Between Creativity and Stability

Five of us came together today, and the session felt warm and light. We spoke about work, family, creativity, cannabis, loneliness, and the desire to live a life that feels meaningful rather than simply stable. There was something interesting about how we moved between these different experiences, and how much of what we shared would perhaps not find space elsewhere. Some of these feelings and thoughts can be difficult to express outside this group, where they might be judged or misunderstood. But here, we could speak more freely, and somehow we could become human with each other. We could feel a sense of family and belonging, without having to hide the parts of ourselves that do not fit easily into everyday life.

One member shared that he was struggling with a photography workshop and was finding it difficult to complete a portfolio. He had been asked to submit portraits of his parents, but he was finding it hard to be with them and did not want to live with them anymore. He wanted to return to Gurgaon and felt a great deal of anger towards his parents. They kept asking him why he had disclosed his schizophrenia at his previous workplace and why he had submitted a letter from his psychologist, as though he had jeopardised his own future by being open about his condition. He was deeply annoyed by these questions. At his current workplace, too, he was struggling. A senior colleague knew about his schizophrenia and was amazed that he had been a topper despite living with the condition. At the same time, he felt overworked, with fewer colleagues sharing the workload, and worried that he was being exploited. He was also looking for another job. There was an ambivalence in this: having a workplace where people know about his schizophrenia could be a relief because he did not have to maintain a split between who he was and who he appeared to be. But being known in this way did not necessarily mean that he was treated fairly or that his needs were understood. I found myself thinking about how difficult it can be to find a place where we can be open about ourselves without that openness becoming something that others use to define us, judge us or take advantage of us.

Another member shared that she had also struggled with openness, but that her workplace knew about her psychosis and had been supportive. She also had a friend who understood and supported her. She had had a hectic week at work and was feeling relatively stable. She spoke about having smoked, realising that her name was missing from the voting list and submitting it again, and helping her mother buy a new phone. There were so many ordinary things happening in her life. She had also gone to a park that day and spent some time in the sun. Now that she had a camera, she was taking photographs whenever she went out. I liked hearing about this movement towards the outside world, towards sunlight, photography and the small activities that make up everyday life. It was a reminder that recovery is not always something dramatic. Sometimes it is going to the park, helping one's mother, taking photographs or participating in something as ordinary as voting.

Our conversation then moved towards cannabis, creativity and the relationship between feeling deeply and remaining stable. One member shared that she had experienced cannabis-induced psychosis and was no longer using cannabis. Another member spoke about using cannabis occasionally and about how important motivation and productivity were to him. We found ourselves wondering about the relationship between creativity and stability, and whether there is sometimes a fear that becoming stable might also mean losing something of our imagination or emotional depth. There can be a longing to experience the highs and lows of life, to feel intensely, to create something remarkable, and to escape the numbness of ordinary existence. At the same time, the intensity that accompanies these experiences can also bring suffering. One member shared that she could no longer write poetry with the same depth she once had. She loved her poems because they took her into deeper parts of herself, but she also hated them because they brought her back to painful periods of her life. There was a sense of wanting the depth without having to return to the pain that had once accompanied it.

Another member spoke about how much he used to paint. During periods when he was experiencing hallucinations, he would spend hours sketching and drawing heads. He had produced many paintings, but he had never really been able to look at them or open them up again. He kept them closed away. Now he struggled to return to painting, even though photography still interested him. I found this particularly moving because the paintings were there, but somehow they remained difficult to approach. Perhaps there are parts of our lives that we cannot yet look at directly, even when they contain something we once loved. He also spoke about his relationship with language and how he plays with words, changing their meanings and sounds. He described how certain words could become frightening or take on disturbing associations. For example, the word “therapist” could become “the rapist,” and “mother” could become “other.” Even words connected to ordinary places, such as the dining hall, could become associated with death. He remembered how, during college, these associations had affected his ability to go to the mess and eat. During the pandemic, he had been locked on campus without a mess card and had struggled to find food. Listening to him, I was reminded of how language, which ordinarily helps us make sense of the world, can sometimes become a place where fear and painful associations gather. The words themselves may appear ordinary to someone else, but for the person experiencing them, they can carry a whole world of distress.

