Medication for Bipolar Does Not Affect My Creativity

Last Updated: 5 Apr 2023
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An award-winning novelist with bipolar disorder wants young artists to know that untreated mania has had a worse effect on his creativity than any meds.

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Medication, Mood Swings, & Creativity

It almost never fails to happen. When I talk about my experiences with bipolar disorder at one of my book events, someone, usually the mother of a budding artist, will come up afterward, wait until no one is in sight, and proceed to tell me that her son is refusing to take his medication for fear that it will dull his creativity

What I would like to say to that mother is that if her son truly has bipolar, then whatever he thinks he is doing while in its grip is not art.

That’s what I would like to say. But, usually, I tell people that since I began treatment for bipolar 10 years ago, I’ve written and published four well-received novels. There were times when I was stuck, unable to write, and times when what I wrote was worthy only of the trash can—but my medication was not responsible for either my lack of creativity or the bad results of my efforts.

Mania Inhibiting Creativity

As someone who has experienced full-blown mania, it is impossible for me to conceive of creating anything other than gibberish during this state. Mania is a chaotic torrent of disconnected thoughts accompanied by an inflated arrogance of self. To others, the expression of this inner whirlwind is seen as unrestrained, egocentric babble.

I suppose that a young person with a milder form of mania could confuse its electric, undirected energy with the unself-conscious flow of words, ideas, and images that we call inspiration. But even this hypomania, in my experience, will not lead to the kind of artistic work that others will recognize as lasting art.

What I want to tell young artists who have bipolar disorder is that medication does not prevent that wonderful, sometimes rare, absorption that seems to take us out of the grips of time. Medication does not prevent the reception of those gift-like intuitions, images, and insights that we all depend upon as artists or creative persons.

Does medication affect my work? Yes. But not nearly as much as the unfettered symptoms of bipolar disorder do. I am fortunate enough to have found the right person to help me find the right dosage—a dosage that is monitored constantly and adjusted periodically so that I can function with a minimum of disruption.

Bipolar Is Not a Necessary Burden for Art

It saddens me to hear young people talk about their bipolar disorder as if it were a burden they must bear for the sake of their art. Sometimes, it seems we carry our mental health conditions like a badge of specialness that thankfully separates us from all those ordinary accountants, lawyers, IT people, and common folk too insensitive to be unhappy.

I am grateful for the lessons of self and life that bipolar has brought me. But bipolar disorder is still an illness that hurts me and the people I love. I need to control it so that I can create with intelligence, which includes all my mental faculties, including imagination and intuition.

If you have bipolar and use your creativity, the power to generate something new with your mind in any form, here’s what you need to know: Your creativity comes from a place deep inside you that is not affected by medication but which is affected by the illness. The place it comes from is deep in your soul, the same place where you find meaning and purpose in your life.

You will continue to be special and gifted when your illness is controlled. You will be special and gifted and unique, like every other human being. You won’t be better than them, it is true. You will have to settle for being useful to them.


Printed as “On My Mind: Medication and Inspiration,” Winter 2017

About the author
Francisco X. Stork, author and retired lawyer, lives outside Boston. His young-adult novels Marcelo in the Real World and The Last Summer of the Death Warriors won awards from the American Library Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and Latino Literacy Now. His latest YA novel, The Memory of Light, draws on his experiences with bipolar depression.
45 Comments
  1. This article made me so happy. I actually wrote to him for advice on finding an editor and he was very kind. He’s getting super famous. I didn’t know he was Bipolar. I thought he had depression. I might reach out to him again because I’m having a really hard time and he is inspiring me to finish my book even if I never get it published I write because it helps me let out some of the painful memories from my past. He gave me two different names to try and one of those individuals does not do fiction anymore…she helps playwrights. She was only going to charge me $1200 to edit my book. I haven’t read all of his books but I loved Marcelo In The Real World. I could relate to it a lot more than Memory Of Light. Memory of Light was kinda sad. Unfortunately I can no longer take lithium. I had to switch to depakote. It was a really big deal…they caught toxicity at the hospital. I don’t usually like to post publicly like this but that’s my story…I have been living with bipolar with psychotic features since 2002. I had it before then but we didn’t know for sure until then and I was diagnosed with Aspergers in 2008.

