Some reflections on neurotransmitters

[branchandroot]

So, a lot of us have probably heard the hoary old myth that one has to suffer to produce art, right?

It's a load of flaming shit. And it's a dangerous load of flaming shit, at that.

You don't have to suffer to produce art. You have to have the capacity to suffer, but actually doing so is in no way requisite.

Thing is, creativity, inspiration if you will, and intense emotion come out of the same brain-place. Psychoactive drugs like anti-depressants put a big, thick quilt over that place. They muffle the up-spikes and down-spikes both, and that includes creativity.

Now, if you're spiking so hard you're about to kill yourself (or do anything similarly extreme, including neglecting yourself), that's what you damn well need. You do what you need.

But the fact remains that muffling creativity is one of the things those drugs do, and if your creativity is one of your coping mechanisms... well, you're probably going to have trouble. Denying that fact won't get us anywhere. It's a hard line to walk, using a muffler long enough to get balance back without losing it completely because your usual balance is gone.

I suspect this is actually the root of the myth, because plenty of us choose to be miserable and in danger rather than give up that one thing we know will make things better in some way.

This post brought to you by reflections on the nature of serotonin supplements as opposed to reuptake inhibitors. I endorse them highly. I have almost as much energy as a normal person this week, and I can still write.

Comments

[baggyeyes]

I've been considering talking to my doctor about weaning me off mine for that reason. But I confess to being worried - for exactly the reasons you state.

Like being between a rock and a hard place. :(

[branchandroot]

*nods* Very much so. If you think you might want to try an alternate approach, I have had good luck with Neuroscience supplements. (*fishes around her bookmarks* here) You need a doctor who knows what they're doing with neurotransmitter balances, though, and you need to be reasonably good at judging your own condition as it changes. *rueful* Not everyone is.

[baggyeyes]

Thank you for the link - I'll check it out. I'm not sure if my doctor works with balancing neurotransmitters. But, we'll see. Either wya, I don't want to spend the rest of my life on this. No way. Thanks again.

[firstlight]

I struggle hard with this stuff. The usual SSRIs tends to make me function on a surface getting-through-the-day level far better than I do without them, and I need a pretty high dose on the whole. What I don't really get is anything much else, while usually I'd have stuff going on on a whole lot of different levels at once, and after a while it really gets to me. (It is possibly telling that many years back, my first and biggest bout of self-harming took place after I'd been put on drugs rather than before. Er.)

[branchandroot]

Ouch. Yeah, a lot of people seem to have a similar experience; and if all you /want/ is day to day that's fine, but if you're used to something else... argh.