but perhaps may offer me a greater purpose.

My favorite musician of all time, Jerry Garcia, who himself died from a long-standing addiction to heroin, says that music is “something that escapes between frenzies, between anxiety attacks.” Great art in general can be described this way, as though pulling water from stone: it can turn those anxious moments into priceless nuggets of inspiration.

My Method(s)

There is no one way to make creativity be at your beck and call. There is no one way to ensure that your mental health is sound — there is only trial and error. For me, the most important facets of using your creativity to thrive are hard won, but perhaps you may glean something from my experiences.

1. Do. Not. Give. Up.

Some days I don’t write at all. It is something I am trying to change, a reason that my daily to-do list always has “write 1k words” written near the top. I’ve always had an issue with discipline, but the most important thing about discipline is this: you can never give it up if you want to succeed. I will always strive to do better, to do more, than I currently am — to plant the seeds for my own spiritual growth. And the only way to do that is if you never ever ever give up.

2. Fear is not your enemy — embrace it.

It is an oft-quoted aphorism, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I’ve thought about it deeply because it resonates within me — fear is only a feeling. It is not something to be railed against or to be run away from. It is something you must face, as with all feelings. We willingly turn our faces to positive emotions like happiness and social connection, but I’ve always thought it wrong how we tend to push away our negative feelings. How do we overcome anger but to look at it head-on? That is the only way we can understand whether we must back down or fight.

Fear is similar: in order to overcome our deepest fears, we must face them. Writing this essay is a fear I am facing at this very moment. I started writing this a month ago and haven’t touched it since, distracted by my life and its utter unpredictability and chaos. Today while driving, I realized how afraid I was to continue writing, fearful that I would not be able to do this topic justice. But in facing it now, I understand now that overcoming this fear and just sitting down to write is exactly what I needed to do — I feel stronger for it. I always think of this quote, often attributed to Joseph Campbell, “The treasure you seek is in the cave you fear to enter.” How can you defeat your dragons if you do not face them?

3. Establish a routine.

This is probably the only item on this list that I am extremely weak in, but it is something I’ve learned can help you more than almost anything else and I will never stop striving for it. Routines are the best possible way to keep your mental health in check as a creative — if you can establish a healthy lifestyle, mentally and physically, you’ll be miles ahead of where you were before. The same thing goes with establishing a healthy creative style. If you only create in frenzied moments of inspiration, you will be dulled by the boredom of just knocking the work out every single day. It is drudgery, real creative work — don’t listen to those who tell you it’s easy.

A routine will help you with the drudgery, with the painstaking and often-tedious work that is improving your skills and leveling up in your craft. For me, my routine is mostly mental. When things begin to build up inside of my head, thoughts and ideas and fears and petty feelings, I must pour it out onto the page. I will write what I call “word jams” — basically freestyle poetry in the form of prose, where nothing really makes sense. Making sense is not the focus of this exercise; instead, I try to just get the feelings down first, and then begin my real work, purged of all the tension that filled me.

4. Moments of Inspiration

The best part of being a creative is the moments when the muse alights on your shoulder and whispers all the knowledge of the universe into your mind. These moments hardly persist unless the urge to create is so strong it overtakes all, even eating and sleeping, in the call. These are my favorite moments. One stands out: the burst of inspiration for what I like to call my “magnum opus” The Girl Who Cried Lightning. I was at a music festival when the weather cut the late-night sets short, and my friend Alex and I waded through the flooded park back to our campsite. Lightning forked in the sky like so many tridents of light united in one spectacular burst and the idea filled me up to the brimming, flooding my senses with heat and light and beauty so strong I almost fell over.

I hope you have had these moments. But I also need to tell you: you must be aware that they are fleeting and that your own physical health is more important than your art. Do not give yourself completely over to your muse — reserve a little energy for yourself. You never know when you may need it.

5. Be kind to yourself.

In your quest for creative awesomeness, I want to leave you with this final method for thriving. Do not berate yourself for your lack of work. Do not ruminate over what could be or who you may have been if you mental illness did not get into the way. Instead, be grateful to your strong soul for overcoming all of those obstacles to fulfill your dreams. Be proud of the justice that is a life well-lived, especially to those of you who have experienced trauma and suffered for it. Be imaginative — show us how amazing this world could be. So start with yourself. Be the kindest you can to yourself and the universe will pay you back infinite times.

Let me know what YOUR methods for using creativity to thrive with mental illness are! I’d love to gather more stories of how we have all overcome our greatest fears and I love hearing from my readers.

Originally published on Medium.com on January 10th, 2019.