Living with Hypergraphia

In third grade I was given my first diary. Within a week it was filled up and I was on to the next. This continued until I was in fifth grade and got my own computer. As disc after disc filled with random thoughts my parents began to wonder if it was normal for a 10 year old to be so prolific.

Writing began to fill every free second of my day. Every page of my school notebooks were covered with words. Eventually the urge to write became so powerful that it was waking me up at night. I would wake up frantic to get my thoughts down on paper. It was as if someone had flipped a switch on my inner muse and she was in overdrive. Everything was important and it was essential that it all be preserved. Lack of paper was no concern; I would write on my jeans, hands and up my arms.

The compulsion was out of control. Psychologists led to neurologists, which led to six months of tests and trips to a seemingly endless list of doctors. Finally the diagnosis of hypergraphia was announced.

Hypergraphia has been associated with both temporal lobe epilepsy and bipolar disorder, neither of which I have. Evidence is now pointing to an abnormal interaction between the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain. Temporal lobe activity is reduced, causing frontal lobe (the seat of complex behaviors, such as speech) activity to increase.

Hypergraphia is so rare that there are no accepted guidelines for treatment, although, in some cases, antidepressants have been shown to stanch the flow of words in hypergraphics. Personally, I see this as a gift. I have no inner editor to ignore and have never suffered from writer's block in my life. I also happen to be in good company. Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe and Fyodor Dostoevsky have all lived with hypergraphia.

All the information that spills out might not be verbal poetry, but I have never been at a loss for words and I am left with more than enough material that can be edited into coherent thoughts. If the toughest hurdle to writing is actually sitting down and doing it, then I am already one giant step ahead.