I have been trying to write pretty much anything for months now. I’ve started and abandoned at least a dozen blog posts, story ideas and just general daydreams.
At first, I thought it was writer’s block. When I have trouble writing a part of a story it’s because there’s something wrong with another part that I’ve already written. It doesn’t help that I’ve not necessarily been writing scenes or chapters in order so I’m not even sure where the mistake occurred. I almost have to just find a restore point and go from there which doesn’t always work so I have to find another one and hope for the best.
Recently I realised that there has been more than just writers block stopping me from going forward, not just with my writing but so many different aspects of my life.
The thing is though, realising the problem was only the first step. I then spent the next few months denying that the problem was in fact a problem. I justified the problem to myself and told everyone I was fine and pretending that I didn’t know they knew I was lying.
I had moments where I admitted that maybe I did have a problem. Maybe I did need to get help. But then a few days later I’d be feeling better, and it was like nothing happened. All was well again.
Until it wasn’t.
I’ve spent so much time ignoring the signs and pretending there wasn’t a giant sparkly pink elephant in the room. I got really good at it. Then one day I made the mistake of making eye contact with that sparkling pink elephant with a top hat on its head. I tried to play it cool. Pretend it hadn’t happened. But everyday after that the elephant would tip his top hat to me and wait for me to make eye contact again.
Sometimes it would be leaning over me as I woke up, staring right at my face just waiting for me to open my eyes. Some days it would hide the best it could just waiting for the perfect chance to catch me off guard.
A lot of days it succeeded.
One of the things I realised after that first time I made eye contact, the sparkly pink elephant in a top hat doesn’t like to be ignored, and once you’ve acknowledged its existence just once, it knows you know it’s there and fuck you if you think you can get rid of it. I could be having a great day and then I’d see something or listen to something or the guy at the desk next to me would mention an event in another country and it was like I just laid down at that giant sparkly pink elephant in a top hat came over and sat on my chest.
War in countries on the other side of the world, school shootings again in another country, just hearing about someone from my old work being assaulted while doing their job, someone at my new job being annoyed about something that I had absolutely nothing to do with, saying the wrong thing at family get togethers, all of these things would have me suddenly filled with anxiety. What if we were suddenly under attack while I was at work? Would I ever see my family again? What if we lived in this other country where school shootings seem to happen every few weeks or months? What if I go to the shops and am just minding my own business and then a shoplifter recognises me from when I used to work there and assaults me just because? What if they bosses are mad about something I did or did not do the day before? Just because I’ve only been in the door 30seconds doesn’t mean I haven’t fucked up? Am I going to get fired? Will I have to go back to the place that makes me want to throw things at stupid people? I overreacted to something at that family dinner? What if everyone is mad at me now? Or they think I’m stupid? Irrational? Over dramatic? Wait…. I have brothers…of course one of them thinks I’m an idiot at least 60% of the time. The entire family would agree that I’m dramatic as all hell but I’m hilarious so its fine.
Also if one of them ever gets too cocky we have a very deep well of his own stupidity to throw back at him.
Yeah, you see what I just did there? I couldn’t do that a few months ago. I could not for the life of me talk myself down to somewhere where logic even occasionally resides. I couldn’t do it. Then I was making the appointment for Jake’s one year check-up and I thought, you know what I’m going to make one for myself as well. I’m going to tell my doctor what is going on and I’m going to get help.
In the months leading up I started to get a lot if migraines. There would be at least one every week and a bit. They were triggered by even the smallest of things, and it took me a few to realise that it was the sparkly elephant’s fault. That first appointment with my doctor was…a mess. I rambled and jumped from one thing to another despite having brought a dot point list of things I needed to say. The second appointment I was calmer but still beating myself up about my behaviour a few days earlier.
My DAS score came back and turns out that I was extremely stressed and anxious. Who would’ve thunk it? I was started on medication and just getting the prescription made me feel so much better. I was finally getting some kind of reassurance that I wasn’t losing my shit.
I mean if you ask most of the people, I know I’ve still lost my shit.
For the next few weeks, I dealt with the side effects of starting new medication and the very sudden realisation that I was calm for the first time in forever. Just driving to work one morning I started thinking about how I would know if the medication was working, I hadn’t had any of the stresses that normally sent me spiralling. How was I supposed to know?
Then the medicated side of my brain made a very valid point. All of the stuff that had been sending me spiralling pre-medication was actually stuff. It was all minor things that my brain would blow out of proportion at the drop of a sparkly top hat.
When I went back to see my doctor with a new DAS score of low/medium stress and anxiety, something which my doctor was very happy with. Apparently, I’m the first patient she’s had in 22 years that has responded so well so quickly.
This of course had my goblin brain questioning whether or not I actually needed medication to begin with if I improved so quickly. I was reassured that my improvement was because I needed the medication. Clearly the anxiety is not completely gone.
Hopefully though I’ll be able to work past my imposter syndrome feelings so I can actually start writing again but it’s one day at a time right now.
I’m also hoping that in medicating myself I haven’t destroyed the root of my power.
S.J Smith Books 