So some of you may wonder what happened to my blogging after the pandemic started and I decided to reboot it. Well, the answer is that our beloved Basenji developed kidney failure and other age-related health problems and in much too short a span of time we had to say goodbye to my precious Piggly (otherwise known as Rascal). That put me into a new level of depression and ramped up my anxiety so much that writer’s block ensued.
As time stretched on with the pandemic and I had to self-quarantine due to being high-risk, I became socially isolated and this definitely did nothing to improve my mental health. A decline in mental health equals a decline in my writing, unfortunately for me. So I blogged in my head, more or less, or at the very least thought of blog fodder and got frustrated because I had severe writer’s block most of the past year and a half.
Next week I’ll ask my therapist to help me with this issue. I’m pretty sure I know at least one thing she’ll tell me to do and that I have already begun doing (again) recently–viz., keeping a daily journal. You’d think for someone who loves to write that I’d be able to journal regardless of my mental health but that is not the case for me. I think of so many favorite authors who struggled with depression, anxiety, manic-depression (bipolar disorder) and wonder how they were able to keep on keeping on? Must look into that more…
Anyway, when I’m depressed my limits include not having the energy to journal (or so I tell myself…I’m learning even a paragraph can be helpful). When I’m more anxious than usual I am the worst possible version of my recovering perfectionist self and can hardly stand to put words on the page, even though I have the energy. When I’m ramped up, well, that’s when most of my writing–and other forms of creativity–has occurred over the past eleven years of blogging (accompanied by waking up and eventually having to get up at unreasonably early hours to write, which then throws off my circadian rhythms which are already precarious because of my health issues).
So it’s a weird situation because when I’m experiencing mental stability I have to give increased attention to all the other parts of my life that I try desperately not to let slip through the cracks when I’m not doing as well and therefore it is my least productive writing time. I don’t know what that says about me as I’m always striving to do the things that encourage stability and you’d think a regular writing practice would surely bolster that. Whatever the case, it just feels good to be back in the saddle again, even if it’s only weekly. For those of you who have asked about the blog and encouraged me to reboot it, thank you for wanting to read more of my scribblings. It’s good to be back.
Be You Very Well 