Great article today, from 2103, looking at the correlation between being artistic and having a mental disorder. Stereotypes of Van Gogh running around carrying an ear in a box aside, this article provides commentary that you are not more likely to suffer from mental illness if you are artistic. What a relief!
There is a neat twist, however. Siblings of those with mental illness are more likely to be employed in creative occupations. There is the suggestion that artistic types "dodged the bullet" a bit and did not get the level of brain dysfunction that their mentally ill siblings did acquire. So, if you are artistic, there is a chance that someone in your family has mental illness. Let's all look to our left and right now and think for a moment! In the age where everyone you meet either has a disorder of some kind or is related to someone who does, this is a neat concept.
What if, though, being artistic and productive in a creative way gives an artist an outlet for their mental strife and what could be a serious disorder is ameliorated into a creative approach to life? And career? I know creating artwork and the creative act of teaching helps me with the depression and physical pain I deal with daily thanks to RA, and I've been a creative producer since a very young age. What if the brain restructures itself through creative activity and thereby avoids full blown mental illness? This is when I wish I knew a neuroscientist who could answer questions. Creativity and brain science overlap in very interesting ways. The good part is that you don't have to really understand much of it to use the data that is coming out these days. I love this stuff!
What will you make today?