What Creative Mania (Hypomania) Feels Like

Hey everyone and thanks for watching!

This video is about creative mania, namely those moments where I get caught up in the act of creating an artistic project in my mind and the good and bad ramifications of that. There is a clear correlation between what I'm describing and hypomania and it's very possible I am an undiagnosed bipolar but that would be for a doctor to investigate.

Thank you to Frédérik Généreux for the camera work and for composing the music tracks.

You may have seen a lot of my other content posted on my other Youtube channel:

This new channel will be reserved for topics that are related to the life of an artist. Let me know what you all think of the video!

Cheers,
Laura.

[banjoanjo]

the music choice and editing for this video was fun, i'm enjoying this new series of videos

[summerpatient]

Very relatable and very well articulated

[ivapixel]

Hey Laura I love your adorable openness and honesty. It's not an easy thing to do. I get the creative mania thing..I have too many interests but manage them with timelines. With regard with Zbrush /Blender you are so right. Being a Zbrush user for many years I am right into Blender thanks to your videos. I find it more accurate for feel and form.
I still need to refine settings, brushes, resolutions etc. Currently modelling 5 from The Umbrella Academy. Just love that series. Look forward to your next video.

[anthonypc]

Too relatable.

In recent years my resolution has been to dedicate to doing my top creative goals to my fullest potential rather than stretching myself too thin between every different project idea that inspires me. Better to get a FEW things FINISHED.

[WilliamFurneaux]

Definitely relate and I think you're on the right track in terms of managing the anxiety. I'm currently not taking care of myself/health very well and I feel the bad effects with my anxiety levels going up. I do love being in the middle of that moment of inspiration! such a buzz! Very cool to hear to you talk about it. Love your work and these videos!

[theviperman]

Thank you Laura for the insightful perspective on what lies behind the creative drive. While watching many content creators on YT, it's not always evident how everyone deals with the challanges of work-life balance and what you're presenting in this channel is a very unique perspective on who you are and what you're dealing with on a daily basis. Some topics are typically difficult to talk about especially since you're not aware (physically) of your audience and how they may react to this information. You are very brave and a very down-to-earth individual.

[MonologosInternos]

keep creating this kind of content! This is make me open my eyes about myself... please talk more about it.

[noahpomilio]

Thank you, Laura, for sharing these things with us! I personally have experience this feeling a lot. Therapy made me find a balance where I can feel these emotions and let them happen without taking too much time from my schedule. For me, exercise made everything easier, because the hyperactivity rush that I usually experiment when this happens, which sometimes lead to a Panic Attack, is clearly a need of my body to move and generate something good out of it. To put all that energy into something At that moment to let thoughts sink a bit and then work in a more balanced way is wonderful. When physical activity doesn't help, I usually take my time to play video games or an instrument for 30 minutes, to let my mind worry about non-related work activities. Sometimes I fear that if I don't have that energy rush I won't make amazing and creative things, so what I've found that is useful is always take note of everything at that moment and then focus on something else until you feel like you can achieve everything calmly. Take your time! You will eventually do all the things that you want to do. That's my advice :)

I love your personal and 3D related content. I'm happy to be a new member of Outgang, lots of incredible content!
Sorry for my bad English, Saludos from Argentina!

[billyblackburn]

i associate with it. im a cyclist so i see a lot of similarities to you and climbing. i gained a lot of skill during my mania. i feel you on the ideaxs

[jackbanta]

Now that I have a wife and child my priorities have definetly shifted to have a more balanced lifestyle. I have alot more different mindset than when I started my career as a character artist. When I started it was all crunching but now it's all about being healthy and present for the people around me.

[AdesGamingHere]

Interesting topic. Personally I can't directly relate to the problem you're having as for me it's always been more about having issue going in the opposite direction, rather than getting to engaged in creative tasks and then messing up my work life balance. It was always the case of getting too indulged in entertainment which left little space for everything else, whether it was game, anime, week of partying wasn't really relevant. Whole problem came down to mindset of "if i don't fully commit to it, why even bother in the first place".

