We used to think that male menopause was metaphorical… a midlife crisis like what women go through. But these hormonally based changes that affect our psychological state, our emotional state, our sexuality really is similar enough to what I think women go through that the term has caught on, and it really has been recognized now throughout the world.

I define Irritable Male Syndrome as a state of hypersensitivity, anxiety, frustration, and anger that occurs in males and is associated with biochemical changes, hormonal fluctuations, stress, and loss of male identity. … We found that depression and irritability are related.

Continued in Irritable Male Syndrome interview .

"I was feeling so sad all the time, and I couldn’t shake it. I started burying my feelings, and it got to a point where I couldn’t even tell my family or my friends, ‘I’m twisted,’ or ‘I’m exhausted,’ or ‘I’m so angry.’"

Alicia Keys [right] added, "I became a master of putting up the wall so that I was unreadable." [People, December 13, 2007]

One of the reasons we need to manage depression as creative people, is so we don’t get too walled off or shut down to create.

For some people, it may be a more severe form, such as the Postpartum Depression that Marie Osmond experienced.

As she described it: "I’m collapsed in a pile of shoes on my closet floor… I have no memory of what it feels like to be happy. I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest. I barely move. It’s not that I want to be still. I am numb."

But probably for most of us, it is a less extreme form, such as dysthymia, and is likely to be an existential depression, as psychologist and creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD describes in his book The Van Gogh Blues .

He writes, "The cliche is that creativity and depression go hand-in-hand. Like many cliches, this one is quite true.

"But creators are not necessarily afflicted with some biological disease or physiological disorder… They experience depression simply because they are caught up in a struggle to make life seem meaningful to them.

"People for whom meaning is no problem are less likely to experience depression. But for creators, losses of meaning and doubts about life’s meaningfulness are persistent problems — even the root causes of their depression. … Virtually 100 percent of creative people will suffer from episodes of depression."

One of the artists quoted in the book is Caroline Bertorelli. "I get depressed quite regularly and often," she notes. "It used to distress and frustrate me that I have such a tendency. But as I grow older, I see my depression as a valuable time for introspection and deep thinking about life."

In our interview, Eric Maisel commented, "I believe that it serves us best to learn how to reduce or eliminate both depression and anxiety from our lives, as I do not hold them as useful in any way. I think that pain is overrated.

"That isn’t to say that the following might not happen: you work honorably and well on a creative project, you finish it, you are depleted and no new project wants to come forward, and after a certain amount of time the blues strike, since you aren’t making sufficient meaning and don’t feel quite up to making new meaning."

He adds, "This sort of depression can creep up on any working artist. The depression is not useful in and of itself but it is a clear signal that the time has come to see if new meaning can be made.

"It is the time to get back on the horse and back into the studio. Maybe there is nothing there yet and maybe you will experience days or weeks of nothing particularly generative happening.

"Be that as it may, the depression was not a gift; it was merely the warning sign that a meaning crisis was brewing or had erupted—and that action, even if futile at first, was now required."

From Investing meaning in our art - an interview with Eric Maisel .

The action to take to relieve depression may be to "get back on the horse and back into the studio" - or it may require some more formal help.

Christina Ricci fought anorexia and depression in her younger years, and says she overcame her problems with the help of a psychiatrist.

"These are things you can’t always deal with alone, so I went to therapy," she said. "Sometimes people need to seek professional help. Along the way I discovered that you can choose to be happy."

[From (Manic) Depression Confessions: Christina Ricci and Mel Gibson , by Liz Spikol, HuffingtonPost.]

On the excellent blog Storied Mind, in the article Creating a Way Out of Depression - 2 , is this quote about creative work:

"Near the beginning of Julie Fast’s Get It Done When You’re Depressed , she quotes an artist suffering from depression who made an important discovery.

"Although she had been thinking she could not work when depressed, a friend asked her if she could see any difference in the quality of the work she produced when feeling good and when feeling bad. She realized that there was no difference.

"That was an eye-opener. She realized that even when she felt low and lacking the will to get to her creative work, she was still capable of producing the painting that gave her such deep fulfillment. Now she’s focused on her work, rather than on her feelings about whether she’s able to get started. For her, this realization has made all the difference, and she’s painting whether she’s excited about her work or unable to stop crying."

Another perspective is provided by Andrew Solomon in his book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression : "It is possible (though for the time being unlikely) that, through chemical manipulation, we might locate, control, and eliminate the brain’s circuitry of suffering. I hope we will never do it.

"To take it away would be to flatten out experience, to impinge on a complexity more valuable than any of its component parts are agonizing.

But pain is not acute depression; one loves and is loved in great pain, and one is alive in the experience of it. It is the walking-death quality of depression that I have tried to eliminate from my life; it is as artillery against that extinction that this book is written."

