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Fan Works
- Camille Bacon-Smith, in her book Enterprising Women (one of the first ethnographical studies of Fan Fic writers) admitted shock over how many fanfic writers were dealing with serious Real Life issues (divorce, abandonment, family strife, rape recovery, poverty, discrimination) and using their work as an outlet to address it because there were few other outlets available.
- The Abraxas author worked on the Abraxas: Empty Fullness one-shot "Sermones ad Mortuos
" partly as a coping mechanism after the death of a family-member. - Avatar: Song of Ice and Fire: Catelyn Tsukino often brings up in author notes "real life difficulties" slowing down getting out new chapters. This was most directly discussed after chapter 62 (Jon IX) was released, where they went into deeper details about how being a fanfiction fan had slowly eroded their life and hurt their faith life along the way (something very important to them). It got worse when there were relapses between putting out the next few chapters, and the author "almost gave up writing" as a desperate way to quit the addiction cold turkey. They ended up postponing that decision when they realized they had a tvtropes page created for their story.
- Discussed In-Universe in Fortune_Lover_(TGS Beta)(SARU_rip)[T+Eng0.75_Sincere].zip. Parasite_Ib suggests whoever wrote the titular Game Mod must be heartbroken and in grief.
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse
- Infinity Train: Court of Cyclamen: After the controversy of the Bad Future in Chapter 9, the author confessed that she's completely sick and tired of the dark themes in the story (particularly Bede's suicide and One keeping it in the dark so that Chloe could grow) and feels like there's nothing but bias and hatred in Chloe's life when in reality, she's a scared girl who is doing a mission that a ten-year-old shouldn't be doing in the first place and is at the point ready to delete the entire story like it never existed in the first place. The same happened to the other co-writers, crossoverpairinglover and Shady Missionary, for similar reasons.
- Infinity Train: Voyage of Wisteria: By the author's admission in a comment for "The Pirate Car", she's gotten exhausted trying to fix a lot of Authors Saving Throws and unfortunate problems from Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail.
- For a non Green_Phantom_Queen related example, Spinnerette revealed during Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus's The Ninjala Car that the unexpectedly negative reception the story got, coupled with drama on this wiki, severely affected her.
- For another non Green_Phantom_Queen example, CookieGHD admitted that he was suffering from creative burnout on Infinity Train: Star Finder, this being the reason that the story took so long to update.
- The writer of Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams and Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With The Light began having Schedule Slip issues in 2015 due to severe stress from real-life issues and exhaustion from doing new stories for each series every month in addition to other writing projects and various real-life complications. Even after Ultimate Sleepwalker was completed in 2016, issues of Ultimate Spider-Woman came out every couple of months due to the same fatigue issues. Eventually, the series was put on hiatus until the author completed a novel for another series, but he plans to resume and complete Ultimate Spider-Woman once the novel is complete.
- Nimbus Llewelyn has more than once confirmed that The Wizard in the Shadows, written during his middle teens, was a product of this. It was a response to/main way of working through his Real Life issues at the time (many of which were tied to a miserable time at boarding school) with main character Harry Potter being depicted as an unpredictable Mood-Swinger thanks to a few years in a Crapsack World with no apparent way home, who goes from manically cheerful to snarkily irreverent to grouchy loner to Unstoppable Rage with little to no warning. However, it does end on a lighter, happier, and hopeful note, one carried into its aborted sequel, and his following series, Child of the Storm which, despite some extraordinarily dark moments, ultimately has a message of hope and symbolizes Creator Recovery - though the darkness lingered enough that as of May 2021, he is apparently getting therapy.
- Gregg Landsman is the author of Nobody Dies, one of the most widely successful Neon Genesis Evangelion fics to date. However, he received such a massive backlash to an All Just a Dream twist that retconned roughly 30 chapters that he essentially quit not just the fic, but the Eva fandom itself.
- Doing It Right This Time suffers major Schedule Slip issues due to the author's frequent bouts of depression and other physical health issues.
