Fellow musicians

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

As I keep recovering and moving on from the chaos of the 5 years with her and the pain of its immediate aftermath I seem to have lost the ability to create music. It's been a major presence in my since childhood and I've pursued it with fanaticism. Now I can't find it. I can still make music but it's mechanical and has no real spark anymore.

As I've learned about BPD it has opened my eyes to the many disordered people around me. I've started to realise that much of my inspiration has come from interactions with disorder and the conflicts ensued from them. With better understanding and more distance from it I seem to have lost a very vital spark. The blues musicians called it mojo. Mick Jagger refers to it as "his demon" in the outstanding film Performance. I can definitely identify with "demon".

At the moment I am not entirely sure. It may be a temporary writers block, it may be permanent. I am reasonably happy in my life right now. I have a healthy relationship with a good woman. Work is better than it has been in a long time and I've had a serious pay increase which allows me more freedom to do things. And of course I am free from the fear and worry I had when I was with my ex. So far so good and although music isn't often a source for happiness a life without it would be empty. Terribly empty!

Anyone else here who know what I'm talking about? Has anyone else experienced this?

[Mr Hollande]

As I keep recovering and moving on from the chaos of the 5 years with her and the pain of its immediate aftermath I seem to have lost the ability to create music. It's been a major presence in my since childhood and I've pursued it with fanaticism. Now I can't find it. I can still make music but it's mechanical and has no real spark anymore.

As I've learned about BPD it has opened my eyes to the many disordered people around me. I've started to realise that much of my inspiration has come from interactions with disorder and the conflicts ensued from them. With better understanding and more distance from it I seem to have lost a very vital spark. The blues musicians called it mojo. Mick Jagger refers to it as "his demon" in the outstanding film Performance. I can definitely identify with "demon".

At the moment I am not entirely sure. It may be a temporary writers block, it may be permanent. I am reasonably happy in my life right now. I have a healthy relationship with a good woman. Work is better than it has been in a long time and I've had a serious pay increase which allows me more freedom to do things. And of course I am free from the fear and worry I had when I was with my ex. So far so good and although music isn't often a source for happiness a life without it would be empty. Terribly empty!

Anyone else here who know what I'm talking about? Has anyone else experienced this?

[Mike-X]

Nice post. 

Can you elaborate on why you believe the following:

As I've learned about BPD it has opened my eyes to the many disordered people around me. I've started to realise that much of my inspiration has come from interactions with disorder and the conflicts ensued from them. With better understanding and more distance from it I seem to have lost a very vital spark.

[Mr Hollande]

My creativity is fuelled by conflict with individuals who I've felt let down by. It's been a recurring theme from as far back as I can remember. From the child who was excluded to the adult whose views and intentions are not understood or appreciated and has lashed out in disappointment. The adult who has been attacked many times for it and hit back. I've walked a very intense and angry creative road because of that.

I recently badmouthed some other artists in my genre to a fellow band member who said I should just let them go. I replied that my urge to make music is founded on my inability to do that. Realising that so many of the people who've angered me perhaps did so more because they are disturbed and not because of who I am changes the dynamic. The arrogance of showing the world that I'm right is nullified. While it may make me a more gentle and pleasant human being it doesn't bode well musically.

My recent understanding of these things, or awakening to them if you like, are at odds with my reasons for making music. I hope that explains it better.

[vortex of confusion]

I think I understand what you are getting at when you describe the lack of inspiration. I write poetry and lyrics. My husband and I had an acoustic duo for a while and we did a lot of collaborative writing on stuff. Over the years, our best stuff has come from the times when we were angry at others, lost, lonely, hating each other, or something else. Now that things have calmed down in our lives, I have very little inspiration or desire to write. It feels like I have lost my edge so to speak.

Without all of the anger and angst, there isn't much to fuel my creativity when it comes to writing stuff.

I don't have any answers or ideas. Wanted to chime in and let you know that you are't alone.

[LimboFL]

I am a drummer and compose electronic music on a Korg Triton.

Creativity is a living breathing thing and it comes in waves, at the best of times.

There were so many extreme emotions during my 4 year relationship that I had no creative motivation at all. I am now four months out and have had some spurts, working on a track for a hip hop singer here (our track just hit #25 on Rhythm nation billboard), but otherwise, no real motivation to create. Sometimes it takes being around new musicians to get the engine running again.

I think what is important to understand, at least in my humble opinion, is that we are tapped out, not only from the emotions during the relationship but the crushing aftermath. I think in part, we are in emotional survival mode, which almost means that we have forced ourselves to feel nothing, at least I have, because it means that I am no longer feeling the pain. This essentially means being numb to emotion which is critical to the generation of anything creative.

My two cents.