Sharon (audience member): I have close relationships to people who suffer from depression. And in talking with them, I find that there’s an inwardness and a strong identity that they have as people who suffer from depression.

Eckhart Tolle: Whether it is a physical condition that one suffers from or a psychological condition, there is the tendency to identify oneself with it.

Oprah: [People think,] “And I’m depressed because I’m identifying with my whole story.”

Eckhart Tolle: Yes. If you’re very strongly identified with my sad story, which for many people, yes, the story is sad. I had a sad story for many years until I let go of it… I was depressed.. until one night, I woke up, and I realized that this unhappy self is not who I am.

Continued in article Eckhart Tolle On Depression.

Heather Locklear is seeking treatment for anxiety and depression. “She requested an in-depth evaluation of her medication and entered into a medical facility for proper diagnosis and treatment,” her publicist said. [The Associated Press 06/26/2008]

Musician Shawn Colvin explained on an episode of the Oprah show (Depressed, Mentally Ill and Famous), “Part of the way I’ve dealt with my depressions in the past is I’ve had the ability, if necessary, to just check out. There have been times when I’ve not shown up at work.”

In a press release, Colvin said, “Since seeking help and getting appropriate treatment for my depression, I have felt more engaged with and closer to family and friends, and have been able to fully capture my creativity.”

One of the ways we need to support ourselves is to deal with mental health challenges like depression that can distort our inner life and impede access to our creative thinking and energy.

There are, of course, many kinds and degrees of depression. There are ‘the blues’ - the ordinary sort of reaction to a distressing event such as not getting a film role you wanted, or a book deal, or leaving a relationship.

You may feel that kind of non-clinical depression intensely - especially if you are a highly sensitive person - but can get over it with time, and new challenges to get involved with, like another audition, a new publisher.

But many creative people experience more serious levels of depression. Andrew Solomon earned international accolades for his work as a novelist, journalist and historian. At 31 he descended into a major depression. He was helped by a combination of family support, medications and talk therapy.

See his article The experience of darkness and hope.

Eric Maisel, PhD, author of The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression, says that meaning issues are of deep importance in dealing with dark moods, for creative people especially. He says, “When we fear that we do not matter or that our efforts do not matter, we get depressed.

“Similarly, the places where we make large investments of meaning, for instance in our performances, paintings, or books, are places of great anxiety, because there is more than our ego on the line, there is our very sense of the meaningfulness of our life.”

From our interview Investing meaning in our art.

In addition to medications and formal psychotherapy, there are many self-help approaches to managing depression, including books and supplements such as hypericum, or St. John’s Wort, which I have been using and finding beneficial for a number of years.

Even a simple strategy can help. Eric Maisel suggests, “It isn’t of life-and-death importance that the house be clean or that you remember everybody’s birthday, but it is vital that the chaos of ideas that start to flood your brain when you open up to your own creativity have a place to be sorted and saved.

“Many of us feel depressed, defeated, and incapable of creating for just this reason, that the swirl of ideas inside our head keeps swirling with no place to go. But something as simple as organization can turn that around. Investing in large erasable bulletin boards is an excellent starting point.” [From his title The Creativity Book.]

Related:
Depression and Creativity
Depression articles / resources.

Manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder, is a mental disorder, which is characterized by a cyclic shift in moods between mania and depression. Manic symptoms include hyperactivity, inflated self-esteem, high risk activity, decrease need for sleep, distractibility, and flight of ideas (a rapid, uncontrolled flow of thoughts).

Depression is characterized by dysphoria, loss of interest or pleasure in usual pastimes, decreased energy, decrease appetite, and suicidal thoughts.

It is hard to imagine how one would be able to function regularly with such debilitating symptoms.

Hence, I was surprised when I discovered that my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln, suffered from manic depression. I was equally as surprised to learn that my favorite guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, also suffered from manic depression.

To my astonishment, many accomplished men and women throughout history had suffered from some form of bipolar disorder.

This has caused many to wonder whether there is an association between bipolar disorder and creativity or whether it is a coincidence that so many geniuses had suffered from the mental disorder.

Hershman and Lieb seek to answer this question.. and they do a great job. They explain how both sides of manic depression (mania and depression) both enhance and inhibit creativity.

Andrew Solomon : Depression is an illness of loneliness. And the primary experience is the feeling of being isolated, of being alone, of being cut off from everyone and everything. I knew that the sun was rising and setting, but little of its light reached me….

These experiences of darkness make the light more beautiful, that the pain of being acutely depressed allows you to experience an unbelievable happiness in every day when you aren’t depressed and a sense that each of those days is a gift.

So that’s the real message of hope, is that you can get better.

