Madness and My Own Brain: When Writing Helps—and When it Hurts

— The Double Edged Sword of Writing with Poor Mental Health

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” 

In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe explores the interconnectedness of mind and body. He asks, what if the connection was severed—split between two people, how would they survive? The short answer: they don’t. As Madeline’s body deteriorates, so too does Roderick’s mind, taking with them the entire Usher mansion. Suggesting that not only does the health of our mind and body interlink, but that it’s capable of impacting the world around us. 

If true, then inevitably we must conclude that when it comes to writing—or any form of creative expression—we form a two-way connection between our minds and the worlds we’re giving life. The very fact that Poe, and many artists like him, even began to explore such a theme—and arguably in some cases descended further into madness as a consequence—only reinforces this idea. After all, the first rule of great writing is to write what you know, right? Wasn’t the literary ‘genius’ of the Romantic Era rooted in melancholia and madness? People like Edgar Allan Poe, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway, reaching the height of their creativity under the crippling weight of their mental health. For, to reach out and touch our readers there must be ‘reality’ in our words. Though it is easy to analyse these writers from a distance, the reality of experiencing this two-way connection between our minds and our literary creation is another thing entirely. 

When it Helps 

When I first started writing my novel proper, I had no true desire towards publication. Not because I had any concerns for the quality of my writing but rather, the novel had no direction, no intent for completion. In fact, it began in the middle, with Nathaniel sitting alone in a dimly-lit room attempting to drown out the suffocating silence, with the harsh burn of a second bottle of whiskey, ‘As his numbed muscles screamed for something—anything—to release the tension’ [Heads or Tails, SA Benstead, sept 25]. Personally I’ve never been inclined towards whisky, but writing a scene in which the main character sits hastily scrawling a scene about a character sitting and hastily scrawling a scene that tells how a character…well you get the picture. It wouldn’t have had the same impact. It wouldn’t have been cathartic. If anything, Nathaniel turned to a vice I could never bring myself to touch, because what mattered most about this scene, wasn’t how he coped, but that he didn’t. And while I, as a fifteen-year-old, could only turn to the pen, he had to turn to the heartbreaking, self-destruction of alcoholism. When I feared picking up the blade, he had to take it to his throat. He had to be entirely consumed by the hollow, devastation of our shared mental state and break beneath it, so that I wouldn’t. Thus began a series of literary episodes in which Nathaniel suffered—my first consistent little paper soul—running directionless through page after page of mental torture he never asked for in order to help me. But then, who ever asks? And I’m not the first—nor shall I be the last—to use writing to help my mind release the reality of the dark thoughts and feelings I experience regularly. This isn’t new. In fact, a 2012 study of 1.2 million people by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, found that creatives are more likely to suffer from a mental health disorder than any other occupation—with writers making up the majority of that group by showing a wider range of ‘disorders.’ My question is, does that study count the writing that is not published, or part of somebody’s job? Ie - An Autistic banker with multiple diagnoses of severe-depression who writes poetry he never tells anyone about? Someone who is driven to write not because they want to be published or have a career but because they have to. Like ‘the eyes are the aperture through which the universe explores itself’ [Alan Watts], maybe writing is the conduit through which we explore our minds. For a lot of writers, both known and unknown, the act of writing itself is a means of survival. Until it’s not.  

Perhaps writers like Woolf, Plath, or Hemingway, also began writing as a symptom of their mental health—but not because they “fear fully living” [The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf’s Art and Manic-Depressive Illness]; but maybe because they fear what might happen if they stop. Rather than a conscious choice; our mental illness uses the act of writing to help make sense of a mind that doesn’t really fit in a world that would rather not see it. I, for one, have never felt like writing poetry was a conscious decision.  In fact, more often than not, I would rather not write it at all. I’d even avoid the poetry modules at university whenever I could because I didn’t particularly want to talk about the structure of it either—but the rhymes come anyway. The only way to get out of my head is to write it down, like a frustrating ear worm or the relentless chatter of character voices all talking at once. So to say something like, mental illness in writers of the ‘romantic’ era was the cause of their writing, that it’s the reason they began and were able to contemplate the themes that they did, doesn’t take away recognition of the efforts and understanding required to actually produce a piece of literary work. I don’t see it as an entirely reductionist attitude because it doesn’t negate their hard work and skill, or reduce their practiced talent, to merely the result of trauma. I’m not perpetuating the idea of tortured genius, instead, I’m emphasising just how painful, necessary, and likely cathartic the actual writing may have been for them. Afterall, Hemingway’s first novel was an exploration of themes that could arguably be seen as a necessary, personal attempt at understanding his own mental instability after the First World War. Something to do to separate himself from his mind and try to understand his thoughts.