- Citadel of the Heart has been plagued by so many Schedule Slip issues regarding MF217's experiences throughout 2019, most notably the death of his grandfather, the death of one of his dogs, and mental health hitting an all-time low as a whole. This led to the creation of the infamous Chapter 16 of Digimon Re: Tamers, in which Brondramon escapes into the real world and leaves Seattle an absolute wreck with Grandis killed off. The overall consequence of this was written in such a way that it becomes quite clear that MF217 had actually contemplated abruptly ending Digimon Re: Tamers on such a bleak Downer Ending as to escape having to continue to write for his own works, which almost became a reality until he made a Creator Recovery and managed to write the chapters which revealed that Brondramon's escape was only a simulation. Even MF217 admits this is an Ass Pull, but considering he had seriously considered abruptly ending the story the chapter prior, this is a sort of Acceptable Break from Reality once he decided to resume working on it after regaining his sanity.
- The team of co-authors behind The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum each suffered this in their own ways when the writing process became more turbulent and creative disagreements became increasingly more personal and argumentative, leading to the team splitting ways in 2017 and a small group deciding to reboot the story (titled Spectrum) and start over fresh.
- Head author Redskin122004 admitted sometime after the split that he'd been dealing with several problems in his professional and personal lives (including incompetent managers at his job regarding the former and reeling from the death of a family member for the latter) during the time period, which he had kept bottled up, leading to him lashing out at the other authors and fueling the acrimonious feelings that drove the team's split. After taking a long break from writing to collect himself, he left FIMFiction completely to go on to other fanfic writing platforms.
- Jed R, author of the King's Speech side story, admitted in a comment that he'd struggled greatly during that time period from a combination of job hunting, raising his children, and planning out his wedding on top of dealing with the story, but did his best to not let that get in the way of writing it or interacting with the other authors.
- Kizuna Tallis, author of the Asia Side Story, admitted that the gradual decay of the creative team's friendship and her attempts to keep the peace, in addition to some personal issues she was grappling with at the time, did a great deal of damage to her mental health. In 2021, after publishing an abrupt and random Gainax Ending for her story (wherein she effectively pulled a Torch the Franchise and Run, broke up a pair of characters' romantic relationship, and called out other elements in the story she hadn't liked), she announced that she was quitting writing for the Spectrumverse altogether, admitting that between obligations in her offline life, a general loss in interest, and finding a degree of Creator Recovery in writing smaller scale solo projects away from the "franchise", she was too mentally burnt out by what happened with the original to feel excitement over writing for the universe anymore.
- Doctor Fluffy, author of the Starvation and Light Despondent side stories, was especially hurt by the events leading up to the original main story's cancellation and the final interactions he had with Red, to the point that he's made it clear he wants absolutely nothing to do with Red ever again. He also went on to quit writing for the Spectrumverse in 2021 and focus his energies on different things.
- While the other authors had some sort of emotional support in their offline lives during the fallout (be it family members or other friends), Sledge115 (author of the Adrift side story, and the current head author of Spectrum) largely had to deal with it on his own, stating that he was afraid his parents would make him cut off all contact with the rest of the team and stop working on the story if they knew what was going on with his fallout with Red and the true extent of the emotional toll it had on him.
- Usa Ritsu had to take a five-year break from writing fanfiction due to a constant struggle with bipolar disorder.
Professional Wrestling
- Matt Hardy went into both a personal and professional downward spiral after Lita cheated on him with Edge, mainly because, for a long time, he was completely unable to get over it (as shown by how he posted a video reenactment of his breakup with Lita years after the relationship ended). It derailed his career for almost a decade, including getting him fired from both WWE and TNA. He would eventually recover, however, and in fact use this spiral as inspiration and fuel for his "Broken" Matt Hardy gimmick, which many consider as the greatest work he's done in his entire career.
- Edge also had a hard time during his feud with Matt, mainly because he and Lita genuinely felt guilty for betraying Matt like that and indirectly causing him to lose his job. One of the reasons they agreed to the storyline was because they wanted to get Matt his job back. During interviews, he has called this period the most stressful of his career and coped by channeling the hatred of the fans into making himself a better heel — and eventually one of the most iconic heels in WWE history.
