It’s wildly scary sharing my story, but in all honesty, it is not nearly as scary as what my brain was putting me through for so long.
I came to the sad realization a few years ago that I wasn’t living my truth. And nothing made that more obvious than looking at my reflection in the eyes of my daughter. I was hiding from the world. I have always hidden from it some way or another. Shy, nervous, anxious and then eventually the panic attacks. I’m a writer, an inconsistent one, but a writer nonetheless, and as my daughter’s awareness grew, I wanted more and more to follow my dream.
I buckled down, finished one of my many manuscripts and started searching for how to get an agent. That’s when I learned – rather rudely that SO much had changed in the publishing world since I first started writing. It was now, 100% on the writer to get your book baby edited, on the writer to begin an online presence, get followers and do all the things the talent never had to do in the past. And frankly, I wasn’t prepared for that. And true to form and personality – I bought a million books on the subject to get me started on the second and harder part of the writing journey. And that is when I discovered – quite miraculously, as I was out of the loop for so many years – SELF PUBLISHING.
It was like the light of God shining down on me all the possibilites this was opening up. Naturally, this required me to purchase two million more books. And I did all the things, I published a short story, I started a blog and an author website, I began networking and for the most part, this was fun.
The one big but being – I started this with one giant nagging thought at the back of my mind because it was something I’d heard back in school and I allowed it to germinate. It was the idea that if you did something you love full time, you’d eventually hate it.
Now, hold that thought while I switch gears for a moment before I swing back to this –
Back to my anxiety journey. If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, you’ll know this part all too well. It takes things away from you a little at a time. First, it was my nerve to drive on the highways, not such a huge deal, many people avoid them. The big deal started on an evening in the early part of winter when I decided to run to the store. I jumped into my car and set out on my dark country road.
It was dark.
And I got nervous.
Then I got scared, and I swear to you, that road was completely swallowed up by the night. I couldn’t make out anything! And even though I had driven those roads hundreds of times, I felt as if I didn’t even know where I was. I was once again, gripped up by this terrible, crippling fear. And I was only about a quarter-mile from my house. I rudely turned the car around in a neighbor’s driveway and went home. Ashamed and breathless.
This was ridiculous.
Now I couldn’t drive at night. I went on like that for a while, winter doesn’t last long and soon it was summer again and I didn’t need to worry about that fear. But there were other symptoms, I became an almost unbearable passenger. Fearful of every car around us. Pumping my invisible brake pedal, grabbing hold of what I call the ‘oh shit’ bar above the window. Just in general making driving more dangerous for the driver. (Most often my poor husband, lol) I was reaching a breaking point, my life didn’t feel like it was mine anymore. I was living in a horror movie and the monster was my mind.
After some discussion with my husband and family doctor, I decided it was time to admit I might need medication – because they lead you to believe this is the way to control these sorts of things. And like magic, it worked. And I wrote again, more than ever before and I wasn’t afraid of things anymore and life was amazing.
Then I started making excuses like, I needed a break from writing. To replenish the well, so to speak. And then when I would try to write, I would get angry and eventually I truly felt like I hated writing. What I didn’t notice right away was that I was also losing interest in other things as well, like spending quality time with my husband and the kids. I was mostly just poking around on the internet, not interacting much with anyone in real life. But hey, if I wanted to, I could drive somewhere. I just didn’t much want to.
I stopped writing, I stopped blogging and I stopped making YouTube videos.
I had yet to make the connection . . .