From his article The experience of darkness and hope .

Related: Depression articles / resources

While Western medicine has become the norm in many cultures, it is not the only treatment option.

Conventional western medicine, often called allopathic medicine, is the system of medicine taught at most medical schools and most pharmaceutical and synthetic medicines are manufactured and marketed according to the principles of allopathic medicine.. also sometimes called orthodox medicine.

Because most of us in the Western world have grown up in a society in which allopathic medicine is the prevailing norm, we forget that, only a few decades ago, homeopathic, herbal and other natural medicines were commonly available – and freely used even by conventional doctors.

While there are often heated debates about which system of medicine is ‘better’ than the other, many responsible doctors (whether they are allopathic or not) recognize that both have a role to play in the treatment program.

Natural medicine has often been frowned on by conventional doctors, especially by those who did not have sufficient knowledge of these medicines. However, it is encouraging to note that some medical schools are now beginning to re-introduce it into their course work, thereby providing doctors with a wider range of treatment options from which to choose.

In many countries, especially in Europe, India and China, natural and homeopathic medicines are commonly prescribed by conventional doctors and represent a significant part of the total annual drug sales.

Naturopathy is a branch of medicine (just as allopathy is a branch of medicine) which operates according to the underlying philosophy that the body has an innate capacity to heal itself.

From Natural Help For Bipolar Disorder [free ebook], by Native Remedies.

[Image from book Intense Minds: Through the Eyes of Young People with Bipolar Disorder.]

Here are some excerpts from a Los Angeles Times article:

In May 2003, four-time Superbowl quarterback Terry Bradshaw embarked on a multi-city campaign sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the antidepressant Paxil, to discuss his own lifelong depression and urge sufferers to get help.

"Taking the first step toward a diagnosis and treatment was one of the bravest thing I’ve ever had to do," said Bradshaw.

Philip E. Burguieres was once the youngest chief executive of a Fortune 500 company. In the early 1990s, Burguieres says he was an outwardly successful workaholic problem-solver.

But he never slept more than a few hours at a time — and inside, worry gnawed at him so furiously, "I almost wanted to peel my skin off," he says.

In 1991, after wrestling for weeks with a particularly intractable business challenge, Burguieres passed out in his office. A psychiatrist bluntly told him he was clinically depressed and prescribed medication, psychotherapy and participation in a mental health support group.

Continued in Depression’s Machismo Mask , By Melissa Healy.

"Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But normal or manic I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know." Kay Redfield Jamison

Depression can be a profoundly damaging and disrupting condition, spiritually and psychologically corrosive, preventing us from living fully and realizing our talents. But a number of people also say the experience has had real value for them.

Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison first planned her own suicide at 17, and attempted to carry it out at 28.

Referring to her bipolar disorder, she has said, "I have felt more things, more deeply. I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn’t work for me, the answer would be a simple no… and it would be an answer laced with terror.

"But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It’s complicated. I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved… laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters."

A lot of us experience some kind of depression. According to The National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 21 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year, have a mood disorder.

Continued in my article Making Good Use of Depression .

Hilary MacGregor writes in the Los Angeles Times, "The book is not the first to give an autobiographical account of living bipolar. It joins the ranks of Kay Redfield Jamison’s "An Unquiet Mind," Carrie Fisher’s "Postcards From the Edge" and "The Big Awful" (two novels based on her life) and Andy Behrman’s "Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania," to name a few.

"But set in a glamorous world saturated with money and celebrity, the book not only describes Cheney’s individual struggle against this disease — which afflicts 5.7 million adult Americans of every age, gender and social class — it also provides an apt metaphor for the bizarre psychological terrain of Hollywood."

"Hollywood is an industry of extremes," said Cheney, whose clients included Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. "It is feast or famine, euphoria or despair. Everything has got to be faster, bigger, more, and right now! In a way, you need to be manic to survive."

"No one knows what percentage of people living in Los Angeles are bipolar," MacGregor notes, "but studies have shown that there are very high rates of bipolar among people in the arts, which includes musicians, poets and writers."

"We don’t know why this is the case, but there may be something about the gene for creativity that runs not only in those types of professions but in bipolar as well," said Dr. Lori Altshuler, the Julia S. Gouw Professor of Psychiatry and director of the UCLA Mood Disorders Research Program.

"The up and down nature of Hollywood life, Cheney suggests, makes it easier for those who suffer to conceal their mental illness here. Bipolar may go undiagnosed in many communities, but in Hollywood, manic traits are not only overlooked, they are celebrated."

She also thinks "It’s an incredible time to be bipolar. There is so much awareness. There are so many medications. There is so much unexpected compassion."

Continued in article: Bipolar Explorer , by Hilary MacGregor.