Another year is about to come to an end, and I’ve spent the last month (maybe more) reflecting on everything that has happened.
It hasn’t been a good year. It’s been incredibly challenging. Sure, there were some good moments, but for the most part, my memories are filled with anxiety and depression and tears. If there weren’t tears, there was anger. So.much.anger.
I lost my desire and motivation to write. I spent a lot of time in therapy and reading books and working on myself. Every so often I was able to put words on a page, but it certainly wasn’t what I had done in the past. It was tough. It made me feel less than complete.
The past couple of months, I’ve been working hard to get back to writing. I’ve scheduled it in and found ways to be excited about it. I’ve finished the very rough draft of the third book in my Saving Humanity series, but it still needs to be typed, edited, and edited some more.
At the beginning of December, I made a conscious effort to think about my writing differently. One of the things that made it so hard and so frustrating was the fact that I wasn’t making money. Sure, I’d have a few sales here and there, but nothing major. Every month when I looked at the sales sheet, I asked myself why I was even bothering. It hardly seemed worth the effort.
Yes, depression played a major role in these thoughts. I hadn’t realized how far I had sunk into the hole until I was talking to my mom one day, telling her how I’d lost 30 pounds. She freaked. I freaked. I knew then that something had to change. I had to find contentment and calm. I had to find my way back to writing.
I sat down and asked myself why I started writing in the first place. The answer was easy: because I enjoyed it. Because it gave me an escape from my troubles and worries and allowed me to put myself in the shoes of another.
I lost that somewhere along the way. I became jaded and thought that my writing had to show a return of investment—a monetary return of investment.
I had help in this thinking. I didn’t come to this conclusion alone. But I held onto it. I let it define and influence me. I let it dictate how I felt about my stories. How I felt as a writer. When I couldn’t sell books or make more than a few dollars, I felt like a failure.
There was one point in the year, and I remember this vividly, that I was sitting on my couch working on Finding Humanity, and I had to go outside to help the kids scoop dog poop so that my spouse could mow the lawn. As I pulled myself out of the story, I noticed that I had a headache. Nothing major, so I went to take some ibuprofen, and my stomach knotted. I knew that if I put something in it, I was going to throw up.
Still, I had a job to do, so I went outside and walked the backyard with my kids and pointed out the piles of poo. Dizziness washed over me. I almost lost my balance numerous times. I thought I was in the throes of anxiety, but the next day, I realized I had a migraine.
From that one moment, every time I tried to sit down and write, my anxiety asked, “What if writing gives you another migraine?” (Side note: I’m more than positive it wasn’t the writing that gave me a migraine. I guarantee it was stress.) This scared me. It made writing scary for me.
Have you ever been afraid to write? It’s an awful feeling.
I asked myself if I could ever get back to writing for enjoyment, and the answer was yes. How do I get back there? By writing. By keeping in mind that there are other benefits to writing, not just getting money from the sale of my books. I get peace of mind, a way to relax, a way to escape. That’s the real return of investment for me.
It took some time and facing my fears to get me back to writing. I can’t tell you how many times I put the pen to paper only to have dizziness overtake me. I thought for sure I would get another migraine, so I often stopped after only a few pages.
Then, one day, I told my anxiety it didn’t get to decide. I was in charge, and I was going to write. “But, a migraine,” my anxiety said. “Bring it on,” I told it. “I’ve dealt with it before and survived. I’ll do it again. Even if I have to go to bed at 6:00.”
Surprisingly, I never got a migraine, and I was eventually able to finish my book.
My sister-in-law had been reading Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis, and she gave me a copy. I read it, and I loved it. There was so much in there that spoke directly to me. I laughed. I cried. I nodded my head in agreement. Then, I read the part about writing and felt validated.
Writing isn’t about money (for some people it might be, and that’s okay, but for me, it’s not). It’s about ME. It’s about doing something I love. It’s about being able to step back and say, “I created that. ME. No one else. MY work.” It’s an amazing feeling. It’s an empowering feeling. It fills me with pride.
I don’t need anyone’s permission to write. I don’t need anyone’s validation. It absolutely makes me happy to put my book out into the world and know that readers enjoy it and want me to write more, but that’s not the only reason I write.
I write because it makes me happy.
Period.
There doesn’t need to be another reason.
The path to getting healthy and feeling better is long, but I take steps every day. Some days are good, and some are bad. Some days I don’t want to get out of bed, but I do. I show up. Every.single.day. Maybe 2019 will bring me less depression and anxiety. Maybe it will push me over the edge. I won’t know until I get there.
And I remind myself: if I get committed to a mental health ward, it will give me more time to write.
I hope during the last few days of this month that you take some time to reflect on the past year and look at the things that shaped you and made you stronger. It didn’t have to be a good year—mine was terrible.
But I’m coming out of 2018 with lessons learned and a goal. I hope you do the same.
