Mental illness and creativity often go hand in hand. Some say the figure is as high as 70 percent. So the question that has been asked, by artists and non artists alike – does one have to be a little bit mad to create art? And, without that spice of madness, would the artist be driven to create anything at all? Is it possible that art is only the by product of a tortured soul trying to resolve herself?

Well-l-l-l, maybe. There is something to be said for the idea that art is an effective way to translate your emotions out of your body. But all people feel pain, joy, suffering, elation – I do not think powerful experience is the sole purview of the mentally ill.

When I drew up the first draft of this essay, I was imprisoned in a body which had been in pain from a migraine, nausea, and extreme depression for seven months. Now, with treatment working more or less as it should be, I have painted 6 canvasses, written 3 articles, attended two networking meetings, taken two interviews, worked with an intern, taken myself to the doctor three times, resolved an argument with my husband, started an account with a new client, and more or less been very effective for half of each day for the last week.

We are still working on the second half of the day. It may be a blood sugar problem, so I am experimenting with eating four meals a day instead of two and a half.

My artistic friends with mental illness have often been afraid to go on medication, because they truly fear they will lose their creativity. My husband went on badly needed anti-depressants, and simply stopped drawing. But he was happy, and handling the other areas of his life. He simply had not developed a habit of drawing. He had always relied on a compulsion to draw. So he went off the anti-depressants, and he draws all the time. But he is almost always dissatisfied with his life.

In my case, try non-stop suicidal ideation. That will put a damper on your creativity like a big lead balloon.

I have four diagnosed mental disorders. Bi-polar disorder; obsessive compulsive disorder; anxiety disorder, and post traumatic stress syndrome. I can tell you that life with medicine is a struggle, but life for me without medicine is hell.

I understand why people try to medicate themselves with street drugs. I have all the sympathy in the world for them. If only the street drugs would cure their illness. They don’t, they just give the addict a new problem to deal with. As a friend of mine once said “Heroine takes all your problems away and replaces it with one big problem…�

Before medicine, I was a professional creative writer. I was a talented writer who was sometimes brilliant, sometimes awful, sometimes ahead of schedule by months, sometimes months behind, sometimes clear as a bell, sometimes, as one editor said “muddy as a pile of horse shit – I know there’s a horse under here somewhere, but could you dig her out and send it back to me?�

In other words, my editors never knew what they were going to get from me. Still, I continued to write. Probably because there is an old saying in the arts: “You can be a nice guy, a genius, or on time all the time – but you’d better be two of the three, or you’ll never get work.� Well, I was good at what I was doing, and happy to do it over, and gracious about it most of the time. That was probably the only thing that saved my ass.

These days I am also a professional writer, though most of my writing is commercial. The differences are like that of a finely trained archer. Point me at a target, and I will hit it, almost every time. Point me at it from seven different perspectives, and I’ll give you seven different points of view.

The difference is, medication, therapy, and about two years of training, learning to use the talent I already had, without compulsion driving me to use it. And lest you think I am not inspired, I am inspired all the time – it’s just that now I follow up on a regular basis more often. Not all the time, but more of the time.

When I was first medicated I slept 16 hours a day. (Now I sleep 9.) I was groggy even when I was awake. From there I had to fight to get back 16 hours a day of being alert. I compromised at 14 hours, some rest and a nap. I exercise as often as I can, and this gives me a much better mood and much more productive working time.

Then I missed the Zen joy of writing, but simply couldn’t seem to find room for it in my life. So I was confused. It was a problem I never had before. I turned to my dear friend Derek, the only sane writer I know.

“Derek, what’s wrong with me?�

“Nothing’s wrong with you,� said Derek “Except that you have no discipline.�

“WHAT!? I used to write 500 words an hour, my record was 120 pages in four days.!�

“�Well, yes, and you could probably do that again, if you started taking SPEED!

“Or went off your meds.

“Otherwise you will have to learn like the rest of us, to struggle with the page, to make regular time, to face the fact that sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t. But I promise you one thing – “

“What?�

“At the end of the year you will have more work done, and it will be more good work.�

And so I began the step by step challenge of non-mania driven discipline. This applied to all areas of my life. I had to learn the discipline of working again, eating regularly, even having any sense of time at all, quite frankly. Without my overdrive, I had to learn to domesticate myself.

