> David Foster Wallace committed suicide because of his depression, but only after creating one of the great works of American literature. We label him as menta

> David Foster Wallace committed suicide because of his depression, but only after creating one of the great works of American literature. We label him as mentally ill for his depression, but we don't really have a label for the positive side of the fact that his brain was far from an average brain. I'm a huge DFW fan, but I'd hesitate to use him as an example, for various reasons. First off, from what I understand he stabilized on particular meds but then quit them because he felt he'd be more creative without. Instead of being more creative, he slid back into depression and the medication didn't work anymore (apparently that's a thing? I'm not too familiar with anti-depressants). While I won't make any judgment as an outsider, it's not unreasonable to argue that he made a really bad gamble. It's quite possible that the it wasn't the medication that kept him from producing his next great work, but rather just the difficulty of what he was trying to do after Infinite Jest. Reading about it, it reminded me of various artists who 'jumped off the wagon' to return to previous glory, only to rediscover what being off the wagon really meant. Furthermore, his struggles with depression and suicidal ideation, as well as drawing his self-worth from his work seemed to be a running thread in his life. That said, his brain clearly wasn't average and I'm sure it played a positive role in his work. I'm just arguing against the common 'trope' that to do his work he had to be 'mentally ill'. I don't know either way, I just hold hope that these two don't need to be mutually exclusive.