Anxiety & Not Creating, Which Creates More Anxiety

I've been having a terrible time of things lately and I haven't wanted to talk about it with anyone. I know that isolating and keeping my issues to myself is just going to make things worse in the long run, but it's hard to admit that you have problems and that they are affecting your daily life, isn't it?

Yesterday, I read a blog post that has been making me think differently in every waking hour since reading it. It was a post on the amazeballs writing blog, Writer Unboxed, called: Let's Talk About Anxiety and the Creative Process.  

That article eventually led me to this video, which you just need to watch right now, because this dude says everything that I need to say to get you to understand where I am at right now.




I'm scared. That's it. I'm scared of everything. I'm scared that no matter what I do, it doesn't matter and no one is going to care about it anyway, so what is the point of anything? And so I do nothing, and I continue to cycle those thoughts, and I get more depressed, and still, I don't do anything.

So I am just going to start talking about this more now, because I see that there are an awful lot of other writers and friends of mine who are struggling with what seems to be crippling anxiety over creating, and here I was thinking I was the only crazy one who over inflates her own ambitions..

The thing is, I have to do things. I have to get up in the morning and get my butt in the chair and do things. But I can't do those things without support, and I am afraid to talk to people - even people who I thought were close to me or who I think of as friends - I'm scared, is the theme of the day here.

The act of creating and publishing invites judgement, especially self-judgement. Being a writer is often a new identity that one carves out for themselves, while everyone else around them clings to other ways of labeling them: mother, spouse, colleague, sister. They don’t easily accept defining the writer as such. - Dan Blank

I've spent six months flailing around and freaking out over every little thing and it's kept me from doing ANYTHING. It's impossible thinking that things aren't worth doing and telling yourself constantly that you are going to fail. It's no way to live, telling yourself that what you do has no purpose.

So here I am and here I'll be, every day, until I get things right. And written.