  2. I, too, love lithium! Very interesting article and commentary. I feel for those who have not yet found a proper diagnosis or meds. I spent two decades before I was properly diagnosed with BP 1. Since then, four years ago, taking lithium has given me back the joys and positivity of my youth. Lithium has worked wonders and I am eternally in the debt of the fifth psychiatrist who stubbornly went through my case history and told me, unequivocally, “you are bipolar one” What a marvelous, compassionate, competent doctor! A Canadian.

  3. I’m not sure if it was the trauma of being diagnosed with seizures, depression, anxiety and BP2 all at the same time at the age of 18 or, all the meds she has to take, but my daughter has definitely lost her great sense of humor since her diagnosis. She was such a funny kid………… honestly very much like “Amanda Bynes” type funny. It’s hard to find her humor these days – she used to be super quick and witty but, not so much anymore.
    She still has other ways of being creative (like painting) but her personality has definitely changed. I don’t think all people will react the same to the effects of meds and I’m always hopeful some of her “light funniness” will return the longer she is stable. I appreciate all of these articles because I like to read about other peoples’ experiences. Thank you for your story.

  4. I believe that I am more creative now than ever in my life, and I am more stable than ever, and have been for a while. The mere fact that I am so grounded in my thinking makes a huge difference. I never felt this grounded before. When I feel joy now it is a greater joy than ever because it comes from a real place, not a superficial one.

    Manic elation is a lie. One that an ill person is tricked into believing. As the article author wrote, the words and actions that flow from a manic me are akin to gibberish, at times. They are thought disordered and truly impress only the afflicted. Or if others find the products interesting, it’s often mockery or pity. Very often a stigmatic reaction.

    I won’t deny that some medications can cause oversedation or cognitive impairments, at times. Finding the right medications and right doses can take time. Waiting for side effects to ease can take time. But very often an ill person being treated for the illness cannot wait for the cognitive impairments of the illness itself to ease. Oh, no! So many blame the meds 100% of the time.

    Ask the spouse, children, or parent of an addict how marvelous their behavior and output is. They don’t say “Mom is so much better when drunk! She is…so much more eloquent.” No, sorry Mom. Your perception is wrong! Sure, people might find her drunk antics amusing, but remember that it is an amusement that combines ridicule with pity. And even Mom thinking such behavior from herself is superior is self-delusion – a form of self abuse.

    1. Thank you for this. When my illness was most uncontrolled, over a period of 2 decades, I was increasingly unable to accomplish creative work. I have hypergraphia at my worst, but that is not creative nor useful, though it seems so at the time. What I have seldom seen addressed in articles is that BP is a disease that gets worse over time, if left untreated. I lost most of a decade as the illness progressed. I have had excellent treatment for about 7 years, and I have been through many med combinations. Lithium does even out my moods, and I don’t experience that as a flattening but as relief from intensity I tried to hide or not be destructive with for so many years. I am, by vocation a poet, have several books published and well received. I had almost stopped making poems. Depression is no friend of creativity. I’m also a scholar, have loved teaching graduate students. But I can’t handle the stresses of academic life and stay well. I lost 2 jobs, though I am very good at what I do. All of this to say, it has taken these seven years for the illness itself to settle down after it overtook my life. I thought the meds were the problem in not being able to work well in the first years of treatment, but it was still the illness. I am now writing poetry again, steadily, as I never have in my life. Sustainably. I have my associative creative abilities and also a kind of awareness of what is stronger or weaker in the language of the poem. That combo has been missing or rare for a long time. I will stay with my lithium and other meds as needed. This evenness, far from stealing my creativity, is enhancing it, as I learn to work in new ways. I still struggle with symptoms such as being able to do or follow through on some tasks and commitments, email being an example. Basic things are still difficult. But I have a more rounded personality again. Friendships sustain, and for the first time since the 1990’s, I am not fighting anxiety every day. Treatment is a gift. It just, in my case, was very slow to show it’s full effectiveness and its benefits for my creative pursuits.

      This is longer than I intended.

  5. My experience has been more like Francisco’s. I have not had a problem with a decrease in creativity with my meds regardless of which ones I’ve been on. I’ve been on almost all of the meds folks have listed in previous comments. What I’ve found is that there is a greater probability that I will finish the projects I started in my manic episodes. In fact, my key indicator that I’m headed for a manic episode is adding more and more projects. I am still trying to finish projects from a manic episode in 2004. At this point, I’m a bit discouraged with some of them since I remember why I started them in the first place or I’ve lost the research I did for the book I want to pick up again and finish this time. Thank you Francisco for the article!

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