[disillusionedandsore]

Sounds like a part of your identity is tied up in this? As in who am I if Im not defending and outraged and reacting? Dunno if any if that speaks to you... .  I know I dont have that angry energy anymore... .I hate being 'triggered'... .I cant do any more drama... .Burn out? Or enough of said drama to last a lifetime!

[fromheeltoheal]

Yep, the best love songs are about love lost and music is all about dissonance, resolution and suspense, which is why it speaks to our emotions so well; drama makes for good tunes, unless you're into mellow new age meditative stuff. 

Another possibility is we can shut down emotionally as a defense mechanism in the midst of chaos, and it takes a while to wake back up.  I play piano and after I left her my music was very robotic and mechanical, just ain't feelin' it man, had a stick up my butt, but that loosened up in time, in fact the piano helped with that, since I went in search of emotion on the keyboard and found it.  That's different than needing drama to feel it in the music writing and making; to me mojo and muses are great, but I'd rather pass on the demon, although I agree, the best music comes out of that place.

[Mr Hollande]

Vortex and Limbo, thank you. Your replies mean a lot to me.

Disillusioned, it is. Not everyone's creativity is the same. I think there are those who switch off when they aren't working. I'm one of those who soak up until something comes out the other end. It's not a choice. We are who we are or perhaps more accurate who we are was decided a long time ago and can't be changed without knock on effects later in life. I also believe that creativity is a finite source and when it runs out one should have the courtesy to leave the stage to others.

I often think of what happened to so many great talents after the storm. For example how brilliant John Cleese was in Fawlty Towers. It's of course well documented that he was on the brink of a breakdown when making it. Doesn't take much to realise that when watching it. Afterwards when he'd worked on himself and found peace he was never funny again.

[vortex of confusion]

I also believe that creativity is a finite source and when it runs out one should have the courtesy to leave the stage to others.

I don't know if I agree that creativity is a finite source. I tend to think that it is infinite and comes and goes in spurts. Maybe that is fueled by my upbeat outlook. If I thought that my creativity would not return, I would be devastated.

I often think of what happened to so many great talents after the storm. For example how brilliant John Cleese was in Fawlty Towers. It's of course well documented that he was on the brink of a breakdown when making it. Doesn't take much to realise that when watching it. Afterwards when he'd worked on himself and found peace he was never funny again.

I think I would rather have peace. Perhaps, the creativity went into other things that were more in line with the peaceful side.

[Panda39]

I'm a textile artist not a musician but I certainly have experienced creative blocks.  I find many different things can cause me to struggle with creativity.  Probably the biggest thing for me is having enough head space to go to that creative place sometimes I can't get past other things going on in my life.  Sometimes I direct my creativity in some other direction so my textile work gets set aside.  Sometimes I'm just burnt out and need to do something else for awhile.

Do you think maybe having learned what you logically know now about BPD, has taken away some of your emotional reactiveness?  It sounds like you wrote from an emotional place and pwBPD are all emotions she might have helped generate or boost the feelings you used in your writing.  To learn to deal with your pwBPD you learned how to logically or rationally approach emotions. Do you feel like your emotions dropped down without the BPD boost? Then maybe have dropped more because you learned a more rational approach to them?  I hope I'm making sense.  

Have you tried to get in touch with your emotions?  Being a musician I'm sure you listen to music all the time do you have some favorites that might get you to that emotional place and tap into it? A Concert? Poetry? a Movie? Photographs? Nature? Maybe just reflect on that old relationship or revisit some of your past work.

It sounds just like me and my art... .your music is just simply part of who you are. It isn't gone I don't believe it's ever gone... .might go underground for a while but it's always with us.    I know you'll get that mojo back  

[disillusionedandsore]

Yes I'd like to think that too that your mojo will come back  Your willingness to accept 'what is' sounds like the place to start though... .and your heart just isnt in it right?  For me since break up,  music became less important,  I craved silence,  birds singing outside was my thing... .resting,  not pushing myself so hard,  perhaps being more contemplative... .I read somewhere on here that post BPD life was like being taken out of a bustling New York and being transported to a wheat field!

On a positive note I notice I am more visually inclined creatively now and tactile  enjoying simple pleasures like planting vegetables,  growing things from seed putting my energy into food,  exploring new tastes... .exploring all my senses perhaps and seeking expressions of nature's completeness and harmony... .

What do you play?

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Mr. H,

Playing and listening to music is central to my life, too.  One thing that attracted me to my BPDxW is that she played guitar and sang (I play guitar), so we used to play together and performed a few times as a duet.  For me, I suspect my "mojo" comes from my gut feelings, which I had to suppress -- as a survival technique -- during marriage to a pwBPD, as fromHtoH notes.  I pretended that things were OK when they were definitely not OK.  Now that I'm divorced, I strive to be authentic, which means listening to my gut feelings again.  Lo and behold, my "mojo" is coming back.  Agree w/Panda: You can get yours back, too!