I shared that I also have an ambivalent relationship with my writing. There are pieces of writing that I have left behind and sometimes find difficult to return to. But recently, I recovered an old piece of fiction I had written and began trying to work on it again. I had watched *Dead Man Walking*, and its story reminded me of the novel I had written because of the similarities in its characters and relationships. It brought me back to something I had created a long time ago. There was something meaningful about this, because perhaps our relationship with creativity does not always disappear completely. Sometimes it becomes difficult to access, or we leave it behind because of what it brings up in us. But every now and then, something returns—a film, a memory, a photograph, a piece of writing—and we find ourselves drawn back towards it. I wondered whether we can find a way to reclaim these parts of ourselves without having to recreate the suffering that once accompanied them.

Another member spoke about feeling bored, sad and lonely in her everyday life. She wanted to find a job but did not know whether she would be able to work or what kind of work might be possible for her. She spent much of her day helping her mother with household tasks, washing clothes and cleaning dishes. She felt good when she could help her mother, but she also felt that she was not doing much with her own life. Travelling alone was difficult, and she often struggled with taking trains by herself. There was a sadness in not knowing what the future might hold or how to find a direction. Another member shared that he too found travelling by train difficult and preferred using a bike, although navigation could be a struggle. He had even tattooed the words “left” and “right” on his hands to help him navigate. I found this a very human detail. We often think of autonomy as something abstract, but it can involve such practical things: being able to travel, find one's way, get to work, or move through the world without having to depend on someone else.

Another member returned to the question of motivation and productivity. He felt that he had to remain productive, otherwise he had no worth. Without achievement, he felt lacking, like a misfit, worthless and a piece of shit. At the same time, he did not want to live what he considered a mediocre life. He wanted a fuller and deeper life, a remarkable life in which he could experience the highs and lows of being human. This stayed with me because there was a tension between wanting to be productive enough to feel worthy and wanting to live beyond the narrow expectations of productivity. What happens when our worth becomes tied to what we achieve? And what happens when the life we long for is not simply one of stability, but one of depth, creativity and meaning? Perhaps we need to make room for both questions: how we can find enough stability to live, and how we can live in ways that feel meaningful to us.

Someone also remembered a period in college when they had experienced hallucinations and had been able to write a novella from those experiences. They wondered whether it might one day become a bestseller, like Arundhati Roy's *The God of Small Things*. There was humour and imagination in this thought, but also a longing for one's experiences to become something meaningful in the world. At the same time, we recognised that creative work does not easily translate into financial security. Writing, painting and photography can be deeply meaningful, but it can be difficult to make a living from them. There is a gap between wanting to create something remarkable and finding a way to sustain oneself through ordinary life. Perhaps part of the struggle is that we want our lives to be more than just survival, but we also need ways to support ourselves and live with dignity.

As the session came to a close, I felt grateful for the warmth of the conversation. We had spoken about experiences that might not find space elsewhere, and that might even invite judgement outside this group. We spoke about schizophrenia, work, family, creativity, cannabis, language, productivity and the fear of living a mediocre life. But beneath these different conversations, there seemed to be a common longing: to live fully, to feel deeply, to create something, to be understood and to find a place where we do not have to divide ourselves into the parts that are acceptable and the parts that must remain hidden. Perhaps we do not have to choose between being stable and being alive, between being accepted and being authentic, or between having support and having autonomy. Perhaps the task is to find ways of living where these different parts of ourselves can coexist. And perhaps this is what our community can offer: a place where we can speak about these contradictions openly, without having to resolve them immediately, and where we can feel a little less alone in trying to find our own way of living.

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