I'm in a book club (we're looking for a quirky-yet-clever name for ourselves if anyone has any suggestions) and last week we discussed The Bell Jar. It's one of those books we all felt we should have read at some point during our high school careers and never did, so it was long overdue. In my research about the similarities between the book's main character and the book's author I came across something called Sylvia Plath effect.
It's a relatively new theory in the world of psychology – in 2001, James Kaufman conducted a study that showed creative writers, especially female poets, are more susceptible to mental illness than other types of professions.
Being a female writer (not a poet, though), I was understandably interested in this theory. There really is a disproportionate amount of writers who have committed suicide over the years, so to brighten your day I thought I'd look at a few of them here.
It makes sense to start with the theory's namesake, I think. For those of you who haven't read The Bell Jar, it's a thinly disguised autobiography about one girl's spiral into depression including suicide attempts, hospital stays and shock treatment therapy.
The bell jar is used as a metaphor for the feeling the main character has when she's going through her depression – she feels like she's trapped under a bell jar, stifled and numb. Sylvia predicted her own future when she wrote from the perspective of her protagonist – "How did I know that someday - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?"
Despite marriage, children, a successful career as a poet and a promising one as a novelist, Sylvia's own bell jar did descend again. On February 11, 1963, she killed herself by putting her head in the oven with the gas on. (Photo from A.J. Marik via Find a Grave)
Poor Virginia Woolf seemed doomed from the start. She suffered a nervous breakdown when her mother died when Virginia was just 13. Her father died just nine years later, causing another breakdown which resulted in a brief period of institutionalization. She and her sister were subjected to sexual abuse by their half brothers, which certainly did not help her state of mind.
On March 28, 1941, Virginia decided she had had enough, loaded up her pockets with heavy rocks and walked into the River Ouse near her home. Judging by her symptoms and behavior, modern-day doctors think she probably suffered from bipolar disorder.
Sara Teasdale was a talented poet, which, according to James Kaufman, put her at a serious disadvantage when it came to battling depression. In 1918, she won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize, which was the precursor to the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Toward the end of the 1920s, though, things headed downhill for Sara. The Great Depression hit the same year she decided to divorce her husband.
Plagued by financial problems, her close friend and former suitor Vachel Lindsay killed himself by drinking Lysol in 1931. Vachel was a poet, so you could say his suicide contributes to Kaufman's theory that creative writers are more susceptible to mental illness.
In 1933, Sara reunited with Vachel when she took an overdose of sleeping pills in her apartment in New York City, drew herself a warm bath and never got out of it. (Photo from quebecoise via Find a Grave)
Anne was never shy about admitting to her mental health problems and openly talked about her lifelong battle with bipolar disorder. She was somewhat of an instant success in her poetic career – after attending a workshop taught by poet John Holmes, she immediately had poems published in The New Yorker, Harper's and the Saturday Review. By attending workshops and adopting a writing mentor, Anne became friends with poets such as Maxine Kumin, W.D. Snodgrass and none other than Sylvia Plath. She was such close friends with Sylvia, in fact, that she wrote a poem entitled Sylvia's Death about, well, Sylvia's death. She outlived Sylvia by 11 years, though – on October 4, 1974, Anne had lunch with Maxine, returned home and killed herself by sitting in her garage with the door down and the gas running.
Kaufman's theory holds up even with contemporary writers. Sarah Kane was a playwright and screenwriter who suffered from severe depression. She was voluntarily admitted twice to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London. She channeled her depression into plays which were performed by the Royal Court. Critics weren't too impressed when the plays debuted which may have lead to her suicide in 1999. After an overdose of prescription medication landed her in King's College Hospital but failed to kill her, she ended up hanging herself in a hospital bathroom. (Photo from IainFisher.com)
So, that was morbid. But it does provide some supporting evidence for Kaufman's Sylvia Plath effect. What do you think? Does the Sylvia Plath effect make sense? The other side of the coin is that there are a number of suicides with any occupation and these are just more public given the public nature of the work.
I'm not really sure which side I believe, but I am a little bit relieved to know I have no talent for poetry whatsoever.
It's a relatively new theory in the world of psychology – in 2001, James Kaufman conducted a study that showed creative writers, especially female poets, are more susceptible to mental illness than other types of professions.
Being a female writer (not a poet, though), I was understandably interested in this theory. There really is a disproportionate amount of writers who have committed suicide over the years, so to brighten your day I thought I'd look at a few of them here.
Sylvia Plath
It makes sense to start with the theory's namesake, I think. For those of you who haven't read The Bell Jar, it's a thinly disguised autobiography about one girl's spiral into depression including suicide attempts, hospital stays and shock treatment therapy.
