A couple of my Facebook friends have linked to this blog post that more or less equates the writing life with mental illness. The author of the post starts out by mentioning the notoriously troubled relationship between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda (who probably had some type of mood disorder), and goes on to name a number of other writers who have battled depression, among them Sylvia Plath. He then suggests that writers tend to be unhappy people because they “think a lot,” and also because of their “long periods of isolation and…high levels of narcissism.”
It was the comment about narcissism that got me. I’m a writer, after all, and I know a lot of writers, and I don’t know that I’ve met all that many narcissists. Just as a quick reference, here are the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, according to Wikipedia): Continue reading “Are you a writer, or just insane?”
It is commonly accepted that there are a disproportionate number of introverts among writers. Writing is, fundamentally, a solitary pursuit. Even when books are co-written the authors often correspond mostly online.