When An Emotion Becomes Your artistic identity

“As you think within yourself, so you are”
Proverbs 23:7

Emotions and artistic identity can be two almost inseperable and related topics. When I first heard that ‘everybody has a dark side’ my knee-jerk reaction was ‘everybody but me’. After some humbling reflection I came to realise that everybody, even the most well behaved and outwardly selfless person has a dark side.

Your dark side is simply the side of yourself that you keep hidden from everybody else. Its those seemingly small insignificant behaviours and beliefs that feed into the core of your identity. Your dark side lurks in the shadows of your private life but when you are placed under too much pressure it temporarily explodes into public view. The display typically doesn’t last long and it quickly dissolves into its well worn camouflaged attire. By keeping itself invisible it is able to shape your identity without challenge or question.

The purpose of our dark side is to steal, kill and destroy. It will do absolutely anything to prevent us from living a full and meaningful life. Sometimes our dark side causes so much dysfunction in our lives that it solidifies its self into very real and crippling illnesses. Depression, anxiety, anorexia and bipolar are just a few of the many forms it can take. These happen when your dark side is presented with distressing life circumstances and certain chemical imbalances in the brain. They are illnesses that cannot be overcome without professional treatment.

Perhaps more universal expressions of our dark side can be found in insecurity, arrogance, out of proportion anger, impatience, white lies and so on and so forth. Central to every person’s dark side is pride, blame, self-deception and shame.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a dark side. It alone is not enough to make us a bad person. However, problems arise when we idealise certain aspects of our dark side and identify with them so resolutely that they become our identity.

When Depression Is Your Identity

When depression becomes your identity the prospect of being healthy is terrifying. Happiness is so foreign that to be happy feels like becoming a totally different person. The same can be said for anxiety, anorexia, loneliness and every other emotion. Remember that self-deception is one of the key components to our dark side? This very convincing voice loudly and repeatedly claims that it is your depression that makes you special. It tells you that it makes you deep and mysterious. Our culture has come to idealise the depressed artist. Phrases like ‘the suffering artist’ are accepted without question. To the point where suffering has become one of the key criteria for being a ‘real’ artist. Happiness is something that is seen as shallow, insignificant, fake and a waste of time. There is plenty of ‘evidence’ in the world that supports this claim. Many of the great composers and painters from Beethoven to Van Gough are known to have suffered from great mental affliction.

The Suffering Artist

In the arts community, mental health complications along with sleep deprivation are almost viewed as a rite of passage. Sadly many aspiring creatives become impregnated by this belief. Consequently, if they do end up experiencing a mental illness treatment and recovery is complex and challenging. Why would you want to lose a part of you that makes you special? That gives you the right to work as an artist? This causes suffers to not only feel that they deserve to be miserable but to actually want it?

Maybe the only way out is to ask some very serious questions and spend time sitting with what might be some very uncomfortable answers.

Asking hard Questions

What if depth doesn’t come solely through misery and hardship?

What if depth comes through both good and bad experiences, reading and reflecting?

What if inspiration can come from more than just a dark place?

What if recovery can be seen as artistic rebellion?

What if relationships bring greater wells of creativity than isolation?

What if there is no correlation between creativity and mental illness?

What if mental illness is not a bi-product of artistry but of some other common denominator that is prevalent among artists like poverty, insecurity and challenging life circumstances?

What if art is an expression not of a single emotional but of the rich and diverse array of emotions that all human experience?

What if this is one of the inherited norms that today’s artist’s need to challenge?

What if there truly is more to your life than depression, anxiety, anorexia, isolation, sadness and drug abuse?

If this is you then this is not something you are going to be able to deal with on your own. You need friends, family, fellow artists, a good therapist and sometimes even medication to help you climb this treacherous mountain. But maybe it is this journey that is going to make you the artist you so desperately want to be?