Member-only story
Writing Through the Illness
Start. Stop. Delete. Start again. The keyboard clicked its impatient response with each indecisive word or phrase.
The creative rivers dried up, leaving barren beds of cracked realities and a broken mind. He’d typed story after story before. Now the wellspring was nothing more than a dry puddle. What happened? Every time he started to process the current reality his mind would stop, he’d become dumbstruck.
No. That wasn’t right. It was more like being caught in between a full-on sprint and a …hell he couldn’t even find the words to describe his predicament.
He’d learned, in part, to temper his frustration with himself. The problem was, he’d suppressed it rather than wade through it. These times provided no other option for him. It just had to be that way. He knew no other.
Then there was the imposter syndrome. A self inflicted sandbox where he’d labeled himself. Where self-esteem thrived and would-be talent wavered on cracked foundations. The sense he simply didn’t belong in the community. His peers seemed in their own tight knit groups and he viewed himself an outsider. A misfit.
“Assert yourself. Be heard.” It wasn’t that simple. Even when others offered support, their requests seemed empty. The invitation to reach out, a daunting task. A belief that he was no more than a burden.