LuckyJim

[enlighten me]

Im not creative/ artistic in any way but I can understand what you mean. I love music but a lot of my favourite songs and artist have been tainted by my new found knowledge of mental health. From what was once a song about unrequited love I now find a desperate co dependant and a boderline. What was once a rebel is now narciscistic. I think you get the picture. What I once just enjoyed I now end up analysing.

[fromheeltoheal]

Im not creative/ artistic in any way but I can understand what you mean. I love music but a lot of my favourite songs and artist have been tainted by my new found knowledge of mental health. From what was once a song about unrequited love I now find a desperate co dependant and a boderline. What was once a rebel is now narciscistic. I think you get the picture. What I once just enjoyed I now end up analysing.

Yep, a lot of the heroes of Springsteen classics I once loved now sound like disempowered whiners, and he's rich because so many people can relate.  I do have new-found appreciation for tunes like Nash's I Can See Clearly Now though.

[Mr Hollande]

Im not creative/ artistic in any way but I can understand what you mean. I love music but a lot of my favourite songs and artist have been tainted by my new found knowledge of mental health. From what was once a song about unrequited love I now find a desperate co dependant and a boderline. What was once a rebel is now narciscistic. I think you get the picture. What I once just enjoyed I now end up analysing.

You sum it up very well, EM. I knew for a long time that my musical world was full of disordered people but I didn't know to what extent. Also not understanding what the various illnesses and disorders meant I didn't pay much attention to it. As an example, a few years ago I had a real meltdown with another artist which caused a rift that can never be repaired. Looking back at how things unfolded I strongly believe he is BPD.

Like you say the individuals and rebels who once represented something interesting and mysterious I now see right through. That changes things.

Have you tried to get in touch with your emotions?  Being a musician I'm sure you listen to music all the time do you have some favorites that might get you to that emotional place and tap into it? A Concert? Poetry? a Movie? Photographs? Nature? Maybe just reflect on that old relationship or revisit some of your past work.

It sounds just like me and my art... .your music is just simply part of who you are. It isn't gone I don't believe it's ever gone... .might go underground for a while but it's always with us.    I know you'll get that mojo back  

Panda, all your points are good and they make sense but to process everything and give a coherent reply is more than I can handle right now. I'll address the two quoted paragraphs for now.

I listen less to music than I used to. Partly due to an overload which has nothing to do with my ex. I think most musicians get that eventually. While I still love my old favourites, listening to them doesn't give me the same value anymore so I find myself ploughing through absolute trash disco pop more and more. Cocaine fuelled disposable trance rubbish with moods so fake not even the most shallow person could believe in it. It's easy music to drift along to. At the same time many of my old heroes also feel fake and it's a kind of fake I can't abide. A pretentious fake which makes it twice the fake as even the most coked up and deluded trance DJ. I suppose what I'm getting at is that I've lost faith in much of where I come from.

It may be right that creativity is finite but it does change shape and right now it feels like mine took a big turn into somewhere I don't know.

Speaking of movies. I recently watched Solaris for the first time. In relation to BPD, some of the dialogue made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

[Mr Hollande]

It's also relevant to point out that my ex is and was never a muse or anything ridiculous like that. She did influence things but she was never an inspiration. There's a big difference between those two. My creative path was well trodden long before she turned up.

Disillusioned, I play a number of instruments. I also produce, program, mix and do vocals.

[enlighten me]

What I realised is that even though some music now seems false or misguided there is still some good honest music out there.

There are a lot of heartfelt songs that perfectly describe pain, joy and the whole spectrum of emotion. Rather than write about something that was an illussion why not write about what you know to be real.

one song that will always stick with me is Wires by athlete. Its about his new born baby that was kept in hospital and he couldnt even hold him because of the tubes and wires. This was very poigniant to me as my son was born the same time and was kept in for two months with cathetrrs and drips and monitors all over him. It is a real song about real emotions.

Im sure you could tap into this. You have plenty of experience now.

[vortex of confusion]

What I realised is that even though some music now seems false or misguided there is still some good honest music out there.

There are a lot of heartfelt songs that perfectly describe pain, joy and the whole spectrum of emotion. Rather than write about something that was an illussion why not write about what you know to be real.

YES! I have found that roots music is really friggin' awesome. It is so easy for me to connect with it because, like you said, it is more about the human condition and seems to capture all of life, good and bad. I have definitely branched out into different genres of music. Oddly enough, I find myself drawn to a lot of gospel music these days. There doesn't seem to be as much of the fake/false aspects in some genres.

[hergestridge]

I am one year out of a 20 year BPD relationship. I am an artist and a musician. I used to believe that our relationship was the safe haven in which I could create and that my wife supported me and gave me space and the safety I needed.

