Warning: the writer of this post may be nuts!
October 17, 2012 by Amara D. Angelica
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” — Salvador Dali (credit: Wikipedia)
Well, this might explain some of my wackier blog posts.
People in creative professions are treated more often for mental illness than the general population, especially writers, according to researchers at Karolinska Institute, whose large-scale Swedish registry study is the most comprehensive ever in its field.
Either that, or Swedes are crazier. Hey, I’m kidding!
Last year, researchers showed that artists and scientists were more common among families where bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is present, compared to the population at large.
They later expanded this to many more psychiatric diagnoses — such as schizoaffective disorder, depression, anxiety syndrome, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, autism, ADHD, anorexia nervosa and suicide — and to include people in outpatient care rather than exclusively hospital patients.
Now they’ve tracked almost 1.2 million patients and their relatives, identified down to second-cousin level. Since all were matched with healthy controls, the study incorporated much of the Swedish population from the most recent decades.
Like their previous study, they found that bipolar disorder is more prevalent in the entire group of people with artistic or scientific professions, such as dancers, researchers, photographers and authors. Authors specifically also were more common among most of the other psychiatric diseases (including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety syndrome and substance abuse) and were almost 50 per cent more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
CureCelebrate your madness!
The researchers also observed that creative professions were more common in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa, and, to some extent, autism. But according to Simon Kyaga, consultant in psychiatry and doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, we should reconsider approaches to mental illness.
“If one takes the view that certain phenomena associated with the patients’ illness are beneficial, it opens the way for a new approach to treatment,” he says. “In that case, the doctor and patient must come to an agreement on what is to be treated, and at what cost.”
“Twisted” by Joni Mitchell | lyrics
“Genius” by Pitchshifter | lyrics
Comments (47)
by Wholewitt
Now I know the meaning of torture, listening to Pitchshifter for 10 seconds. How awful.
by BipedalJoe
I thought about the norm as a mental filter, that decreases the rate of patternicity and synaptic reconditioning, and being alienated from /or transcending this normative filter increases the rate of memetic repurposing, for better and worse, a non normative memetome creates social friction, and that stress is pathological, but some novel memes end up changing the narrative of the norm, and it is addictingly fun to invent :)
An inspiring TED talk about patternicity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TnrJzxngyU
by trakk
maybe it could be due to the fact the parietal and temporal lobes are more active (more wired) in creative individuals leaving fewer wires :) in the frontal which is the chief behaviour regulator of all lobes.
This is just my opinion, other factors could also be at play.
by trakk
I consider myself to be creative and I had aspergers…..so this s**t must be true !!
by PacRim Jim
I’m nuttier than thou. HA-ha!
by Editor
Yes but am I nutty enough?
by Peter the printer
Will it also apply to creative AI? Better watch out!
by Aaron
Creativity is the selective accumulation of random variations on a theme. It’s just like evolution, except that the person doing the creating determines the fitness of each variation. So it makes sense that folks with perturbed mental states due to mental illness or to drug/alcohol use (which has also been linked to creativity) would be more creative. They have more random variations to pick from. Of course, if you take things *too* far, the creativity diminishes again because you stop being able to recognize variations that are actually improvements on the original.
by Bri
My mother used to work as a psychologist. We’ve had an inside joke that we’ve been saying to each other since I was in high school. It goes like this… Personally I think everyone is crazy, except you and me. Then again every once in a while, I wonder about you.
by Mike
My mom and dad said it this way:
Everyone’s crazy but me and thee,
and sometimes thee, a little!
by Bob Vasquez
Authors, too? Darn. I want to be an author. Did the study specify fiction or non-fiction authors or just all authors. I want to write about music; do you think that that would be okay?
by Mike
It’s probably ok if you write songs about music, but you’re probably risking your sanity if you go for all-out literature writing. I’m probably right on the borderline myself, I’ve been writing snippets and jotting down story ideas for years, but I haven’t actually crossed the line to becoming a “writer” yet. Since I’m already getting close to retirement age, maybe I’ll just wait a little longer, until I’m old enough to qualify as “senile”, then nobody will notice if I become certifiable.
by Sam Wallace
Sounds about right. I am looking to start my own emerging tech company, and I have ADHD. Most of my friends think I am at least mildly crazy, but that only ensures me that I am correct.
I have found that my time at VMI and in the Army helped to learn how to do goal orientated complex planning, and to stay organized. But I also found, especially while serving with NATO in Afghanistan, that most senior leaders and General officers never think to look at the forest through the trees. Most of our government promotion systems are credential based, and thus people who succeed are the ones who are best at working within the system. And unlike the greatest generation we now relay on contractors to do what we would have direct commissioned people to do.
There is some speculation that George Patton had ADHD based on his academic experience as a cadet, and his sporadic behavior as a commander. I don’t know if that is true, but it wouldn’t surprise me sense the most creative commander in WWII also almost got fired for sporadic behavior. If General Patton went to todays West Point he would most likely have been dismissed for his pleb academic performance instead of just being held back a year.
