Creativity and Mental Health

Forgive yourself for being human, and give yourself space and grace

Let me tell you, some things clicked. I understood some tendencies of mine, but I didn’t think of it until a couple months ago when I was reminiscing about my creative life and how I wasn’t taking care of my mental health.

Let’s be honest. Anyone who aspires to be called an author someday has been in this stage. You write every day, every night; and if you’re not doing it, you wish you were. You have these unceasing ideas flooding your head, and your fingertips burn, aching to put all those words into the keyboard — or on paper.

I used to be this obsessive when I was younger. I finished two books, plotted ten more, and won a couple of online literature prizes. During this time, I’d have constant anxiety and panic attacks.

I would be plotting in my head all day long. I’d barely socialize, I’d barely sleep. My shelves are filled with dozens of notebooks where I keep timelines, notes, drafts, research, and even psychological analysis of my characters.

I was all-hands on my craft, so I was lacking in life.

You see… it’s not that I was pressured into doing or being anything. No one was expecting me to be my country’s next Nobel Prize. None of that stress was external… it was my own pursuit for perfection; that naggy little thought that I mustbe nothing but a writer to become a real writer.

Don’t we all suffer from that same mindset? You’re not an artist until someone else says so?

This led me to a great achievement: I was 22 when I published my first book.

But things don’t always go the way you plan: I was 24 when I had to cancel my contract. My constant pursuit of perfection didn’t…

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