After Mental Health Awareness Week finished, I was determined to start writing a least a post a week about mental health issues. It’s now been 17 days since my last post.
It’s not that I’m not writing anything. I have nine drafts saved that I could share at any time, but I just haven’t been able to bring myself to publish them yet. So I’ve been doing my usual getting frustrated at myself for not being able to put anything out there despite having things to share, whilst completely overlooking the reason as to why I might be feeling this way.
The problem is that I think too much. I figured it out this morning whilst writing another post that I don’t yet want to share. During MHAW I had a deadline everyday that I had to meet and so if the post wasn’t absolutely perfect by the time I shared it, it didn’t matter to me because it was the best I could do with the time I had. But now I’m back to my free, deadlineless, structureless writing habits, I’m struggling to share because I’m worried about getting even the smallest detail wrong.
I’m getting all these thoughts like ‘people are going to judge me, because they KNOW I’ve had like a week to write this and if I make a mistake they’ll think I’m shit and in fact, all my writing IS shit so of course they’ll think that and why am I writing this anyway this is hard and stressful when I could just curl up on my bed and stare at the ceiling and think about how shit I am’. And so then I do just that and end up in an endless cycle of not publishing anything and then beating myself up for wasting my time staring at the ceiling because that’s all I seem to be good at.
I don’t really have a solution to this yet, except to write this ramble and share it as a way of proving to myself that just sitting down and writing and sharing is still possible, and that I need not be embarrassed of things not being perfect all the time because at the end of the day I am human. I am always going to make mistakes, but if I always try to avoid making them I’ll also avoiding any possibility of things actually going my way.
Let's Kick the Bucket List 
I have just begun blogging again myself, after having a few months off for exams, and at first I thought the same, what if I can’t write anymore? But I just said that either no-one will read my work, or someone will, and if they leave feedback then something has been learnt. I have anxiety and this is my way to express all the words that I don’t say apart from amongst friends. You aren’t alone. I really strongly suggest just hitting publish though, do it quickly. That’s what I do, then I feel really anxious for ages, then people read it and no hate mail comes so all is good! Honestly, you have written for a purpose, clearly, so you need to publish. (See, now I am thinking, do I press send, and what do I do? Do it quickly)
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You’re so right, hopefully I’ll be able to let myself hit that publish button (and quickly) over the next few weeks. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment 🙂
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