{"id":271480,"date":"2025-06-03T23:02:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/does-psychiatric-medication-kill-creativity-debunking-the-van-gogh-myth\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T23:02:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:02:29","slug":"does-psychiatric-medication-kill-creativity-debunking-the-van-gogh-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=271480","title":{"rendered":"Does Psychiatric Medication Kill Creativity? Debunking the Van Gogh Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Written May 27, 2011<\/p>\n

Updated May 27, 2025<\/p>\n

If Van Gogh took psychiatric medication, would Starry Night still exist \u2014 or would the world be a little darker? Let\u2019s separate romantic myths from real science and lived experience. Not infrequently, at Bipolar Burble<\/em>, I get comments about how if famous artists with mental illnesses had been medicated, we wouldn\u2019t have their art today. Psychiatric medication and creativity are simply perennial topics. Their go-to example is always Vincent Van Gogh.<\/a> Without his untreated mental illness, they argue, Van Gogh wouldn\u2019t have been the great artist we know him to be today. And if that\u2019s true, then others shouldn\u2019t take psychiatric medications<\/a> either, as they want to be great artists too.<\/p>\n

Right then. Let\u2019s all go off our meds and paint. And chop off our ears.<\/p>\n

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Creativity and Mental Illness<\/h2>\n

There is no doubt that being crazy<\/a> makes you see things in a new way. I know I can see things in ways that others can\u2019t. It\u2019s both a swirling benefit of colors and a dramatic, lead hindrance. I\u2019m constantly dealing with people looking at me in odd ways as they try to wrap their heads around whatever-the-heck logic my thoughts are trying to make. It\u2019s no mean feat.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not necessarily all bipolar. That\u2019s creativity. I was creative before I was crazy, before I was medicated. And I\u2019m creative now, on psych medication.<\/p>\n

Why This Myth Persists About Psychiatric Medication<\/h2>\n

I have had hypomanic times<\/a> where I have written and written and written and written. Thousands and thousands of words have poured out of my skull. And they have been brilliant.<\/p>\n

Or at least, I thought so at the time.<\/p>\n

Hypomanic (and manic) people think they are brilliant.<\/a> Think they are unbelievably talented and creative. Think they are geniuses. It doesn\u2019t mean they actually are. When I have reviewed the writings I have produced when hypomanic, they are the furthest thing from brilliant. They are inches away from nonsensical. <\/p>\n

Creativity and Psychiatric Medication<\/h2>\n

Since being on psych meds, I have written thousands of pages.<\/a> Thousands. Some professionally, some not, but many fairly laudable and creative. I do have talent, and that talent hasn\u2019t magically been removed because of psychiatric medication.<\/p>\n

Of course, if I\u2019m too depressed because of the bipolar to get off the couch,<\/a> that has a rather adverse effect on producing anything, talented or not.<\/p>\n

Artists, Psychiatric Medication, Creativity, and Death<\/h2>\n

But so you don\u2019t agree with me. You have personally found you\u2019re brilliant off meds and not on. Okay. Fine. And maybe you think you\u2019d be willing to part with your ear to be Van Gogh. Okay. Fine.<\/p>\n

But you might want to keep in mind some truly brilliant people who killed themselves due to mental illness, including Van Gogh, whose depression worsened over the course of his lifetime, making him unable to paint, leading to his suicide at the age of 37.<\/p>\n

And then there are other famous artists who died from suicide:<\/a><\/p>\n