In reality, she didn't believe in what I was doing and was jealous of my art. My sucesss and talent scared her and whenever I went to my music room it triggered her abadonment fears.

The fact that I insisted on developing my art and music was one of reasons we broke up. I involved my wife less and less in my musical/arts interests because it was a very important thing for me and she developed a kind of "What's in it for me?"/"It's my party too!"-attitude that I just had enough of, so I stopped involving her in those activities.

When kept working with music but had this strange "empty" feeling (which had actually been creeping up on me a year prior to the break-up), but I still completed some work. Some say it's the best I have done, but to me it's just barely listenable.

Next I tried something radically different. I started doing abstract painting and collage, something I had never tried before. I have been doing that for almost a year now and I have developed a very distinct technique. Doing music has been very slow coming, like a vague memory from the past. I even got fired from the band I'm in, but it didn't bother me much because I wasn't that interested anyway.

My "new life" has really been same but very different. It's like a change of color. A few important components that wasn't there before: the abstract paintings, the really long walks over the weekends, and that special girl I got to know in october.

I think some of it had to do with the fact that I didn't care so much about other's expectations anymore after the breakup. It used to upset my wife a lot if I did something out of the ordinary, so the easiest thing was always to stick to the routine. I was the music guy.

[Circle]

I'm not a musician; but definitely a music lover. I do have a love for most of the arts actually. One of my favorite writers, who is unbelievably creative says something along the lines of 'inspiration is found while working.' Meaning that it will creep up on you while you are practicing.

     I don't place a certain value on one feeling over others. Dramatic vs Mundane, Calm vs Frenetic, or Happy vs Sad. They are all aspects of our lives and emotions. I sometimes like totally calm music that has almost no variation. Actually, if I had any preference, I think I would lean more toward the mundane lately. I almost feel that there is too much of an emphasis on dramatics in our culture. Wouldn't it be great to read a really good fiction book that wasn't so intense? One that wasn't necessarily a battle between good and evil? Talk about black and white thinking. A work of fiction that wasn't so up & down?

     Perhaps you are in a different space than usual and you need to embrace that. Find what's positive about the state of mind you are in perhaps? Maybe the absence of dramatic emotions is creating the structure where you can be more intellectual about the way you play? A lot of great music is very intellectual, right? Like Zappa's compositions, and so much classical too.

     There really are way too many clichés around making art. One of them, is that originality is everything. What about practicing traditions that were started by originals, but need to be maintained by steadfast practitioners?

     Best wishes embracing the place where you are

     at.

[enlighten me]

I watched a program on the ten highest grossing songs the other day. They were all sad songs about heartache. Unchained melody by the ritcious brothers.Yesterday by the beatles and every breath she takes by the police were amongst them. What made me laugh was every breath she takes is aboyt post break up stalking and the word borderline was used to describe the song. I wondered how many of those songs of heartbreak and love had borderline influebces. I have never known a relationship that caused such strength of feeling as my two uBPD relatonships. How many artists muses were borderlines that the artist was obsessed with?

[hergestridge]

I'm not a musician; but definitely a music lover. I do have a love for most of the arts actually. One of my favorite writers, who is unbelievably creative says something along the lines of 'inspiration is found while working.' Meaning that it will creep up on you while you are practicing.

     I don't place a certain value on one feeling over others. Dramatic vs Mundane, Calm vs Frenetic, or Happy vs Sad. They are all aspects of our lives and emotions. I sometimes like totally calm music that has almost no variation. Actually, if I had any preference, I think I would lean more toward the mundane lately. I almost feel that there is too much of an emphasis on dramatics in our culture. Wouldn't it be great to read a really good fiction book that wasn't so intense? One that wasn't necessarily a battle between good and evil? Talk about black and white thinking. A work of fiction that wasn't so up & down?

     Perhaps you are in a different space than usual and you need to embrace that. Find what's positive about the state of mind you are in perhaps? Maybe the absence of dramatic emotions is creating the structure where you can be more intellectual about the way you play? A lot of great music is very intellectual, right? Like Zappa's compositions, and so much classical too.

     There really are way too many clichés around making art. One of them, is that originality is everything. What about practicing traditions that were started by originals, but need to be maintained by steadfast practitioners?

     Best wishes embracing the place where you are

     at.

I have been thinking along the same lines when it comes to black/white up/down dynamics. The most celebrated artforms in our culture is the novel and the movie, which has a narrative that goes through a ridiculously wide range of emotions. The leaps from disaster to euphoria are made for effect. It is certainly not the result of a person expressing his/her feelings. It's like an obsessions with building up/tearing down.

The way our culture celebrates the narrative almost has a borderline logic to it. A picture of something good or comforting is always followed by a scene picturing something terrible. You can count on that. And a soothing meditative passage of music is always followed by a loud blast, otherwise accusations of "new age" music will follow