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Writing Life
Hopalong:
The main reason this realization/epiphany after the month of severe anxiety was that it answered a question I've been struggling with for almost seven years.
If my mothering is over (not only over but rejected) -- what am I living for?
I didn't think it was a FAIR question, and worked as hard as I could to answer it in different ways (social justice, church change, helping folks I work for, loving/supporting friends). But the question would not go away. I told my T over and over and over, "I have lost interest in my own life." I think what I was really saying was, "I have lost a sense of purpose for my own life."
The story I'm writing is full of that love I haven't known where to put. And telling it fills me up and empties me and fills me up again.
Somehow, the connection clicked. I just feel as though there is a reason for me to continue living, and that's to write -- my own story, novel, poems. The poems can be intense or sad, or many have been. I always found ways to make them also beautiful, or moving, to connect. And they did.
But in this story, I'm also getting the chance to tell something moving and because the length is bigger, expansive...I get to offer humor, too. Foibles, fallibility, and tenderness. Having the reading audience laugh (where I'd hoped they would) was more joyful than anything I've felt in a long while.
Since that knitting-together realization, so far:
--I'm drinking 50% less
--I'm walking 50% more
--I feel less tense around others
--I'm listening better
So my writing life is really about my LIFE. And I think it's coming back to me. In a new way.
love
Hops
Hopalong:
Questions I resist from well-intentioned friends IRL:
--Have you written today?
--How far have you gotten?
--How long is it/will it be?
--Are you going to have it PUBLISHED?
These are queries that provoke anxiety and also things I don't want to focus on answering for others. So far, I've found that just saying that, "I work better when I don't focus on that or answer "progress" questions...I realized they make me anxious and pull me away from the process."
It's working so far. Nobody seems to mind a gentle redirect.
xxoo
Hops
Twoapenny:
Hops that plot makes perfect sense to me and would to so many others, and features many things that so many of us would identify with, I think. And raises questions - what causes us to see someone as 'eccentric' (was talking about this with a friend last night. In the UK, he reckons it's money. He works for an elderly lady who he feels would be labelled mad and be pumped full of drugs if she lived on a council estate on a low pension. But she's worth millions and has a huge manor house so people say she's eccentric :) )
And rescuing an abused child - on the surface always seems like a noble thing but so many layers - is there co-dependency? Will the rescuer abandon the child if the child doesn't fit an idea they have of how they should be? Will the child turn on the rescuer as the focus of the rage they feel toward their abuser? And so on and so on and so on. What a brilliant idea, you can take that in so many directions.
A girl I went to school with was fostered by the family of a friend at the same school. They were inseparable and the family went to great lengths to take the girl from the foster family she was currently placed with (and her siblings) and have her go live with them. She was there a year or so and then they decided they wanted to move to a different part of the country - and she wasn't part of the deal. So at sixteen she took two jobs, rented a house and then went and got her brother and sister out of care and brought them up herself. I always thought what they did to her was so cruel; a rejection like that would be hard for anyone to bear but for someone who'd already been through so much - amazing what people can survive without becoming bitter and resentful.
I'm so, so glad to read that you feel life is coming back to you. Isn't it amazing how things can change when we're able to do something that just feels right. I'm so glad you were able to see what that was and that it's have such a profound effect. I'm glad you've got this now to pour your love into - and it's something that others will appreciate as well. I'm amazed you've been able to make it humorous! So often you read a plot description and it sounds like it will be a heavy read, but humour is often the best way to deal with difficult topics. I hope it continues to fill you up, Hops, it sounds amazing :)
And just a curious question - when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you? It's something I wonder about with others. I only realised very recently that I don't tend to tell people my honest reasons for not wanting to do things (because it's usually anxiety) and I tend to make up excuses. I'm not really sure why. So I wondered if you get any negative responses? Only if you're comfortable answering, of course :) I'm made up that the book is going so well and is causing so many other positive ripples xx
Hopalong:
Good question, Tupp:
--- Quote ---when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you? It's something I wonder about with others.
--- End quote ---
People I'm close to, or those who can handle emotional realities, take it fine. Even celebrate it.
People who are maybe more focused on assessing productivity (driven by accomplishment or what-will-they-think-of-me more than inner peace) may draw a blank or be confused by the response.
But if anyone acts judgmental or irritated if I explain myself that way, they're just not people I'd be inclined to confide in. I don't think I'd have a meltdown but I'd register it as non-supportive (not out of malice, but because something about how they judge themselves is being projected onto me). I wouldn't be angry with them, but view them as not able to be supportive or sensitive.
I notice who responds supportively and pays attention to what I actually said, rather than expecting me to respond in a certain way. Those are the people I try to spend MORE time with.
I'm discovering that the more I accept myself, all my reality, the easier it is to make new friends and enjoy my existing friends more. If I'm finding some peace for me, I can also hear them better.
xxoo
Hops
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on November 18, 2018, 09:49:46 AM ---Good question, Tupp:
--- Quote ---when you tell friends that certain things make you anxious is there any negativity from them to you? It's something I wonder about with others.
--- End quote ---
People I'm close to, or those who can handle emotional realities, take it fine. Even celebrate it.
People who are maybe more focused on assessing productivity (driven by accomplishment or what-will-they-think-of-me more than inner peace) may draw a blank or be confused by the response.
But if anyone acts judgmental or irritated if I explain myself that way, they're just not people I'd be inclined to confide in. I don't think I'd have a meltdown but I'd register it as non-supportive (not out of malice, but because something about how they judge themselves is being projected onto me). I wouldn't be angry with them, but view them as not able to be supportive or sensitive.
I notice who responds supportively and pays attention to what I actually said, rather than expecting me to respond in a certain way. Those are the people I try to spend MORE time with.
I'm discovering that the more I accept myself, all my reality, the easier it is to make new friends and enjoy my existing friends more. If I'm finding some peace for me, I can also hear them better.
xxoo
Hops
--- End quote ---
That all makes perfect sense, Hops, especially the part about accepting yourself, all of yourself. We do spend a lot of time rejecting aspects of ourselves, don't we. I've struggled in the past with disclosing to friends as responses weren't supportive and it does make you curl in on yourself. I did tell a friend a little while ago that I was seeing a counsellor about my panic attacks and she was supportive about that. Interestingly, there are friends I won't mention the recent porn incident to, because I know they'll think I'm making too big a deal of it. But the friend I spoke to yesterday works with children (she's a teacher) so she understands the safeguarding issues and the potential legal/criminal implications son could inadvertently stumble in to. So I think it's great that you've got friends you can reveal to and those that you just keep that bit from without seeing it as a big problem between you. I think that is something that I need to work on xx
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