Mental Health in Writing

When Hemingway spoke the words, “Writers are alone,” what did he mean? Did he mean writers are alone in their thoughts, or did he mean that in most cases writers are misunderstood? Or was this his isolationism speaking. Was he possibly depressed? What are the underlining factors for those writers whose work we consider great but who seemed to battle mental health concerns?
A writer with a mental illness like me can feel alone and misunderstood. Worse case scenario is that the writer is not taking the proper medication. Their writing becomes a handicap, causing them to feel as if they don’t belong or as if there is a dark cloud overhead. Medication may not get rid of the entire cloud, but perhaps make it becomes less dark.
I think about my own life and how my writing has changed as I have worked through my mental illness. I was depressed, maybe even suicidal. My writing was cynical and maybe seen as dark. A short story that I wrote might have the main character die. I thought that was the best way to end a story. Now, if I have a dark thought or write something that is dark, I don’t like the feeling inside. I take medication now, and that has changed my outlook. Now I hate killing a character. I often write about little kids--their innocence or their playful ways.
Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson both were famous writers who committed suicide. If they had experienced the breakthroughs in mental health today, I wonder if they would have written some of their greatest works. Hunter Thompson died a few years ago, and I feel sure he had enough money to afford help. However, if he had received help earlier in his life, would he have written his famous works such as Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
Am I fortunate to read the great works which were written by a troubled mind or is it unfortunate? I feel blessed to have their writing as their epitaph. Their writing holds the key to how they might have thought even in a troubled state of mind. But I will never be able to tell them that I have been there too. I know how they feel.
Many of the greats of literature, as well as the other arts seem to be plagued with mental health disabilities. As a mental health consumer I feel blessed to have read and benefited from their darkness.