But we can never know for certain, if Woolf, or Hemmingway, or authors doomed to the same fate, would have still become writers, let alone been successful, if they didn’t need an outlet for their pain. But personally, I don’t believe I would have felt the drive to pick up the pen so young if it weren’t for my mental health. Likely I’d have tried it and forgotten it, like many of my more ‘mentally stable’ friends did. There would be no pressing need, or guilt, in me to write. If anything, acknowledging this possibility of necessity only adds more depth to the strength and work of these classic writers. We can’t ignore the fact that people with mental health issues are driven towards careers in writing, or the depth of their writing is only exposed after they die—as is the case with so many famous authors. If they’re not driven by their poor mental health then what is it? Or are we to assume that mental health disorders are in fact a product of writing rather than the reason?

When it Hurts

For a time this method of using Nathaniel to explore my mental health in the extremes worked for me. Not simply because I was inflicting my torment on another, but because writing gave me an escape from my own mind, and turning it into a novel, gave me an escape from writing poetry. Eventually I did begin to find joy in it too. I was able to make a plan and come up with a plot which was incredibly exciting. My English teacher set coursework that ended up giving me a prologue, a reason for Nathaniel’s internal struggles that felt more valid and interesting than my own. Then, spurred by the knowledge that it was my choice to dedicate time working at something only I could, for me and no one else, I gained a sense of purpose. Routine and structure I didn’t know I needed. My confidence grew to the point that when that first draft was finished I suddenly wanted everyone to read it. To say “Look! I did this, me!”  But frankly I’m not surprised it was only my mother who actually finished it. Looking back on that draft it was messy—incomplete—and the only parts of the plot that didn’t feel forced were the ones in which Nathaniel turned inwards. If I’m honest I’m not even confident my mother did finish it. I just remember her telling me it took her so long because the fact it came from the mind of her youngest daughter, ‘scared her.’

At the time though, I was frustrated. I’d shared my writing, a character I never intended to share, and had gotten a reality check in return. My mind was so terrifying, my own mother didn’t want to look. Without realising it, by sharing my novel, I’d been reaching for acknowledgment that Nathaniel—and by extension myself—meant something. I was unknowingly reaching for validation of my lived experiences. The writing that had allowed me to separate from my own mind, had become an open wound that nobody was acknowledging, and now it felt too terrifying to even acknowledge it myself. I ended up putting it away, and apart from the occasional poem—because without dark stories my mind apparently starts rhyming—I stopped writing altogether. I definitely stopped sharing it with other people. I’d reached the limits of how much I could make sense of my own emotions and learnt to avoid them instead, to stop looking at myself too closely. 

Then in lockdown, almost thirteen years later, I started writing again. I began with one of the only other scenes in Nathaniel’s life that so starkly reflects my own experience, and still made the final cut. The scene with the knife. I wrote some poetry around that time too, but having Nathaniel experience things along with me again felt like companionship, like understanding. I had reached a point in my life and my mental health where it felt that if I didn’t write it out, didn’t acknowledge the illness within, then it would eat me alive. But something was different. 

The tunnel had begun to run the other way. 

