For me personally, it’s a myth. There is no such thing as a tortured soul, but a mentally ill individual.
You can google the bejesus out of any of the artists and authors of our time and come across diagnoses of mental disorders and illness. Bi-polar, depression, schizophrenia to name just three.
The reason I’m talking about this is because I saw something someone had written on a website. “Why do so many writers identify as tortured souls”.
First off, we don’t. And we’re not. Just as artists are not. And to claim so is arrogant, ignorant and uneducated.
I decided to google the claim the writer had made and guess whose name came up first.
Vincent Van Gogh. He’s the most “famous” “tortured soul” apparently.
Except he wasn’t. He was actually suffering from severe mental illness and various other medical conditions.
Many centuries and decades-long dead authors and artists, singers and musicians suffer from mental illnesses such as bipolar, schizophrenia, or depression, they, in turn, make it worse by drinking and drug use to ease whatever they believe they’re suffering from. They also suffer from blood disorders and poisoning, alcoholism and drug addiction as a result.
So the next time you see this myth, that all writers, or artists, are tortured souls, remember, we’re actually not. Many, sadly, suffer from mental illness, and so it’s a myth that does not need to be perpetuated any longer.
One’s suffering should never be quashed, denied, or ignored for the art that comes from it. A person’s soul is worth more.
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