Living in Flow

Alice W Flaherty, an American neurologist, in the middle of her adult life, suffered from hypergraphia –a puzzling behavioral disorder where one cannot stop his/her urges to write due to abnormal neural brain activities (talk about irony). Individuals who suffered from this abnormality writes literally ALL the time, ALL the where –on pieces of paper (including toilet papers), walls (of both home and office), clothes he/she is wearing, even his/her skin –Flaherty did all that, and still does.

Her investigation on her own experiences led her to some explanations not only on hypergraphic behaviors in particular, but also on writing behaviors in general. Her finding, among others, is that people shifts from manic states to depressed state interchangeably and that writing occurs when one is on depressed mode.

Flaherty found strong indication that depressed individuals tend to be much more introspective than those of manic. Put it shortly, depression stimulates anxiety, anxiety stimulates questions, questions stimulate explanations. Thus one has materials to write about.

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