The bell jar is used as a metaphor for the feeling the main character has when she's going through her depression – she feels like she's trapped under a bell jar, stifled and numb. Sylvia predicted her own future when she wrote from the perspective of her protagonist – "How did I know that someday - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?"
Despite marriage, children, a successful career as a poet and a promising one as a novelist, Sylvia's own bell jar did descend again. On February 11, 1963, she killed herself by putting her head in the oven with the gas on. (Photo from A.J. Marik via Find a Grave)
Virginia Woolf
Poor Virginia Woolf seemed doomed from the start. She suffered a nervous breakdown when her mother died when Virginia was just 13. Her father died just nine years later, causing another breakdown which resulted in a brief period of institutionalization. She and her sister were subjected to sexual abuse by their half brothers, which certainly did not help her state of mind.
On March 28, 1941, Virginia decided she had had enough, loaded up her pockets with heavy rocks and walked into the River Ouse near her home. Judging by her symptoms and behavior, modern-day doctors think she probably suffered from bipolar disorder.
Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale was a talented poet, which, according to James Kaufman, put her at a serious disadvantage when it came to battling depression. In 1918, she won the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize, which was the precursor to the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
Toward the end of the 1920s, though, things headed downhill for Sara. The Great Depression hit the same year she decided to divorce her husband.
Plagued by financial problems, her close friend and former suitor Vachel Lindsay killed himself by drinking Lysol in 1931. Vachel was a poet, so you could say his suicide contributes to Kaufman's theory that creative writers are more susceptible to mental illness.
In 1933, Sara reunited with Vachel when she took an overdose of sleeping pills in her apartment in New York City, drew herself a warm bath and never got out of it. (Photo from quebecoise via Find a Grave)
Anne Sexton
Anne was never shy about admitting to her mental health problems and openly talked about her lifelong battle with bipolar disorder. She was somewhat of an instant success in her poetic career – after attending a workshop taught by poet John Holmes, she immediately had poems published in The New Yorker, Harper's and the Saturday Review. By attending workshops and adopting a writing mentor, Anne became friends with poets such as Maxine Kumin, W.D. Snodgrass and none other than Sylvia Plath. She was such close friends with Sylvia, in fact, that she wrote a poem entitled Sylvia's Death about, well, Sylvia's death. She outlived Sylvia by 11 years, though – on October 4, 1974, Anne had lunch with Maxine, returned home and killed herself by sitting in her garage with the door down and the gas running.
Sarah Kane
Kaufman's theory holds up even with contemporary writers. Sarah Kane was a playwright and screenwriter who suffered from severe depression. She was voluntarily admitted twice to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London. She channeled her depression into plays which were performed by the Royal Court. Critics weren't too impressed when the plays debuted which may have lead to her suicide in 1999. After an overdose of prescription medication landed her in King's College Hospital but failed to kill her, she ended up hanging herself in a hospital bathroom. (Photo from IainFisher.com)
So, that was morbid. But it does provide some supporting evidence for Kaufman's Sylvia Plath effect. What do you think? Does the Sylvia Plath effect make sense? The other side of the coin is that there are a number of suicides with any occupation and these are just more public given the public nature of the work.
I'm not really sure which side I believe, but I am a little bit relieved to know I have no talent for poetry whatsoever.
Now I think that writers' block and depression are the same thing, that they have the same consequences and causes. I think that writing comes from the same fog-bog of the near sub-conscious as one's self-perception, that they are fished from the same place, that inspiration becomes everything that's good, and negative feedback becomes everything that's bad. They're tied together the minute you become a writer, like the Argentinean dollar was connected to the American. What drags one, drags the other.
I would say that nothing but an unbreakable ego will stave this off, but it didn't work with Hemingway, did it?
Future commenters: Go ahead, tear this comment to pieces. I'll just go cry in a broom closet or something.
Even though there are (proportionally) very few mentally unstable people, it would not require many of them to take up the pen for the effect to be noticeable.
I tend to agree with you. People with eccentric or escapist personalities are more likely to feel like outcasts, more likely to be creative, and more likely to become depressed. It's a vicious cycle. There have been males with similar lives, most notable painters like Van Gogh, and novelists like Hemingway.
I'm not sure I understand brightening our day by posting about suicidal people, but that book club could be the Dead Poets Society, after this.
i think when someone suffers from a mental illness, finding a way to express the internal/eternal battle tends to verge towards the more artistic side of life. so rather than being a poet who becomes depressed and kills themself, it is rather someone who is depressed and also writes poetry, loses the battle and kills themself.
Instead, read Cottage Street, 1953.
/just sayin
Look at J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonegut, Steven King, et al; none of them are right in the head. I suspect that suicidal behavior is more pronounced in women writers and poets in that since, historically there were more barriers to getting published, those who were published were really, really good (ergo closer to the wings of madness).
