A Positive Detour

 

A Positive Detour 

Schizophrenia Bulletin, Volume 44, Issue 5, September 2018, Page 947, https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbw070

Sometimes life can take detours for which you had not planned. Coming out of high school and entering college, I thought I would write poetry and fiction as my career. That was a goal I was moving toward. In many ways I was wearing blinders, but the only thing I cared about was the written word. I spent hours jotting poetry in a spiral notebook that was not far away from my back pocket. I figured I was not going to be a best-selling writer, but I enjoyed the high that came from a single line that provided temporary inspiration.

Suddenly a slap to the face knocked the blinders from my eyes. I received a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. How would this detour affect my writing? In the beginning stages of recovery, I felt no inspiration to write. It was more than a mental block—I lost my inspiration. My inspiration took the form of delusions that I didn’t want to describe in writing.

Over a longer period of time, I slowly began to write about my own personal struggles with my illness and other positive ways of dealing with my symptoms. Somehow I started to write about everyday living with a mental illness. After that I began to realize that I wasn’t the only one. There was a whole community battling the same demons I was battling. With my permission one of my doctors began to share my writings with some of the other patients who had similar diagnoses as I. They told me that my writing was helpful to them and that gave me more motivation to write for them.

Without my diagnosis of mental illness, I’m not sure where my writing would have taken me. Before I never thought about writing as helping someone. I don’t carry a notebook anymore, but I have found creativity and insight in the detour that life gave me. Now, I can’t imagine a life without this detour.

 

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