I’d been through a lot since I’d last fully acknowledged Nathaniel—had lost both my parents in some form, been to therapy, spoken to doctors, and become terrified of what I would do if left alone—but the act of writing, of gifting my pain to my fictional creation, now seemed to cause me more hurt, rather than helping me cope. It had become a necessity again, but Nathaniel wasn’t enough anymore. Just writing wasn’t enough. There was now pressure to find the exact words, in the exact order, to accurately capture my experiences and the depth of what I felt. In a bizarre turn, I also felt bad for Nathaniel. Not only was I expecting him to once again suffer in my place after abandoning him for so long, but I resented him for reflecting all my failures back at me. Every unfinished project, every failed task or business venture was mirrored in Nathaniel’s thirteen year stagnation. Why was he still unhappy? Why did he still have to suffer? Why was it no longer enough? And why couldn’t he move on?

  That’s the reality of ‘writing what you know’—the truth that Poe, and writers like him understood, and new writers must learn—when you externalise your emotions into a character, make them real, and use them to navigate your own traumas outside of yourself, eventually you’ll find the tunnel going both ways. Perhaps this is why the same 2012 study by the Karolinska Institute found that writers were almost 50% more likely to end their own lives than the rest of the population. The characters start influencing you.

 I was trapped in my own cycle, exacerbated by the loss of my parents, and I’d been ignoring it. I’d stopped writing so I’d given up my outlet for release, and now I wanted it back, the process was no longer capable of helping me the same way. Instead, every new edit, every attempt at finishing Nathaniel’s story, to reach the end of his book, felt like a reminder of my own shortcomings. Writing wasn’t about the process anymore, it was about the result, about fixing my story and finally finishing something—anything—to make me feel like a capable human being. Each re-reading of scenes that previously brought catharsis became reminders that what I’d written in the hope of releasing my pain, was still relevant. The pain was still there, just like Nathaniel, thirteen years later, only he always got a more absolute relief from it—be that alcohol, an anonymous lover, a blade, or something as simple as screaming into the void. At some point I became so knotted in his emotions, that I began to wonder if the reason writing had started to hurt so much was because, instead of writing Nathaniel out of his suffering, I was writing myself deeper into mine. Maybe I never should’ve opened the wound again, but no matter how I tried, I could never put him aside, my own survival relied on him.  

So, how did I untangle the knots? Have I untangled the knots? I’m still here on this planet so things seem to imply that I did. As for moving forwards, one might be inclined to suggest writing books on lighter topics, avoiding trauma altogether—but one would be wrong. I’m seemingly incapable of not traumatising my characters, splitting my mind into little pieces so that one character is burdened with ADHD, while another navigates Autism in a world that doesn’t understand it yet. One has a complicated relationship with their father; another hears voices. One will destroy everything good in their life for a chance to escape themselves, while another takes a blade to their heart, or a gun to their chin. They will continue to represent all facets of me, and those around me, to the extreme. I can only write what I know. The difference now is how I view the process. It’s no longer about relief, but rather curiosity, to explore the whys and hows of my mental health. I don’t want to slam the tunnel doors shut, I want to use them to have a conversation.

When I first started writing, it was never supposed to be with the intent to publish. It was about trying to separate my mind from my experience—from my body—and creating characters, like Nathaniel, to hold my hurt and validate it with origins I felt were more acceptable than my own, was my way to do that. But now, I feel like I need to release him. To send his story out into the world and unburden myself, because I recognise that it is no longer tied to mine. Publication feels oddly necessary where before it didn’t. In doing so, perhaps I can once again fall in love with writing—not as a means of escape—but as a way of listening to what other characters might still be able to help me understand about myself, while recognising the distance between us. I’m no longer terrified about people seeing darkness and traumas in my characters, and by extension in me, and turning from it. Because I won’t. I will not feel guilty or afraid that my family might see themselves in my characters and not like it, because it’s never been about them. It’s about me. I will of course attempt to give ‘Heads or Tails’ the best launch that I can, but I don’t care if it doesn’t become a bestseller, I’m not writing for the masses. I write for myself. Something I fully believe the great writers of melancholia did too. And now, I also write for the possibility of someone, somewhere, reading it and seeing themselves reflected back at them. People rarely seem to make the connection so fully between an author and their characters, only between the characters and the readers. I write now to create conversations. Something that cannot happen, until I let Nathaniel go.