Secondly, I am a woman and a writer, and I have been writing poetry since elementary school. As a teenager I did have a very dark view of the world. Everything with despair, darkness and gloom. But I was more entranced with the theme, seeing as I have always been a huge science fiction fan and dark scifi like Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica are in my opinion, the best stuff out there. I am not however, and never have been depressed. A bit annoyed at times, always ready to smack someone for setting me off, but never thinking how much better the world would be without me. I mean, look at all the cool things there are to enjoy. If nothing else, heck, Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica starts april 4th. If that's not a good reason to live, I don't know what is.
From NIHM:
About 5.7 million American adults or about 2.6 percent of the population age 18 and older in any given year,1 have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder typically develops in late adolescence or early adulthood. However, some people have their first symptoms during childhood, and some develop them late in life. It is often not recognized as an illness, and people may suffer for years before it is properly diagnosed and treated. Like diabetes or heart disease, bipolar disorder is a long-term illness that must be carefully managed throughout a person’s life.
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.”
“I am fortunate that I have not died from my illness, fortunate in having received the best medical care available, and fortunate in having the friends, colleagues, and family that I do.”
Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., An Unquiet Mind, 1995, p. 6.
That is indeed a very nice quote about manic-depression, but not all of those writers were diagnosed as bipolar, or expressed the proper diagnostic criteria. Without resurrecting them and having a long conversation, its hard for us to say whether they had bipolar I, bipolar II, major depression, schizophrenia or any number of personality disorders...
Alfonsina Storni walked into the sea ( like Virginia Woolf), Alejandra Pizarnik overdosed on Seconal.
I also have found that I write better poetry when I'm depressed. (not that it'd ever reach the level of the ladies profiled!)
Secondly, even if the condition comes to light, creative people are less likely to be willing to submit to drugs or therapy that might change the way their mind thinks. They fear in tinkering with the mind to stop the insanity, they'll lose the genius,too. A plain normal mind is not a good option for creative people. They'd rather deal with the bad than risk losing the good. Sadly, sometimes they fail at coping with the bad and lose everything.
Similarly, an informal poll (http://www.mcmanweb.com/article235.htm) found that the introverted and idealist personality types (INF)are most likely to report being diagnosed with depression. I personally believe that both are linked to personality type, being a oft-depressed INFP writer-type i fit the mold fairly well.
Who?
See, you forgot her already.
Whether or not one needs to be nigh suicidal to be a creative genius, I don't know, but it's not a requirement to be good at your craft.
it makes medication very difficult, because my mood is so much better, but then i am not creating anything and i absolutely love being so swept away in a painting fit!
Eva-Marchelline D'Zcholie
Dr. Eva-Marchelline D'Zcholie
M.D.
What i have found after years of intense inner work is that the causes of these states go very deep, perhaps even being past life issues, if that's your belief.
It has taken years of meditation, yoga, fitness, proper diet etc. to get to the point where i know the episodes, though damaging and draining, are not the end of the world.
And i can even at times have the ability to get
'on top' of a current emotional or psychological experience, transform the energy and heal the condition with awareness.
As far as medication goes, by far the best for me is to fry some cannabis in butter till very dark and consume
it. yes, that's right. i eat some of the mary jane and find a relieving, helpful and healing state of being.
Do you think life is just one big fun time joyride of love and dessert? Really? Happiness is the exception of existence, not the norm. Most of life is struggle, frustration, anger and depression. Hard work, anxiety, failure, getting knocked down and climbing back up, that is normal.
The good times, the happy events, the blessed miricles that occur, make it all worthwhile, but they are not going to happen every day, all day, and all night too.
Ninety Nine percent of you self diagnosed Bi-polar sufferers could be cured with a good swift kick in the pants.
Now get off my lawn.
Consider too that these creative types are self-admitted pioneers of the human experience by way of documentation. Adventuring into that dark cave can make anyone despondent over a long period, especially obsessive types, and those already predisposed to social conditions and depression. I don't believe it to be self-fulfilling prophesy for the most part however.
I'm on drugs for depression. With them I'm not in emotional agony all the time, only about half the time. I'm not looking for happiness, just releif form constant pain.
I aspire to be the best writer I can be in the future, since I'm only in grade 8, and a girl too I don't know what's ahead of me. Whether real or not, this theory states that I myself can be susceptible to suicide. We must all realize that whatever happens, we must hold on to dear life.I know there are obstacles ahead of me, and I will surely go through tough times. And if I would feel like a bell jar descends upon me, I will never let it stop me from striving on.
Hahaha! Sorry got a bit carried away :D