: In her acclaimed 2018 stand-up special Nanette, Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby recounts how a man came up to her after a show to comment on her revealing that she took antidepressants.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Pittsburgh artists speak about loss, stereotypes, and stigma due to mental illness
Health Issue | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper
: In her acclaimed 2018 stand-up special Nanette, Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby recounts how a man came up to her after a show to comment on her revealing that she took antidepressants.
: In her acclaimed 2018 stand-up special Nanette, Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby recounts how a man came up to her after a show to comment on her revealing that she took antidepressants.
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Oooooooh the stigma against mental health in art is so telling about the people who pioneer this industry. The tortured artist should have never been a standard to try to achieve. Being healthy and happy in one’s body and mind should be of the greatest importance to any successful individual. It should be normalized that good art and good health can and SHOULD coexist. There is nothing romantic about Pittsburgh artists committing suicide or overdosing. The unfortunate reality is that our healthcare system is not equipped to protect nearly anyone struggling with mental health, and that those responsibilities often fall onto mutual aid style programs. Proper social-political change could make strides in fixing this, but it is a long way off. Creativity is an outlet for pain, and it can be an educational experience to unpack what art means, but beyond art being therapeutic we should protect and help people who need medication, therapy, and rehabilitation.
I agree with Sammy, it's as shame that we like to romanticize this like, tortured soul trope among artists. None of us want to be sad or unwell, we simply want to be able to ply our trade and not starve while we do it.
Mental health is an accessory to life as far as health insurance companies are concerned. I'd love to give therapy a try because while I don't consider myself an individual in crisis I definitely think I'd benefit from it, but knowing what people I know spend on therapy in a lot of cases it's not worth it to me to even try reaching out.
And the reality is that if working in the arts wasn't a miserable experience that paid next to nothing in most cases this sort of thing would at least be mitigated somewhat. Of course there is no miracle cure for depression or other mental health issues but at least if the external factors were dampened the internal factors could be focused on and tackled more easily.
Struggling with mental health is absolutely no joke. And the fact that it has long been associated with the role of the artist can often make creating art and dealing with mental illness a very difficult struggle, as those two things intermingle and become difficult to separate. As the article says, it also really doesn’t help that the arts are generally not a very high paying industry, and treatment for mental health can be very expensive. Throw in self-doubting questions about whether or not mental illness is good for making art (spoiler: it’s not), and that becomes a really dangerous combination. It seems to be a problem on the rise especially now, dealing with all the ramifications of the pandemic. However, this is not just an issue for artists and those involved in the arts industries. It’s also a question of how we deal with the stigma of mental illness on a societal scale, and how we treat patients of mental illness. Until we deal with that larger question, we won’t be able to improve the situation for artists either.
It's so good seeing more articles like this that support the idea that having a mental illness should not be stigmatized or romanticized by our industry. It's such a confusing line to treat between feeling like if you seek help your work loses some of that struggle and depth but if you don't pursue treatment you may be viewed as unstable or difficult to work with. The idea that the work/show/product comes before someone's mental health is so problematically prevalent in the passion and creativity based professions. While I understand that art about pain and sadness resonates deeply with audiences, it's okay to create works about and surrounding these emotions without forcing yourself to be in them at all times. It's also okay to create art about literally whatever makes you feel inspired. The idea that great artists are tormented and seeking mental help goes against creativity is something that needs to go away and quickly.
Mental health stigma is something that I’ve been writing papers about since early high school! It’s really hard to make it thorough the day with a seemingly invisible condition and have people disrespect you because of your inability to function like a “normal” member of society. There’s a lot of performative support for these kinds of conditions until they become a burden or the person starts showing more severe symptoms of it. I also agree that the “tortured artist” idea is super harmful to the art community and romanticizes mental illnesses. It’s part of why I absolutely HATE the “aRT ShOuLd DisTUrB tHe ComFOrTaBLE AnD CoMForT tHE DiSTUrBEd” saying everyone loves to throw around. We collectively seem to only value art as “deep” or “meaningful” if the emotion connected to it is sad or hurt. The idea that disturbing content is the only kind of thing that can be considered “real art” is dismissive of art as a whole, and pushes the tortured artist mentality. Sometimes a piece is just surface-level deep but applauded because it’a tragic. Happiness and joy can be deep feelings too. A warm painting of a cat can still have the same amount of meaning as any other piece of art. Good art and good mental health can in fact go together.
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