- Alberto Del Rio's behavior started getting increasingly erratic after his second release from WWE. He started getting into fights at bars and backstage at events, making up a story about getting stabbed in one such fight. He also started no-showing events he was booked for, and posting weird Periscope videos (in which he looked like he was coked out of his mind), that included him challenging people such as Triple H and The New Day to fights at his restaurant (which would close down in November 2017), and alleging that the former had a hand in the release of his then-fiancee Paige's sex tapes. As far as his professional life goes, while his ring work is still somewhat consistent, his character work and overall appearance has been gradually degrading to the point that fans are starting to get genuinely worried. For evidence, look no further than his promo at Bound for Glory 2017, which had him turn heel by blaming the fans for the domestic violence charge that forced Impact to suspend him and strip him of the Impact World Championship. It was so uncomfortably bad that it was cut out of the UK airing of the show.
Other
- The Onion's resident "political cartoonist" Stan Kelly satirizes this on a regular basis. While most of his cartoons are takes on issues of the day, he frequently uses his panel to rage about his ungrateful kids, shrewish wife, and generally reveal what a terrible, messed up individual he is, as a parody of most cartoonists' tendency to shove their personal issues and biases into their cartoons. Also, watch for Kelly getting fatter in every strip.
- The Goon Show may be considered as a product of Spike Milligan's manic phases. Also, a fair chunk of his poetry was written in a depressive phase, such as a poem about a child grabbing a rose:The child screams
The rose is silent
Life is already telling lies. - John Cleese's frequent lapses into psychiatry and self-analysis could in part be blamed on the constant pressure on the man to be funny. A certain sort of creator breakdown must result from being instantly recognizable in the street and being constantly prevailed upon to do the silly walk, or the silly voice, or just to be funny - all of which got to the famously serious-minded Cleese.
- While not as dramatic as some of the examples around, much of Cleese's humour also stemmed from his background — his typically British middle-class upbringing with rather distant and unexpressive (if not necessarily unloving) parents and his school-life (including suffering a growth spurt that ended up with him being 6ft tall at the age of 13, which made him something of a target). He once remarked that becoming a comedian was a way of at least controlling why people were laughing at him.
- A somewhat specific example of this pressure could be seen from his commentary on the Fawlty Towers episode "The Builders". According to the Cleese, the first people who saw the episode were some visiting Icelanders. Icelandic culture dictates that, even if you find something funny, you don't laugh at the show until the very end of it. The whole episode, he was faced with silent stoicism, thinking that they were hating it when they were, in fact, finding it rather amusing. Nobody told Cleese this for some time afterward and to this day, he repeatedly states how much he hates the episode, seemingly for no other reason than this particular incident.
- Manhua author and artist Ai Ou apologized at the end of volume one of Infinity Game because he started writing/drawing chapter 1.5 (D.D.'s backstory) just after he had attended a funeral.
- Famed British scientist Michael Faraday began to suffer memory lapses in his later life, which caused him to fall into a deep depression.
- TV presenter and journalist Vanessa Feltz, famous for TV chat shows and her stint on Chris Evans' groundbreaking The Big Breakfast, entered Celebrity Big Brother only to completely collapse under the pressures of being on camera continually and having nowhere to retreat to. Fellow contestants repeatedly signaled alarm at her erratic behavior and clear mental distress, but the TV company involved did not pull her out until she'd had a pretty near total breakdown on set. Archive film remains very uncomfortable viewing. Vanessa now works in radio covering Sarah Kennedy's old slot. Which some commentators consider potentially interesting.
- Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent had a nervous breakdown following his conscription into the army and dismissal from Christian Dior in the 1950s. He was subjected to brutal conditions and shock therapy until he was rescued by his lover Pierre Bergé. By all accounts, Yves never fully recovered from these events and was emotionally fragile for the rest of his life. The breakdown is portrayed in both of the films about the designer, Yves Saint Laurent and Saint Laurent, although the former goes into far more detail.
- Reportedly, Game of Life was created because Milton Bradley (yes, that one) had recently lost a lot of money and found himself on hard times due to a bad investment. The earliest versions of the game were noticeably a lot darker as a result, with suicide being a possible endpoint, and had strong themes of how living a moral life is more important than money, which is temporary and easily-lost.
