Mental Disorders and Creativity—Sylvia Plath’s Library of the Imaginative World and Chaos

There is so much chaos, that if drawn into a single journal—the world would be as imaginative as the distant galaxy. Unto the likeness of some of the greatest writers that have ever lived, there is ailment—more of an elemental part of one’s mind in looking at things from a different perspective.

These artists, with their brilliancy beside—had a part of their imaginations distorted, as if the moon were at our feet and all we could do is stare. But the definition of creativity, and their unfathomable mind that works like a train—it is the most attractive wretchedness one could be gifted with.

Depression, Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenic episodes are a common term used to describe the unequitable mind that has so much to offer. But the question that baffles the arena, or what has the mind come to when each second is a curse—a strange verse that lingers upon the mind each time one holds a pen to even write a little.

There is a selective charm, inside the mind that has seen more damage than the last quantum particle that would exist. And in each phase, a calling to the other dimension of life—to be explored and narrated for the ‘wise’, the decorated elite who think they run the world.

But what is it that stands out?

The answer, into the neuro-chemistry, one may decipher at least the essentialities of such differentiation. We paint, and we write like mad men—but we truly are, unto the pastures of white and the ashes of blue. Plath struggled with depression and so did Sexton, yet the poetic tone that succumbs only to the parameters of the outside. There isn’t a boundary or what is my name when each, but an act to expand and intermingle with words and intolerable words.

Plath on the shades of depression, from her years as a student at Smith College: “You do not know, you do not know, any more, black shoe in which I have lived like a foot” From the minute taste of life, there is a dire need to be drawn to melancholia, as if it were the only equivocal thing left of life.

Night after plural nights, the question arises out of context—but the silver bed-sheets know more than what they ought to. There is so much pandemonium, the mind wants to find an escape, and embodying the dimension of the ‘beautiful disease’ is such a gift—in the many ways this life plays with us.

The stigma behind mental illnesses is ever-growing, yet one fails to comprehend, that nothing is as it was supposed to be yesterday. One breaths, but for what—as the on-goer continually greets, all but a fake day engraved in this ‘magical life’.

It is the struggle with each depressive episode, the bewilderment of even the heavens that pour out creativity like no men ever did. A miserable gift, only to be treasured for a very short span of living.

-Yogesh Chandra