I haven't completely hidden my mental health struggles over the past several months but, man, did they ever get the better of me while I was on my writing hiatus.
There is only so much family fun time that any one individual can take before they run screaming into the night. That needs to be said, and it needs to be normalized. You can love your kids more than anyone has loved anything in the whole history of ever and still reach a point where (especially during a pandemic) you just can't breathe anymore and need a break. I reached that point a couple of months ago but kept pushing through it. Once Maestra was done and turned in I didn't have that distraction anymore and Pandora's box of nightmares and anxiety was officially open and flooding through my life. On top of my own insecurities I was suddenly dealing with a teenager and a four year old also suffering from varying degrees of anxiety and mental health issues. I am leaving my poor wife out of this because she is dealing with things (better than I) and knows that I am there to support her in whatever way she needs.
Simply said, my mind has tricked me into believing that the entire world is falling apart. It's not my first rodeo and I'm sure it won't be my last. I'm intelligent and sane enough to realize that the brain is extremely skilled at coping with stress while still amplifying anxiety until seemingly small things blow up into crippling doubts about any given subject. Throw in a four year old who can make train horn whistle sounds for twelve hours straight right next to my ears and it becomes a situation beyond the stress of anything that I have ever experienced, before, in my life.
What's another consequence of this, you may or may not ask? Suddenly I find myself suffering from Impostor Syndrome, again. I've had a successful book launch just weeks ago but I now find myself incapable of starting my next book because my head is full of doubts being shouted at me from somewhere within the darkness of my mind meat. It's like this large looming monster whispering at me from a closet, beckoning me onward and into the darkness. It eats into my mental health and cripples me until I have days where I am incapable of doing anything at all, except keep my children alive and fed until my wife gets home from work.
I have said it before and I will say it again because it REALLY needs to be echoed around the world right now: It's absolutely okay to be broken. The world is crap. This country is particularly crappy right now as we are the most divided that we have been since the Civil War. Tolerance and Acceptance have flown out the window and the few people who haven't been utterly polarized are standing here wondering if we're the crazy ones. I am heartbroken for the world around us and what it has done to us.
So how do I get through this alive, and also convince myself that I actually am a writer again? That's an excellent question. Several times over the past week I have tried to get into the new story. I found that I couldn't write any words on the page. It felt so intimidating. I didn't even feel that overwhelmed when starting my first book. Then I spent a few days just working on furthering my world building and outlining. I was convinced that having more of a fleshed out blue print would make it easier to start writing. I was wrong. It hasn't helped. I have tried to set aside a more private space to write in. Nope. Not helping. Last week I tried taking a day for myself and getting away to the family cottage to quiet the monster. In the silence it's voice got louder and I came back home before noon.
Through all of this I am keeping in the front of my mind that all of this is transitory. We're 15 days from an election that will either help heal the nation or be a catalyst toward a new civil war, depending on how the winner and loser both handle the situation - will it be with dignity and grace or with open disdain and hostility toward the process which will incite violence upon one another?
Again, it's transitory. It has to be. This isn't the end of me, or of humanity. It will pass.
When it does I will still be a writer.
Until then I am going to have to learn to ignore that calling from the void that would rather break me down and leave me in perpetual darkness.
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R.M. Smith's Concentric Worlds series on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KGSN1YM
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