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The Tortured Genius Trope

Writer's picture: Leo Tan Guang HaoLeo Tan Guang Hao

Now, this post may get a little heavy, because that's unfortunately how I've been feeling these past few weeks. I'm going to put it out there before we get any further: if reading about mental illnesses and their effects is something you think or know will affect you negatively, please stop here. Browse the blog for things that are slightly lighter reading; or maybe even stay away from what I write completely because I tend to be very frank about my struggles and even use it as a form of release.


Stop! If you know it will adversely affect you, do not scroll past this point. Go and watch videos of cute animals instead.

Now that we've had that warning out of the way, hopefully the ones who are staying on to read this know what they're getting into. If you know me well enough, you probably either have suspicions or outright know that I have been struggling with my mental health - what you may not know is that I have been struggling with it for a long period of time. Since around the age of 13 to be exact. And if you are like me and have struggled with your mental health or have people around you who are in the same position, then you've probably encountered someone who espouses the "tortured genius" trope.


You know, those people who expect you to be amazing at art or writing or music or something because you struggle with the thoughts and feelings inside of your head. Those people who think van Gogh's art exists as a result of his troubles, and not as a result of his inherent creativity or the love and wonder he felt for his brother and for the environment and the world. Those people who romanticise mental illness and think that it's the holy grail source for creativity and for art; who try and read into the work of Arthur Miller and trivialise the struggles he felt and experienced and who think that his works are an expression of his tortured inner-self and not of his creativity and great love for his wife.


Those people suck.


And I know that many people who experience these struggles have spoken out against the idea of the "tortured genius", who denounce it as a means of fetishising the struggles that so many face and feel that it unfairly places the credit at the foot of a creator or an artist's mental illnesses instead of their craft and graft. But in my experience, there is one aspect of this that is less explored and has been something I have been facing and feeling for a while now.


Not everyone who is tortured has to be a genius.


There is a huge expectation from people like this that being troubled or being diagnosed with schizophrenia, or depression, or GAD, or something else, means that you would be blessed with an abundance of creativity and a visionary level of talent that makes you capable of being the next Bernini. That "oh, if only they weren't so burdened by their mind, they could become a great!" And while trying to focus on the positives of a person who struggles with mental illness is great, it's massively a double-edged blade. You make a generation of artists and talents feel like if they aren't weighed down by some great misfortune, that they're fraudulent or "not as deserving"; and you make a generation of people who suffer from mental illnesses feel even worse that they're not the geniuses or savants you see them to be. That may be the most dangerous part.


These people, who already spend much of their time struggling against the confines of their mind and the problems that they face, feel pressured to have to create something. To be someone. To have their suffering and their difficulties amount to something beautiful and artful and colourful - as many people expect them to. Compounded with the fact that many of us in this scenario also struggled with the label of being a "gifted child" when we were younger - only to be faced with the disappointing reality that we never learnt proper study skills or interpersonal skills because we craved the validation we got through fulfilling people's expectations of us as children - and you create a situation that is damaging for everyone involved. Artists crave misfortune and pain because they are led to believe that that is what makes their art great; people with mental illnesses feel like they've failed if they aren't a genius, like they are led to believe suffering creates; and the general public romanticises how it's like to be in that position. What if I'm not a tortured genius? What if I'm just someone who struggles against my mind because there are imbalances in my brain chemistry and I've been through some tough experiences growing up that have left impacts on me, 19 years on, still trying to unwind the jumbled mess it's made?


A visual representation of me trying to put my frustration into words here.

I write poetry. I play music. I used to like making art.


I want people to appreciate the things I create for what they are, and not because I am someone who is mentally ill. I don't want to feel like the things that I create are only given value because I struggle; or if they come from a place of struggle. I wish that the things I made from a place where my thoughts are clear, and not jumbled or a chaotic wildfire would be held in the same regard as the things I create in that state. And most of all, I wish that people would understand.


The tortured genius trope benefits nobody.


Congrats for reaching the end of the post, here are two of the songs that I've been spending a lot of time listening to and playing these past few months - give them a try!



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