There was a fashion trend in the early nineties called ‘Heroin Chic.’ Picture emaciated models with string hairy, dark circles under their eyes, and pale skin. For a few years, this look was the height of glamour. But those models suffered, and so did the generation of young people who idolized them. Thankfully, that particular trend has passed. But the kernel of self-loathing and exploitation that spawned it has not. At least, not for creative people.
There’s a longstanding myth pervading creative culture that in order to be a legitimate artist, you must suffer. After all, that’s what Hemingway did. And Kurt Cobain. And Robin Williams. I believed this myth in my teens and twenties without really understanding or even investigating what it meant, and without realizing that many of my heroes had taken their own lives. I wrote off what turned out to be a legitimate mental health disorder as the darkness of my duty, an inescapable side effect of creativity, the price I paid for the magic. And, despite what it did to my mind, I found it glamorous. So instead of confronting it, I embraced it like an identity.
I’m not doing that anymore. I don’t believe my writing is better because I have bipolar II disorder. There is no inherent value in suffering. Art made by miserable people is not better than art made by happy people. Looking back, if I had seen this myth for what it was – dangerous bullshit – I might have sought mental health treatment sooner.
We must stop glamourizing suffering. Artists should not die because they believe they deserve to suffer.
Readers: you will still be creative with therapy, on meds, outside that bad relationship, off drugs and alcohol, or with a day job that pays you enough to live decently. You may never be satisfied – and that divine dissatisfaction will drive you forward – but in order to sustain a long and meaningful creative life, you must reject the myth that you have to suffer for your art.
The Dangerous Myth of Suffering for Art