And.... somehow since last few months I've found that problem to be gone, I'm not sure what has caused it, but if i was to point in some direction then it was probably changing circle of people I surrounded myself with. Swapping NEET friends and guys whom only life goal is playing games for people who's goal is becoming someone more than another 9-5 Joe with PS5 as their only friend. These days i just find it easy to indulge myself in any task and call it quit when i feel like it's time to take rest. And when it really comes to it, i think it very much comes down to personal discipline and realizing that of course... you could go on for another 2 hours in Marvelous Designer working on that project, but just like with drinking too much alcohol it will have it's repercussions. So these days I'm trying to set myself soft limits on things to make sure that i don't push myself further than i can, and if i do then i'm making sure that those are more individual cases which don't occur too close to each other.

If we were to get to the bottom of it, I feel like everyone has their own rhythm they like to live by and it's important to understand it. For me it's having this opportunity to play video games 1-2 times a week and when i get into something i like to spend rest of day on it, as trying to time my tasks as trying "2 hours of 3D, then 1 hour drawing, then 2 hours game and 30 minutes of chilling before bed" never really worked for me, yet at the same time there are people who love timing their tasks and live by it.

[bryanharrison]

As a 48 year old hyper creative individual, I can say that it took decades to get this under control... one of the biggest things that helped get it under control was first, just accepting that this was part of my fundamental brain function, and that this type of creative spurt was as inevitable as a sunrise, and nothing I can do will stop it. So instead of fighting the creativity, I found ways to deal with it. 1, I downsized my number of current projects, which is CRUCIAL, however as you noted in your video, its not enough on its own, because when you start clearing the schedule, new ideas start coming. So one of the things I did was, instead of having 50, 000 creative ideas going at once and trying to figure out how to bring them into being as individual ideas, I INSTEAD, learned that, many ideas you have can be stored, and later COMBINED with other ideas, sort of like an organic, real-time consolidation of multiple ideas into a bigger idea, which means first off, you're acting kind of like a big think tank, a room full of writers, all with all these different ideas and perspectives, but they're all owrking on just one, or two, or three projects. So, I'm a musician, an artist, and an author. I used to have literally a dozen music projects. That was the first area I consolidated. I used to have multiple bands in multiple genres, it was exhuasting but fun. I would have an idea, and I'd be like "oh, that would go well in THIS band, or THAT band...." but I decided to downsize my music projects from almost a dozen to just 3. And whatever Ideas I have, they would be integrated into one of the 3 bands. I wrote a book and planned to write another book, but also do physical drawing, painting, 3d art, animation, and character creation. So I wanted to write books and also do 3d animations, and paintings, etc etc. I consolidated that down to just doing 3d artwork and channeling my desire to write books, now, I focus on the plot, outline, and story for my 3d animated series, which is also my singular visual art outlet. So I took my drive to write books, paint, draw, sculpt, and do 3d film, and condensed it into the 3d animation outlet. So, now, at 48, my life is much simpler, and also more fulfilling, much more focused. I still play multiple instruments and write music, but I narrowed down the instruments I play from almost 2 dozen to just drums, guitar, bass, keyboard, and vocals. Its enough to write albums by myself and satisfies that creative need to make music, but i'm not exhausted anymore. I still suffer from insomina, but not nearly as bad. I still get scatterbrained, but not as bad. I still get projects that fizzle out and die, but not as bad. Nowadays, I spend about 50% of my time creating 3d model/animation oriented content and storylines, and about 50% of my time writing music or practicing my instruments. I have also learned over the years that everything works better if you set a rough schedule, not SUPER rigid, but an expected daily routine. Drum practice for this time, modeling and animation and character creation for this time, guitar, bass, keyboard practice during this time, songwriting during this time, recording during this time, learning new skills related to my field during this time, etc... They can overlap, or occasionally get switched up, but just knowing that around 3pm every day I'm playing drums, or at 5:30 every day I'm doing IRAY renders or texturing a model, or 11:30 I'm watciing software courses, or at 12:30 I'm writing lyrics or character dialogue, it gets MUCH easier, while still being fullfilling. I hope this helps. Oh. Also being "OK with the idea that I might be completely bat-shit insane and cursed to be creative definitely helped. Once you hug the beast, it doesn't seem to want to attack and destroy as much. lol

[Mikefiser]

What will give you more likely a panic attack is climbing in a facemask.. dont tell me its obligatory to wear a mask in a sports facility, that is crazy life hazzard