First I used the Covey plan from Seven Habits for Highly Effective People. I structured my days, my weeks, my months according to my highest to lowest priorities.

Then it became so-o-o-o hard for me to follow a schedule book and not get lost as to which day it is. And then I would occasionally misplace my book, or leave it at home and people would ask for an appointment when I didn’t have my all important book – that I began to modify the system.
#1) Rule, the book is with me at all times.

#2) Rule, check the book several times a day and don’t assume you remember all the details from your first glance of the day.

#3) Always write in phone numbers and addresses and directions to where you are going. This requires space, so I recommend an 8 _ x 11 inch book with one day per page, and a book of monthly and weekly reviews.

#4) Try to make and keep regular weekly appointments

I always exercise from ________to__________ on __________
I always see my Doctor at _________ on _______
I always do creative works from ________to __________ on _________
I always meet clients from ___________ to ________ on _________

You get the idea. Then your pattern recognition isn’t a matter of trying to make cohesion out of constant change, but filling in regular blanks. Who am I meeting on my client time? Which project am I working on in my creative time? What am I doing with my partner during date time?

Now for those of you who are thinking, no – never – not me, take these facts into consideration:

Depression is a serious illness, you can die from it. Dying young produces less great work. And it needn’t be because you committed suicide. My mother wore her body clean through at 52 and produced no art, though she was a fine writer and painter, because she refused to be medicated. She was afraid it would domesticate her.

Well it won’t. Your essential character, values, experiences, judgments, tastes, likes, loves and commitments will always be the same. I can guarantee you, you will have more time and energy to express those values. Secondly, you can only tame a wild creature so much. My hair is still as unruly as it ever was. My imagination still goes places no sane person would ever go. I am still one of a kind, just like you.

So be a little brave. Sign up for a long life of great work – not a short life of fireworks.

It isn’t easy. It takes strength, commitment, hard work, and the love of others.

But oh, my friends, it is worth it.

Every new sunrise,

It’s worth it.

Hope.

I had a better essay prepared almost immediately after the Bishop asked me to write it. It was well written, well scriptured – and it was something I was hiding behind.

How can I possibly write about hope? I have been in a state of acute anxiety and despair for 7 months now, with everyone telling me I will be fine, and me smiling back and telling them I will be fine for their sake. Meanwhile, I stopped myself inches from driving into a concrete wall yesterday. How can I possibly speak about hope with any authority?

“You are going to have to decide whether to trust God will take care of you or not, Sarah,� said a good friend of mine, who also suffers from depression. So I got down on my knees, and then my legs cramped, and so I got down on all fours like a Muslim prays and I begged for help. I prayed as I have never prayed before, completely opening up my broken heart and sobbing, asking the Lord to take a load that which I could no longer carry. Never in my life have I done this. Always I have prayed for strength.

And this morning I was well.

I am at peace. For months I have not been able to hold down food, I have not been able to sleep for splitting migraines, my joints have been in terrible pain. Today the pain is totally gone. I have done nothing different, taken no new medicine, had no grand epiphany, taken no special food. I am simply, body, mind, and spirit, well.

Am I well forever? I don’t expect that. Every depression has its lesson and this one carried several powerful lessons, so I don’t think my schoolin’s over for this lifetime. But for the moment I have respite, and I can appreciate the miracle that all life around me is.

Rain falls.

Have you ever given that much thought? That the very substance we need to stay alive from one day to the next literally pours out of the heavens at us and all we need to do is hold out our hands? Like the blood of Christ, like the love of the Holy Spirit. We only need do the simple things that are required of us, and love and blessings rain down upon us for us to catch with open hands.

I had been doing everything asked of me, or so I thought. I did everything, except asking for help, not from other people, not from my husband, but from Christ. I would let others ask for me, pray for me, bless me. But I had not abased myself, with a broken heart, and invited him in. I had prayed, but I had not, as Jill said “cracked my heart open�.

I know I am supposed to have hope for the afterlife, the celestial kingdom, and my eternal spiritual development. But I struggle so much with this life, that often I do not look too far down the road. I try to do my best day by day.

