Do you suffer from hypergraphia?
Most people know about writer’s block, a condition where one cannot squeeze a word out of their pen or keyboard if their life depended on it. But the pendulum also swings the other way. There’s a little discussed ailment called hypergraphia – the obsessive urge to write.
When I say "obsessive urge to write" I’m not talking about someone who writes for a few hours a day because it’s his/her job, or even a person who has lots of good ideas buzzing around. No, I’m talking about someone whose compulsion to write is so great, that the person cannot control it and they cross the line from just being "creative" to having a real mental disorder.
I first heard about hypergraphia in a philosophy class I was taking and we got sidetracked discussing an upcoming essay that was due. Many of us in the class tended to write longer essays than what was required (it was an upper-level class) and the professor wondered if any of us suffered from this strange disease.
Unlike writer’s block, hypergraphia doesn’t get a lot of attention. In fact, outside of academia, I don’t think I have ever heard or seen it being discussed. So when I began doing some research on the web about this affliction, I was happy when I came upon an article written in Psychology Today that discussed hypergraphia in a straightforward way so even non-science minds like mine can understand it. According to the article, this strange illness is nothing new:
Tales of writers possessed by the muse on steroids date back to the first-century Roman poet Juvenal, who wrote about "the incurable writing disease." But it wasn’t until the 20th century that scientists explored the brain chemistry behind this lust for language. In the 1970s, neurologists discovered that hypergraphia was often triggered by temporal lobe epilepsy.
The article continues:
Evidence now points to an abnormal interaction between the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain in hypergraphia. Activity in the temporal lobe is reduced, spurring activity in the frontal, the area that potentiates complex behavior like speech. A writer’s inner critic goes quiet, and the ideas flow. What comes out might not be brilliant, or even make sense, but it provides fodder for future editing.
Yes, there are much worse things to suffer from. The general consensus appears to be that hypergraphia is not a particularly debilitating disease (I use the word "disease" with caution here). Only if the constant writing starts to interfere with other obligations does it become a problem.
As the article points out, one of the marked signs of hypergraphia is the turning off of the inner editor. This means that just about anyone can simulate such a condition by free writing. This means you sit down and just write anything that comes to mind with no worry about quality or even if the writing makes sense. That’s what editing is for.
I’m going to dedicate a few posts this week (I’m not sure exactly how many) to the issue of becoming a more prolific writer. One does not need to have hypergraphia to be productive. All to easily we let the little details of life (work, family, eating, sleep) get in the way of writing, causing our literary ambitions to take a back seat. Tomorrow’s post will be exploring how to strike that balance between writing and life.
Hypergraphia: A river of Words
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Read More: Writing
I’ve never heard of this condition you speak of, hypergraphia. Certainly, I am not afflicted with it since my inner editor is alive and well most of the time. In fact it takes a concentrated effort to turn her off.
I can’t help but wonder… is there another condition for being overwhelmed by a constant stream of ideas? That’s the disorder that I have!
I wonder if hypergraphia can be dormant until you’re in your 30s. Then I might have it.
Either that or the read/write web can trigger it in those with hypergraphic tendencies!
I was surprised to see Stephen King’s name on the list, so I went to his forums to see if he’d ever responded to that claim. Nothing. They wanted me to register, and I’m swamped, so I didn’t, but hopefully I’ll remember to go back and ask him about that some day.
I think we’re way to prone to call everything a disorder!
This is one ‘disorder’ I wish I had. I have a passion for writing but the process is almost always a battle with the inner editor.
I’m looking forward to exploring your blog in more detail. I give thanks to Melissa Donovan (http://www.writingforward.com) for stumbling (http://laffarsmith.stumbleupon.com) here.
*adds you to her RSS reader*
I stumbled upon your article, i’ll call it, while researching hypergraphia…
Eversince I saw the “disease” on an episode of CSI, i can’t seem to find a lot on it.
Many names on the list of those with hypergraphia are known to me, though suprised to see them there, after thinking about a few seconds, it seems very understandable.
I suppose i have a very very mild form of hypergraphia, as i still can’t get ahold of my “inner editor” as you called it.
I suffered from writer’s block my whole life. Then on April 2001 I had a right brain awakening and suffered from hypergraphia. How did this happen to me?
Let me explain:
As a child I was a victim of cumulative trauma which led to a left brain shift. Then during a midlife crisis I fell into a state of emotional and physical exhaustion and I had a right brain awakening.
Hypergraphic writing helped my brain to reconnect and understand an inner voice that had become dormant due to being severely abused as a child. It gave voice to a Silenced Child.
The Humpty Dumpty little girl was put together again by writing my first two books, Julie & The Lost Fairy Tale and Emily/Out of my Mother’s Darkness along with filling numerous journals with poetry, stories as well as unconnected thoughts and ideas.
I’d like to add that it was during the process of editing that the real healing took place.
I think I do suffer from this disorder, and probably pretty severely….ever since I was a very small child I had the uncontrollable urge to tell stories, which as i got older evolved into a need to write…
I get tremendous pleasure from writing, but I also become extremely frustrated or agitated if something prevents me from doing so, or if writing interferes with my real life….
It has caused problems with my friends and family in the past, because it IS an obsession, but it’s so hard to control that it’s painful to do so.
I just need to share my story, even now, to let people know that it is a real affliction, and for me…it’s both a blessing and a curse.
I have hypergraphia. I don’t necessarily “suffer” from it as my case is not severe, but it does seem to get worse the older I get, so I suppose we’ll have to see.
I’ve heard of people that don’t exactly have the urge to write but if they see an empty space (ie, blank walls) then they’d do anything to have a Sharpie and fill it in as best they could. This can also take affect with drawing as well, but it’s not as common.
Unfortunately Hypergraphia is commonly associated with bipolar and depression and it can be a side effect of trauma or impairedness in he brain. All which I can relate to.