The past two months I have suffered from what I have been calling “writer’s block”. I have so many ideas of things to write, what I do not want to write, and what I want to say within those posts. While I have the ideas, the concepts, and the things I want to say; I get paralyzed by the act. I have struggled with doing before, right now thinking about writing has been blocking me up.
When I was younger, I would get choked up in conversations I was not comfortable in, I would clam up in front of strangers, and I would recede into a safe place. Over the years, while my social anxiety has grown to be less of an issue as I have grown into better coping mechanisms. “Writer’s choke” might be a better name for what I am experiencing.
As I sat down to write this post with only the idea and a few points I wanted to ensure would be covered, my hands started to fly. I do not struggle when I actually sit down to write. However, the anxiety of experiencing disappointment, embarrassment, and failure sometimes are too much. I had writer’s block/choke/fear-of-failing. The cure to this phenomenon? I am not sure to be honest. Dolly Parton once said that her “desire to do it was always greater than my fear.”
I do not think there is a cure for many things of this nature. Not all hope is lost just yet because while there may not be a cure there is hope. Over time, letting and forgiving yourself for the moments where you are the most human helps you. When I think I might fail, I do not think “what will I do when I fail?” I think “If I fail, I will just try again”. Sometimes your brain might give up before anything actually can happen. That is not fair to itself or you.
Today I am deciding that while there is a lingering fear, I am tired of not writing. Not writing for those two months sucked. In my day-to-day conversations, it messed my trust in my own words up. I doubted what I was saying and was less confident. As I reconnected with myself, faced my anxieties and fears, I found that talking, writing, and thinking all came easier to me.
Realistically, I might encounter a “writer’s choke” again. Now I know how I am going to deal with it. I am going to do, rather than wait for everything to connect neatly. It is okay to make mistakes, and learn from said mistakes. It is how you grow as a human.