Author: Anna Jeavons
The year I had my first psychotic episode – at nineteen – was also the year I first picked up an acoustic guitar and wrote a song. For years, expressing myself musically helped me process and share my experiences.
Creative expression has always been a big part of who I am. As a child I was always drawing or painting, proudly proclaiming I’d one day be an artist and sending my colourful creations to the queen. I would walk up and down the road outside telling stories. By ten years old I was writing fantasy quartets. At 11 I started choreographing contemporary dances. In my teens I wrote poetry, filling up journal after journal.
English and art were my favourite subjects and, after school, I applied to a competitive creative writing degree and was accepted. Today, I work as a writer and coordinator, putting my creativity to work in higher education and the arts. My colleagues describe me as passionate, curious and – always – creative.
Bipolar often comes hand in hand with creativity. Some even call it their superpower. But bipolar also comes with bumps in the road; with years lost to illness and recovery; with self care and sacrifice prioritised over lofty dreams and ascending careers. Because of this, I often feel behind. I never thought I’d be releasing an album at 35, the age by which so many of my peers have already tried and quit.
It’s taken me a bit longer to release my music, but I got there in the end. My album is about existential angst, unrequited love, and everything else that assails us in our turbulent twenties – especially those of us whose brains work different. I’ve even written a little book to accompany it, about my experiences voyaging through life and mental health challenges.
I talk about creativity a lot in the book. How it helps with existential dread, loneliness, and paralysis. How it’s tugged me back from the brink time and time again.
Rick Rubin says the reason to make art isn’t to attain perfection. It’s to share who we are and how we see the world; our singular perspective. To express ourselves. To bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. And it’s a fundamental part of being human, for everyone. Our creative ideas are transformative, no matter how strange, trivial or frivolous.
Creativity offers hope, rebirth, a new way of understanding, a place to put our pain. Creative expression clarifies our thinking and purges our psychological burdens. It allows us to experience that purifying catharsis – emotional release – relieving inner conflicts and helping us move forward. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, our loneliness, our existential aches, can translate into something beautiful.
Being creative revitalizes, energizes and inspires me. It pulls me out of the dark and motivates me to forge ahead. It gives me self-respect and reminds me who I am. It allows me to vent my emotions, dissect them in whatever medium they’ve been rendered, and feel understood when they’re shared with others.
Art is a powerful medium not just for self-expression, but for mental health education and advocacy too. Poetry, songs, imagery – sometimes these are the best ways for our stories to reach the public sphere and actually make an impact. Sharing and listening to each other’s stories – in whatever unique form they take – is key to building empathy and understanding; to self-creating and expanding; to dissolving egotism. Not everyone who’s creative needs to be visionary, but many creatives have and will change the world.
And even with all these lofty ambitions aside, creativity makes life more colourful and textured. Richer, more beautiful, more of a playground, more of an experience. What better way to spend one’s time?
“When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.” – Iyanla Vanzant
Stream Anna’s album, Anomie, or visit her website at annajeavons.com