It makes me wonder how devastating a robotic blitzkrieg (or with other GNR technologies) would be. The culture in the Army outside of DARPA is not focused on how to best utilize tech.
by Marcos Marin
The human being must be dumbed down and dysfunctional in order to enjoy its otherwise pathetically miserable brief existence.
by Gabriel
Gee, thanks alot
by sblack
I think you’re right. I think the folks who are aware enough to be intellectual or creative also realize the pain of their existence.
by John
“Either that, or Swedes are crazier. ” – no, statement that Swedes are crazier cannot be implication of previous paragraph, since the stats were based on Swedish population only, without comparing to other nations.
by Editor
It was intended as a (cryptic) alternative hypothetical explanation (based on insanity more skewed toward creatives) rather than an implication or inference
by Peter the printer
What are people devoid of a sense of humour suffering from Amara! Nice bit of Joni scat singing.
by Editor
Dunno, but I’m guessing it’s the same thing that puts geeks in charge of creating the Singularity. …
by melajara
Nihil novi sub sole
It reminds me of a small treatise from Aristotle on melancholy. In those times, melancholy which could be identified with bipolar disorder, was linked with over excess of bile.
“Black bile, just like the juice of grapes, contains pneuma, which provokes hypochondriac diseases like melancholia. Black bile like wine is prone to ferment and produce an alternation of depression and anger” (Linet)
But as wine, it could for some time elate people and make them over creative and occasional geniuses.
Antic medicine was crude in physiology but there were fine observers of human nature ;-)
by Peter the printer
Nihil novi sub sole – Wasn’t Aristotle Greek?
Did they cavort while practising antic medicine?
by Khannea Suntzu
w..what?
by Bri
“My analyst told me……That I was right out of my head!…… But I said dear doctor……I think that it’s you instead!”
by Bri
I just found out that this is a double decker bus. I’m not riding another inch forward till there’s a driver up on top!
by Editor
I didn’t listen to his jive
I knew all along
That he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought
I was crazy but I’m not
Oh no
— Video added to post
by Roger Ellman
I cam and stole a handful of great pleasure from the Joni Mitchell video _ thnak you!
by Roger Ellman
And usually…I can spell, really, honestly!
by Gorden Russell
It was observed years ago that psychiatrists committed more suicides than any other in the medical professions (and that pediatricians were the least likely to kill themselves).
by Bri
I’m sorry. That last post was a personal attack. You can whack it!!!
by Editor
Can’t. You’re already whacked.
by Bri
True dat! Hey I’m an artist! It’s aaaaalllll covered in the article.
by Bri
Can I attribute your blue Meanie, post whacking to a psychoaffective disorder???? Hmmmm , please????!!!
by Editor
Yes! I have worked hard for my madness and I’ve earned it, dammit!
by Bri
It’s an occupational disease. Like a mad hatter.
by Bri
What about politicians?!!!!
by Gorden Russell
Name one politician that is the least bit creative…outside of their lies, of course.
by Gorden Russell
On second thought, they just keep using the same tired old lies. Remember the Laffer Curve of the Reagan years? That’s Romney’s new plan.
by Ryan
They tend to fall under the category of sociopathy.
by Mr.X
“Warning: the writer of this post may be nuts!”
Well, the heading tells us nothing new.Or, maybe, it can be taken as an indication that some of the people living with this terrible pathological condition are proud of aforementioned “disease”.
Maybe, just maybe, this is another symptome, mad minds using devices like “self-irony” in order to hide the fact they are just plain capital-c Crazy.
Innervoice1: “Somebody unnormal, inflected with the very condition we are kidding about, wouldn’t make jokes like this, right?”
IV2030: “Yes, yes.They won’t notice that we are creative&nutty technophil-writer nerds! ”
IV-YesWeCan: “Wait a minute?We aren’t politicians?”
#The Stopping-sociopathical-behavior sequence activated…#
#Process terminated.#
Editor: “Huh…!?Why do I suddenly feel so lonely?”
by Bri
Aaaahh, just wait till it’s a hive mind!!!!
by Mr.X
@Bri:Yeah, I wrote about that in the McDonalds-post.
Scarry stuff.
HM: “We are all one, joins us or perish!”
Me: “Why are you saying we, then?”
Hm:”Screw it.We.. uh (wrong letter) me don’t (dammit grammar) want you.Gtfo, you ***.
You will be forever alone, forever alone!”
by Bri
I think I’ll stay biological for awhile. I’ll wait till they get some of the bugs out. Do you know of any good semi deserted islands around?
by Mr.X
Well, maybe I’ll buy some Greek island.I heard, they are to be had for some years.I’d charge you 1 $ per month, if you want to live there!?
Alternatively, I read some article about floating cities, maybe you would want to build one of these things.But, depending on which states are in your neighborhood, you’d mabey get bullied (e.g Japan claiming your vessel in order to conduct “research on wales”).
by Editor
X Marx the spot
by Peter the printer
:-)
by Peter the printer
Wrong, more like psycopathy; they mix well, but desire absolute power and despise ‘the little people’.