Creativity and medication

For those of you that are diagnosed with cyclothymia and are in some way creative - did you notice any changes to your creativity after taking medications? Do you think your creativity might be supressed because of it?

Hi Shanzeek, I thought I'd place your post from the Cyclothymia forum here on the Bipolar forum as it can possibly resonate with others here. When taking medications, it can affect others in similar ways. Hopefully you will get some replies here as well.

I did with Risperdol. That took everything out of me and made me into a zombie, but I was given that for psychosis. As for mania and depression, Geodon and Lexapro are for me. Geodon takes care of mania and psychosis, Lexapro takes care of anxiety and depression. Neither take away from my creativity, but if you start to feel like a zombie on one of your medications, maybe talk to your doctor, because that generally means your creativity is going to go away, if it hasn't already.

Right now I'm on a clozapine mono therapy. Ive definitely noticed that I'm not as creative these days. I feel like "stability" has stolen my creativity, intelligence, and personality. A lower dose would probably help but being stable and functioning is more of a priority.

voracious_lemon wrote:Ive definitely noticed that I'm not as creative these days. I feel like "stability" has stolen my creativity, intelligence, and personality. A lower dose would probably help but being stable and functioning is more of a priority.

This is the same for me. I'm on lamotrigine. I'm still fairly creative, and the effects on everything else have not been extreme (like a zombie), but I was much more creative before. Like voracious_lemon, gaining "stability" took some of the things I liked away but it helped me function. I really hate to admit it because sometimes it's tempting to go off the meds and go back there, but I was honestly a complete disaster before them. I was psychotic, a danger to myself, and was losing everything. I could not function like a regular person and the lamotrigine was the only thing that worked. I may not have survived without the meds that helped stabilize me, so I guess I have to be grateful.

I have less desire to play music and improvise.
Maybe because I'm not interested in most new music.

Every single day, I fight a battle with myself that I will take the medication to make me "stable" even though it makes me feel like somebody I have never met and do not know. I do not like the same things I used to like - music, reading, food, etc. I don't get excited much anymore. I no longer have much interest in anything, really. I am not a "zombie". No, I am painfully wide awake and very aware of my surroundings even when I do not want to be. But I always feel slightly detached. It feels like being muffled - like a lighter, lower calorie version of myself. The emotions are there and I remember what they feel like but I just can't seem to access them anymore. In the back of my mind, I have a feeling that I should be angry about that but I just can't seem to get worked up enough. Mostly, I just feel numb.

For now, I remember vividly what it felt like to be psychotically suicidal. So, I grit my teeth and keep taking the meds. Sometimes, I wonder what will happen if that memory ever starts to fade. I've talked about it with my doctor. He says this will pass and I should be proud of being "stable". I'm just waiting to be able to feel. Since the diagnosis, I've heard an awful lot about how my moods work but nobody has ever really discussed the fact that my entire personality changed also.

@MaSoleil, After being on meds for bipolar almost 4 years now, I have my same personality but can't quite feel as "alive" as I used to. It feels as if meds stabilize me for the most part but they leave me numb in a sense. I seem to sacrifice feeling so great and alive in order to remain stable. So yes, the meds do affect me.

My desires to do things, work on things, always ebbed and flowed, but with the medication I have what feels like more protection from the paralysis I got during the extreme lows, and the edgy out of control feeling during the hypomania is so much less now.

Definitely.

I was on 160 mg of Latuda and I was a complete zombie, showing no emotions whatsoever, and I legit just sat in front of my computer doing nothing. Usually I play video games, draw, paint, make collages, take photos, etc. But when I was on this high of a dose it took everything away from me, including my personality. Sure, I was "stable" but it left me with nothing, basically. I couldn't live my life like that so I started tapering off of it and now I'm completely off of it and just on 400 mg Lamictal. My personality and creativity has come back and I feel a lot better.

Since mid-October until now I've been stable, so, ###$ anti-psychotics!