I have always felt Christ walking with me, side by side. I have always had faith in God. The simple fact that rain falls, like manna from heaven, was proof enough for me of the existence of God. The world in its infinite complexities only made me more certain. It was myself I did not have faith in. I always had hope. Hope that someday I would accomplish enough, serve enough, love enough, that I would be good enough for the Lord to claim me as his own. Even though I was baptized, even though I was endowed – I still did not feel good enough. But I had hope that one day I would be.

Today, I have something better. I have knowledge. I have the knowing of the Holy Spirit working inside me. I can feel it. Not just for a fleeting moment. I can feel something taking root along side my faith, alongside my prayers. Instead of offering the Lord my service, my duty, my actions – which I had done all my life – I offered him my pain, my broken heart, my utter frailty. And he accepted me anyway. Perhaps because I was, finally, offering my imperfection.

That is far more than cause for hope. It is a miracle of knowledge that I pray I shall never forget.

I am beloved. I am welcome. I am not alone.

Imperfect as I am, I am wanted.

And therein lies the hope that anything, Anything, is possible.

Life is precious. Life is precarious.

There is a pair of purple martins nesting in the garage at the bottom of our apartment. They are safe there from wind, rain, cats, raccoons, possums, birds of prey, snakes, and small children. They may not be safe from the land lord.

Once already their nest has been broken in half. The birds rebuilt it. Now the female is sitting on her eggs. Every time I go in the garage I check and say a prayer that no one would have the heart to ruin the nest of a bird who is incubating her eggs. She isn’t in anyone’s way. They aren’t like pigeons, there are not swarms of them. Just two, tiny, beautiful, rare, musical birds – trying to exist in the modern world.

And yet, with one swift sweep of a broom, she, her reason for existence, and her posterity would be lost.

Would they build another nest? Perhaps, next year. Would they find a safer place? In this increasingly unnatural world, unlikely. And so their fate rests upon the kindness of humans.

Just like the rest of us.

How delicate our most valuable feelings are, how easily our best qualities are broken like fine little blue eggs. Trust, faith, courage, pride, kindness, honesty, love – each of these requires a profound degree of vulnerability to show them to the world. How often can we, like tiny birds, show what is hidden under our wings? How often have we watched that newly growing life get crushed by another, for power, or ego, out of pure cruelty, or the all forgiven “just business�?

How often do we stand by and allow injustice to tarnish our faith in the world just a little bit more?

How often do we take our own stands, for our personal and professional lives, and die a little inside when our offering is shot out of the sky?

What wellspring do we return to in order to refresh ourselves, renew our convictions, and take up the things we believe in once again?

Do we turn to each other? Do we turn to God? Do we turn inward? And what if that inward well runs dry?

I believe that personhood is a very delicate thing, requiring constant self care and the care of others. In our modern culture we focus so much on our physical health, on what goes into our mouths – but we spend almost no time on what goes into our hearts, our ears, our arms, our minds.

Do we dare touch each other? Did you know that men and women in Europe touch each other over 30 times a day. In America, unless it is our kin, we are lucky to be touched at all in a day. Did you know that a hug could lower your blood pressure?

In Indonesia, men walk down hand in hand down the street. So do women. When is the last time you held your best friend’s hand?

In tribal cultures, if you go off to be alone, people worry that you are ill – unless you have gone on a specific quest or hunt for something.

How often do you feel alone?

How often do you know what you feel?

How many people did you express your love to today?

How many people have you expressed your admiration for?

How many people have you smiled at today?

In all the universe, there is only one of you. You are rarer than any gem, metal, machine, or commodity. You are a work of art.

A work of art that fades if it is never shared.

These are some of the most important rules to the game of being human. The more you share yourself, the more you become. The more you reach out to others, the more a part of the world you are. The more you listen, the more you learn. The more you take a stand for what you believe in, the more others like you will stand beside you. The more others stand beside you, the more the world changes

Or, you can hide. And fade.

You can see it in the faces of old people who are stingy with their belongings, afraid that everyone is going to steal from them, wondering why nobody comes to visit them, wondering why they have ended up alone.

The spirit shrivels long before the body dies.

