Medicines also kill creativity and I think that will not exist another Brian Wilson so soon

yeah, I can totally be listening, without thinking, and then, Bam! something clicks, maybe even unrelated,

but I’m not musician, just listen to a lot of it.

Yeah, I have been there for sure. I am not there now and I’m completely aware of how lucky I am to be here. It’s such a brutal trade off. You end up willingly give up one element of your sanity to save another. I think that the key is balance and experimentation. By experimentation I mean work with your doctor(s) to adjust your meds to be ideal for your schiz symptoms and try to lessen side effects to a tolerable state. I think that when meds can knock out the really brutal symptoms it can help our brains calm down and wire themselves a bit better so that we can function and sometimes lower the dosage with the hope of maintaining our wellness and lessening side effects. I know people who haven’t noticed impairments in their creativity on meds. I think that overall I have always heard people share the painful reality that taking meds will compromise our creative abilities but that is not to say that it’s a given. I took 10 different antipsychotics over 16 or so years and I saw a range of creative abilities. Latuda was without a doubt the best in terms of artistic ability, the others killed it to the point where I didn’t really attempt much. I think that with anything you have to identify what is the most important to you and balance your symptoms/life/side effects/etc so that you can have the best equation. Sometimes giving up certain things for a bit while you focus on leveling your mental state can get your brain on a more even field and other parts of it will relax and open up. I have had a ridiculous response to meds and side effects (to the point where I have had to fight to be believed on a lot) but I maintain that losing my creative abilities was the worst. It’s violating. I can understand taking a drug and dealing with horrible dystonia. It’s not a good situation but it seems like a logical reality to end up with nasty side effects. Losing parts of your innate identity to treat demons you did nothing to welcome strips you of quite a bit. I think that this is something that needs to be talked about and emphasized much more more in the treatment sphere - even with drug development if they actually gave enough of a ■■■■ to try.