Anxiety Is Creativity

In my 30’s the unthinkable happened. My creative well dried up. My imagination vanished. Anxiety took over my life, and I fought like hell to keep my head above water. Suddenly, it was ten years later, and I hadn’t written a single word.

Everyone thought I would be a published writer by now. My friends talked about it as if it was a done deal. My parents recruited me to write thank-you notes, speeches and anything else they didn’t want to write themselves. My brother came to me for lyrics for his music. Every free moment was spent crafting a poem, creating a story or writing for other people. I loved it to the point of obsession.

Today, I write for a living. People pay me to put words on paper. There’s nothing imaginative or creative about it. There are people out there that want nothing but the facts. They pay for dry, boring content. I hate writing it, but the bills are paid. Lately, that hasn’t been enough for me. I want more.

I‘ve spent the last year trying to figure out how to reclaim my creative mind. I’ve read books and blogs, joined forums and listened to podcasts about writing. I have clawed at the edge of the creative cliff, and come away with nothing to show for the effort except blood and tears.

In the last year, I discovered that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The more I learn about GAD, the more I link it with my sudden loss of creativity.

Anxiety is a bitch. It depletes you of mental, physical and spiritual energy. Generalized anxiety is pretty much anxiety about everything, all of the time. I assumed that anxiety had sapped my ability to create. If I learned to manage the anxiety, I would suddenly find my creative self again.

It isn’t that easy.

I eventually realized two things:

1. I needed to stop expecting a masterpiece immediately. Or ever, really.

Despite feeling like writing once came so easily to me, there was a lot of hard work that went into it. I spent years in school learning, getting feedback and improving. It wasn’t ever easy. I worked hard to learn, improve, and grow. I dedicated every minute I could to writing. It only appears easy looking back because I loved the process so much that my memories aren’t exact representations of reality.

2. Anxiety is creativity.

The stories I tell myself about the thousands of bad things that could happen is my imagination working like a champ. I visualize every gruesome detail of whatever scenario I’ve created. The story itself can sometimes be ridiculously far-fetched, but because I’ve created such vivid details, I convince myself that it’s possible, even probable.

My creativity didn’t disappear. It’s just been misdirected.

My challenge now is to figure out how to channel the flow into something more productive.