Or lives long past the body’s life.

What were you born to do? Are you doing it?

The sands in your hour glass will not wait for your excuses.

In all the world there is no one like you, no one who can stand up and take your place, no one who can contribute to the world what you were meant to give.

How will you spend your day today?

Sleepwalking?

Or awake, on your way to a destination that only you can reach, to affect the human race as only you can?

Do you know what you are supposed to do?

Are you searching to find out?

Are you among the living dead? There’s a reason zombies scare the shit out of people. We have so many stories about the living dead, and they all have common themes: Alone, cut off, no soul, no emotion, rejected, and finally, brain dead.

Or are you in purposeful motion?

Even asking the question is the beginning of life.

Ask the question.

Who am I? Why am I here? What am I meant to do?

The more you ask the question, the closer you come to the answer. The more you live the answer, the stronger you become.

I recently left a business group that thought it needed to bring in more “dollars in your pocket!�

I recently joined a much more successful group, where 75% of the speakers donated substantial portions of their time or earnings to non-profit organizations.

Sometimes life is not about business as usual. Sometimes it’s about choosing sides.

Do I really need this abusive job so bad? Have I looked at places where they would treat me better?

Do I really need this cruel spouse? Aren’t their people and programs out there to help me?

Is there an employer out there who will allow me to spend half my time making art and still pay me a living wage plus health insurance?

Is it time I worked for myself?

Am I writing about things I believe in – or am I writing what I think will sell? Do I trust the audience?

How does it make me feel to step over a human being lying in the street? Do I want to do something about it?

There are hundreds and thousands of kids and young adults out there with no guidance. Do I have it in me to be a mentor?

I’ve hungered for children, but have I ever looked at foster care? Is there perhaps a reason why I have had none of my own – because there are already so many here that need to be loved?

There is a way out of the place of your troubles. You will need the help of others. And where you are standing tall and strong, there are others who need you.

There is no limit to the amount of love a human heart can hold.

Reach out both hands, one to give, one to receive.

For in a second, you could be swept away.

And it would be nice to leave something behind you.

A couple of years ago, a very dear friend died very suddenly of a brain aneurysm. The ICU was packed with family and friends from all kinds of inter connecting circles. Everyone knew at least a couple of people, but very few knew everyone. There were people he had shared studio space with, people he had collaborated with, people he had mentored, people he had gotten jobs for when they lost their jobs in the comic book industry, people whose work he had illustrated, people whose work he had published, people he had loved all his life, people he had loved only a few months. But they were all people who loved him – and it was standing room only.

His wake was a celebration of his life. Of everything he gave, of everything he shared, of every joke he ever told, of every creative idea he saw through to completion and all the thousands of ideas he didn’t finish. He was not yet forty, and he had deeply imprinted himself on a generation of artists, as well as leaving a legacy of art behind him.

I have another friend, who is also bi-polar, who holds a wake for himself every year. He invites all the people he loves, and celebrates the fact that he has survived another year. He grieves the life he will not have because of his disability, but goes on to celebrate all of the things he has in his life despite his disability. He is a world class carpenter, who loves nature and can drag 400 pounds of wood out of the forest on his shoulders. He is a superb craftsman, who makes beautiful furniture. He loves beauty in all its forms, takes pleasure in every simple daily things: His shower, his meals, his work, his research and his glass of port at the end of the day. And, to everyone’s complete surprise, including his, he was recently married to a woman who had a bi-polar step mother, and also had, therefore not only experience, but complete compassion for him. Never once did he give up on love, but never once did he take any part of it for granted. He treats her like a treasure, which she is. A treasure which many before him completely overlooked.

The book of Ecclesiastes examines the life of a man who pursues knowledge, wealth, fame, even strict adherence to spiritual law. But then at the end of his life he cries “Vanity of Vanities, all of life is vanity.� And concludes with “The days of our youth are light and sweet, and woe be unto ye who meet your creator and say ‘I have had not pleasure in them.’�

In other words, we have been given an exquisite banquet of experience to savor. Don’t insult the host. Your life will be exceptional if you live as though you are leaning into the wind of yourself, driven by who you are, to become who you are meant to be. Even a life of savoring existence is rare and precious.

