My Tree of Life

Exploring the connection between mental health and creativity. A first-person account

- Reshma Valliappan

THERE are indefinite articles, research and narratives trying to prove and establish the connection between creativity and mental health. In fact, my own recovery using art, specifically painting, was captured in an award-winning documentary—A Drop of Sunshine—by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT). It traces my journey of eventual triumph over schizophrenia. Other documentary filmmakers, no doubt, have done research on the possible connection between creativity and mental health—connecting the dots and highlighting the journeys of people who have used art as a medium of recovery.

It is often said that left-handed people are extremely creative. I wouldn't think so, statistically, given that there are many established creative individuals who are right-handers. So, what may be the connection then, since my very sentence may contradict itself? It is difficult to truly point out the exact nature of this connection, given the endemic of mental health and the use of art.

Once, I was asked to leave a corporate meeting because I was doodling. I left the room after providing all my inputs. However, today, corporate organisations have changed. They allow “doodling” during meetings because research says it improves performance and lessens stress.

Like other kids, I have been doodling, scribbling and drawing on tables, hands and question papers since I was a kid and that trait simply carried on and grew while manifesting differently. I was stopped several times, resulting in me being the deviant teenager of the early 90s—the kind of teens who needed to be fixed at all cost, but we could never be fixed, no matter how much torture was introduced to us, even if it wasn’t by our parents. Conversion therapy through religion, behavioral tough love camps—we outlasted every probable one. These things, without any doubt, destroyed, manipulated, shocked, confused and outnumbered my sense of reality, but I am alive. And I am writing this.