Creativity and Depression

Filed in archive Mind Games on May 9, 2007

When I lost my husband after years of watching him suffer with sleep apnea, I sank into a deep depression caused by my grief and anger. It was my writing that brought me out of it. At first I wrote bitter poetry and twisted stories full of hate and despair. Gradually, though, my thoughts began to take focus, and I started writing about his illness.

I'm not the only one who found relief from mental anguish in creativity. A veteran, John Mulligan, has found an excellent technique for handling post traumatic stress. Mulligan is a Vietnam veteran, and, in his book, The Shopping Cart Soldiers, he has poured all the horror, the anger, and the nightmares of his Vietnam experience onto the printed page.

So, take pen or brush in hand, let your fingers do the talking on the keyboard of your computer, or just talk to someone. John Mulligan has not only penned a great autobiographical novel, he has given every one of us who struggles with nightmares, with grief, with worry or stress, a plan to follow. Don't bottle it up. Don't live with the horror inside you. Get it out, and exit whistling.