Creativity Killed by Altered Chemistry

Ever since I started swallowing my pills, it started to fade…it went away and I cannot find it anymore. Where did you go?

Me when art people asks "Where's your creativity?"

When I was four, my mother named Susan used to bring papers that are no longer needed at her office. She then would give me a pencil and let me scribble on those papers. My mother has the blood of an artist and she can play a fourteen-stringed instrument called bandurria. She can definitely draw and she won countless poster making contests when she was in school and even in her professional life. I think I inherited my drawing skills from her and I love to draw every day. Her stories about her artistic journey sparked the artist in me and inspired me to do my own pieces.

At the age of four, I can still remember that I can do cartoon characters like Sponge bob, Patrick, Elmo, and others. They were not perfect, but I am happy that I can make them. I remember my mother is so pleased she would bring my artworks to her office and show them to her workmates.

Between four to five years of age, my mother bought a keyboard and I am excited to tickle the keys. My mother taught me the basics and after that, I was all alone to discover things about the magical black and white keys.

Time passed by and I was able to do simple portraits of my pop star idols, Cher Lloyd, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, and some members of One Direction. I just love sketching, I tried painting too but I think it wasn’t meant for me, I think.

Entering high school was really tough for me, I have a small circle of friends, I experienced being bullied, and being the bully. My artistry was in manic state that I joined most of the poster making contests in our school. I never won yet I am still happy that I was able to do my craft. In this stage of my life, I started to sing in the shower pretending that I am doing a concert. Some of my friends says that I got a pretty nice voice, trust me until now I still doubt it.

I started making songs when I was fourteen, but I usually delete them in our family computer. I love writing poems and then putting tunes to them. I am never contented with my songs and I never let someone listen to them. I am my own critique, a negative type of critique.

In high school, I wrote stories about fantasy, adventures, horrors, and even sexual ones. My male classmates enjoyed the sexual stories and they would borrow my notebook of short stories. I have many collections of poems that I wrote and one of my best friends is keeping my notebook.

I entered college in one of the prestigious school in our province. Till now I don’t know why I took Psychology but I learned to love it. I joined a musical group and my singing voice was classified as bass 1. I don’t know what that is, I never had a formal music training. I was a trainee in the chorale group and I didn’t find happiness in it. I decided to quit and I became idle in my artistry for a short time.

A theater organization emerged in our campus and I hurriedly my feet to become part of it. Fortunately, I passed the auditions. My college years is the most fruitful years of my artistry, I joined many theater plays, musical or non-musical. I became part of indie films and I love every moments of film shooting. Moreover, I also did gigs and broke my right hand, left foot, and broke several microphones and some musical equipment

Mood swings and hyperactivity were frequent and my psychology major friends were alarmed. They became very alarmed when I suddenly hit rock bottom, a very quick shift from being active to inactive. I hit rock bottom that I lost motivation in life, I am depressed, hopeless, and I want to die.

I got diagnosed that I have bipolar 1 disorder when I was 19 and I have to take medications. Mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, and lithium carbonate wait, lithium is under mood stabilizers. I am compliant and I want to be better so I started to undergo pharmacotherapy. I am aware of the side effects, tremors, diarrhea, weight gain, dry mouth, etc. I was not expecting that these medications would take away my creativity. I don’t have any evidences that these medications could lessen or take away my creativity, but I think they are the reason why. I stopped getting into films, gigs, and theater plays. I stopped writing songs, poems, and making visual artworks. I tried making once, twice, and thrice but I don’t have it anymore. I am willing to go back from level 0 just to have it back in me. Will it ever go back to me?