Poets & Emotional Wellbeing - Emily Dickinson
Content Order
Life Story
Mental Illness: Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) & Hypomania
Mental Illness: Schizotypal Personality Disorder, Anxiety, and Panic Disorder
Suffering Turned Meaning and Spirituality in Her Creative Works
Emily Dickinson’s Passing, Legacy, and Impact
Emily Dickinson’s Life Story
Born in December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson grew up in a strict, prominent family as the middle child between Lavinia and Austin. From a young age, she had a deep love for learning and nature, which would later inspire much of her poetry. Although she attended Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, she began to withdraw from the world. She retreated from the world in her twenties and by 1860s, found peace in her garden and her writing. In her thirties, she faced challenges with her eyesight. It was during this time of solitude that she wrote nearly 1,800 poems, though only a few were published in her lifetime.
Mental Illness: Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) & Hypomania
Emily Dickinson's life was filled with mystery, but it’s believed that she faced significant mental health struggles, including seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and hypomania. Research by Ramey and Weisberg (2004) suggests that Dickinson’s creativity soared during the darker months of SAD, possibly as a way to channel her emotional struggles. Hypomania, with its bursts of energy, might have also driven her to write prolifically, although the very act of writing could have sparked these manic episodes (Sameer & Ali, 2022).
Mental Illness: Schizotypal Personality Disorder, Anxiety, and Panic Disorder
Furthermore, her behavior hints at schizotypal personality disorder, which often involves eccentricity and social withdrawal—traits that are mirrored in the distinctive style of her poetry (Winhusen, 2004). Her poems also depict anxiety and panic disorders in ways that align with modern understandings of these conditions (Himmelhoch et al., 2001), which likely influenced her reclusive nature and the deep introspection in her work.
Suffering Turned Meaning and Spirituality in Her Creative Works
Emily Dickinson’s physical and emotional challenges deeply influenced her poetry, shaping its unique structure and themes. Her work reflects the constraints she faced, from spatial limitations to cognitive and emotional struggles, transforming these experiences into profound artistic expressions (Mullaney,2019). Through her writing, Emily Dickinson’s poetry beautifully captures the interplay between human suffering and the search for meaning, portraying a deeply spiritual process that balances the desire for personal growth with the acceptance of life’s inherent challenges (Scheurich, 2007). In poems like “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain,” she captures the intense emotional turmoil that often accompanies internal struggles. Through her words, she reveals how pain and meaning are intertwined, offering a glimpse into the resilience of the human spirit.
Emily Dickinson’s Passing, Legacy, and Impact
Dickinson passed away in 1886 at the age of 55 from Bright's disease. While only a few of her poems were published during her lifetime, after her death, nearly 1,800 poems were discovered by her sister, who knew that she had found a treasure.
In many ways, her life and work can be beautifully encapsulated by the words of the Poetry Foundation: ‘’To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. Like the Concord Transcendentalists whose works she knew well, she saw poetry as a double-edged sword. While it liberated the individual, it readily left him ungrounded.’’ Her poetry wasn’t just a creative outlet; it was therapeutic, maybe for her, but surely for many others of her readers. Writing allowed Dickinson to turn her personal pain into something beautiful, and in doing so, she created art that still speaks to us today. Her story is evidence that mental well-being can be found and navigated using plenty of tools, including poetry. Engaging with poetry—whether through reading, writing, or listening—can support mental well-being by offering comfort, fostering emotional resilience, and uplifting the spirits of individuals facing serious health challenges. (Dr. Mirza Sibtain Beg, 2022). Her poem “Hope is the Thing With Feathers” reminds us that even in our darkest moments, when we feel overwhelmingly lost, creativity can be a source of light, healing, and hope.
REFERENCES
Ramey, C. H., & Weisberg, R. W. (2004). The “Poetical Activity” of Emily Dickinson: A Further Test of the Hypothesis That Affective Disorders Foster Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 16(2), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1602&3_3
Dr. Mirza Sibtain Beg. (2022). Maintaining Mental Health through Poetry. Creative Saplings, 1(8), 44–55. https://doi.org/10.56062/gtrs.2022.1.8.172
Habegger, A. (2019). Emily Dickinson | Biography, Poems, & Analysis. In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Dickinson
Himmelhoch, J., Levine, J., & Gershon, S. (2001). Historical overview of the relationship between anxiety disorders and affective disorders. Depression and Anxiety, 14(2), 53–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.1047
Mullaney, C. (2019). “Not to Discover Weakness Is the Artifice of Strength”: Emily Dickinson, Constraint, and a Disability Poetics. J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, 7(1), 49–81. https://doi.org/10.1353/jnc.2019.0002
Poetry Foundation. (2015). Emily Dickinson. Poetry Foundation; Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson
Ramey, C. H., & Weisberg, R. W. (2004). The “Poetical Activity” of Emily Dickinson: A Further Test of the Hypothesis That Affective Disorders Foster Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 16(2), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1602&3_3
Sameer, A., & Ali, H. H. (2022). Creativity and its Psychological Traits in Emily Dickinson’s and Anne Sexton’s Selected Poems. International Journal of Arts and Humanities Studies, 2(1), 109–115. https://doi.org/10.32996/ijahs.2022.2.1.15
Winhusen, S. (2004). Emily Dickinson and Schizotypy. The Emily Dickinson Journal, 13(1), 77–96. https://doi.org/10.1353/edj.2004.0007
Scheurich, N. (2007). Suffering and Spirituality in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson. Pastoral Psychology, 56(2), 189–197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-007-0109-7
https://poemanalysis.com/emily-dickinson/biography/
https://www.edickinson.org/about