There are 6 trillion ways to live an exceptional life.

Pick one.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me

Have you ever felt a moment of grace? Some call it enlightenment, some call it muse, some call it inspiration, some call it spirit, and some call it the collective unconscious. But have you ever felt it?

A man, a slave trader all his life, in the middle of a terrible storm at sea, wakes up and realizes how wretched his actions have been. There is a deep sense of overwhelming sorrow and pain. Then a pinhole of light opens on a new possibility.

One could change.

What a concept. One could make restitution, one could undo the harm he has done, or prevent further harm from being done.

I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

John Newton, was not a perfect man. He stopped working on slave ships, but still profited by them. Then he took up the path of being a minister. Then he got out of the slave trade. Then he fought for emancipation. The process of changing one’s life path may take the rest of our lives. But he had a perfect moment that lasted with him, and later inspired him to pen the hymn Amazing Grace, which then took on a life of it’s own.

It is not uncommon to meet the creator of an extraordinary piece of work and find them to be deeply flawed, not living up to our expectations. Grace touches us all in our lives, the question is, how much do we allow ourselves to be changed by it?

T’was grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved,
How tender were the moments of
The hour I first believed.

We see, for a moment, how life could be radically different, immensely improved – if we do our part. And we sustain that faith for how long? A moment? An hour?

Inspiration without action is like falling deeply in love and turning 180 degrees and running in the opposite direction. If we have nourished it, cynicism has a powerful hold on us. If we find something we believe in worth nourishing, eventually there won’t be any room for any cynicism.

If every person who ever felt a moment of transcendent inspiration took responsibility for it and took action – what kind of world would we have?

Through many dangers, toils and turns
We have already come
T’ was grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home

Any writer or artist will tell you that one inspired action leads to the next and the next. Can you actually imagine a world where people took responsibility for their passing inspirations? A world that takes responsibility for its children, its environment, its ill, its suffering, its war torn, its injustice, its free will? Which little piece of the world do you know, in your heart, you should be attending to?

When we’ve been here
Ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days
To sing in praise
Than when we first begun

Where have you decided to put your energy today?

Even no decision is a decision.

Martin Luther saw a way for the gospel to be available to everyone, not just the upper classes schooled in Latin.

Martin Luther King Jr. led the bloodless revolution of his portion of the American Civil Rights movement.

Gandhi, who may not have invented the concept of peaceful civil disobedience, certainly took it to its full potential. He aligned 750 million Indians and brought the
British Empire to its knees.

Rosa Parks refused to stand up when a white person wanted her seat.

Malcolm X went to Mecca on a spiritual quest. He came back believing all men and women were brothers and sisters, even the white ones.

Liz and Jon Vance love their children more than any family I have seen. Liz home schools her children, and there is always lots of art and art supplies available for them to create with. She gently allows her children to express themselves, although they are very rambunctious, she never stifles them

I personally know two men who have willingly married women with lifelong disabilities. They are sometimes partners, and sometimes caretakers – but they never complain. It is a daily matter of course.

I know several people who have helped elders, and even young people, transform from the very last years of this life, to a death surrounded by love.

There was a social worker I knew who brought her cases home weekends and evenings, because she could not let one child go uncared for. She didn’t take time away from her family to do this. She married the kind of man who would sit at the table and help her with her case files.

Andrew Vachss spent some time working as a public health inspector, tracking down stds to their originating point. He was enraged to find that so many of the source points were children who were molested, used for kiddie porn, kept trapped in reserve for pedophiliac clients.

So Vachss, an attorney, began writing suspense novels, that were very successful, and lived off the profits, while he took on child molestation , child rape, child abuse cases for free.

So, 10,000 years from now, how will out actions have effected the course of this great journey that mankind is on?

Will I have forwarded a cause, in a quiet, but useful way? Will I have penned a concept that lives on after me, like the Tao? Will I have passed on my love, especially to the next generation, that is then multiplied and passed on? When I have done working for my survival each day, what next bit of stewardship will I tend to?

What kind of world will we have in 10,000 years? A mature, compassionate, loving family?

Or something else?

These decisions are made one choice, one life at a time.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, and trouble bound,
And grace has set me free