No, I Don’t Need To Turn My Depression Into Art, Growth Or ‘Beauty’
Around six years ago, I stood facing the moon with one of my closest friends. It was a warm Delhi night, and we were on a terrace, trying to bond over that sleepless night. I was dealing with a breakup, and he with unrequited love – and we were briefly discussing ways to channelise heartbreak and pain. I remember talking about pouring our emotions into art as a way of healing.
That sounds great — except I’ve spent the last few years thinking that as someone who identifies as a reader, writer and some kind of ‘art maker’, I can’t let myself just ‘feel’ without expressing my emotions. I have even tried — to conjure that one powerful thinkpiece, that one status message, that Tweet thread… out of my feelings of sadness, isolation, heartbreak and loneliness. But I have never succeeded — I have never succeeded in creating a forced version of ‘art’ that is supposed to somehow draw the so-called beauty out of my feelings of sadness.
Two months ago was the first time I openly spoke out about living with depression and anxiety, and that was a completely unprompted, natural piece of writing — because it was my story, real and raw — and not a forced attempt.
I was inspired to write this post after watching Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Nanette’ on Netflix yesterday. Hannah talks about how artists are not supposed to lend their sadness (or what is perceived as the act of deep ‘feeling’) to create works of art that others may term as ‘beautiful’. Why can’t suffering just be suffering in its purest and most real form? Why can’t we be okay with the fact that sometimes things are not okay?
Honestly, for me, living with depression sucks — it doesn’t necessarily enrich my art; it is not meant to miraculously enable me to transform my pain into a new project or a beautiful piece of art. It’s crushing, it’s debilitating, it makes me constantly feel like I am not good enough.
When I think of the times I have truly not felt okay, I think of having a successful day at work and then bawling in my bed alone at night; I think of unrequited love and heartbreak. I think of holidays and slumping in a corner of my room not confident to step out; I think of the guilt of sharing my emotions, the burden of crying in front of even my best friend, and of constantly trying to be an unachievable, unhealthy version of myself.
I am crying as I write this post, I am feeling a lot of pain. But what I am NOT feeling is any enhanced feeling of creativity or growth or productivity or ‘beauty’.
Romanticising of mental illness is a burden that many of us carry because we are forced to believe that there lies some godforsaken version of throbbing and aching beauty within our sadness and emotions. It’s completely alright to channelise our emotions into art — into writing, reading, painting, spoken word, theatre, or anything else — but not feel that it is a compulsion to do so.
I have the privilege of having access to a very progressive and feminist therapist. She tells me that I often punctuate my feelings of sadness with “But then I also did this or felt this, so that’s okay…” Umm, but why isn’t it okay to just feel sad, she asks me. It’s a very valid question. The answer to this question has enabled me to be more accepting and forthcoming with where I am at this present moment in time.
My sadness doesn’t necessarily mean that I ‘need’ to experience growth and beauty out of it. It also doesn’t mean that I’ll never emerge stronger. But just imagine the weight of needing to create something ‘bigger’ out of your sadness, your innermost ‘this sucks’ feeling – just because we haven’t made peace with how sadness can also be a real, valid emotion?
I am really done with turning my pain into productivity – I need rest, I need time for myself, I need to accept that it’s okay to feel not okay. And maybe, it’s high time we all do.
