Writing Through the Pain

I can talk about writing through physical pain. I've been dealing with constant severe migraines for the last year. I'm always either in pain, drugged, or both. I have days like yesterday when I literally can't get out of bed, but other days I can somewhat function, as long as I don't move my head too much.

One of the reasons I started writing was to give myself a purpose -- something to do other than lay around feeling sorry for myself. I knit for the same reason.

I'm having surgery next week which will hopefully give me my life back, but will also mean going back to work full time. Then I'll have a new challenge: fitting the writing in with all the other good things I'll be able to do again.

Sorry you're going through a tough patch. Many of us can relate.

It will help if you make writing a habit - parking your butt in front of your keyboard at the same time every day. A sort of somatic memory kicks in, the world fades away, and you'll get lost in your work.

I find setting a daily word count is useful, and also listening to music, reading poetry, reading anything at all that will let my mind get out it's familiar, painful ruts for a time. Sometimes, for me, journaling helps, because it lets me put all the turmoil in my mind down on paper, and once I've looked it in the eye it's easier to turn my mind to other things, without constantly having to avoid looking at the back corner of my brain. It also helps me to organize myself, to realize what I'm doing and why, to separate my intellectual and emotional responses to any given situation. Once organized, I find it easier to write, and as long as I've got a word-count set, I can usually push myself over the lump of apathy and demoralization.

But really, I would say that while you should try to do as much as you can, as best you can -- if you really just can't, forgive yourself for it. Emotional exhaustion can be debilitating, and it has nothing to do with how strong you are, or how dedicated you are, or whether or not you're "really" a writer. Sometimes the world just kicks us, and keeps kicking, and the only thing to do is to curl up around our soft-spots and wait it out. There's no shame in that.

When I get the blinding migraines I can't see to write let alone move, but the characters are still there. There's enough room in my head for me to sneak in a scene of mayhem--which is petty of me to put my pain on my characters but tough cookies :} Then when I get my head working again I can type it in.

I'm slowly coping with depression and worry and stuff not likely to get well soon, and then my characters let me go with them and escape, even if only for a little while.

aka eraser said:

It will help if you make writing a habit - parking your butt in front of your keyboard at the same time every day. A sort of somatic memory kicks in, the world fades away, and you'll get lost in your work.

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I think this is so true. Like you, I have a hard time getting myself to write when I'm depressed. But, on the other hand, I noticed something interesting in my non-writing life. I recently left a full-time job that I hated and had a few months where I didn't need to work. I thought I'd be much happier and have so much more time to write. What happened? I slept in late, watched a lot of TV, ruminated over how many times I have failed in life, etc. If I wasn't taking a weekly writing class with its associated assignments and deadlines, I probably wouldn't have written a thing.

So, if I was able to sublimate my depression enough to get up every morning at 8 am and function in a mind-deadening job, I think I should be able to do at least as well with my writing. I think the habit has a lot to do with it. Once you get there at the desk and have habits that get you into writing (starting with a warmup or reviewing yesterday's work or whatever) it's easier to write. Maybe it helps if you're writing something completely unrelated to your depression. Or maybe it would be better to channel your frustrations into a story -- sort of method writing, if you will. Usually people who are productive when depressed are writing stuff about shooting down the people they hate, or winning the lottery, or working through their emotions in journals, etc. I'll bet you can turn the things you ruminate over into compelling stories.

Alpha Echo said:

I know there are a lot of writers out there who write their best when things are bad, when they're depressed, or when they're angry. I've always seemed to be the opposite - whenever I'm happy and life is good, I can write out ten pages a day if not more. The words just roll of my fingers onto the keyboard without even going through my mind first.

It is clear that this time in my life is going to be hard. It's not just going to be hard for a week or two, but quite possibly a year or two. When I say everything is crashing down, I mean EVERthing in my life is crashing.

I am really, really trying to focus on my writing. I find that when I can, it sort of grounds me. But it's hard to focus.

Any suggestions on how to write through the pain and depression, shock and anger?

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I was listnening to the radio this morning, and some young kid singer somebody-or-other was asked if he was single, and he said yea, single and ok with it. He was then asked how he writes his lyrics if he's single, because most of his songs were about heartbrea, love, loss, etc. He said yea, well basically I've had relationships and they've ended, and this is exactly how I write my lyrics.

Life might totally suck right now, but you've got both good and gad experiences to base your writing, and if anything, the bad can only give you a bigger imagination to create better writing as a mental way of maybe fixing your situation, you can imagine it the way you would have wanted it to go, you've got things to base your writing on, good and bad.

I've got 60K words of complete chaos that I've written, based on a short period of my lfe. Out of that, I can probably spin a couple other WIP's out simply based on one or two aspects of my current WIP. So I say - WRITE. Write alot. Write notes, write sentences, write paragraphs, write chapters....WRITE.

Good luck.

Yeah, it isn't just you.

I've stopped writing due to emotional stuff and I've stopped writing due to physical stuff. I honestly can't say which is worse, except the emotional stuff ends eventually whereas the physical problems are permanent (mine, that is) with no cure or treatment, so, yeah, I guess I can say which is worse. I have pain and other symptoms that affect how well my brain works, so I tend to be able to write a lot less often than I would really like. I've only got so much brain power available. It sucks, but it's life.

I'll echo what was said above. If you can't write because it's just that bad, don't beat yourself up. Sometimes, that's a perfectly reasonable response. Do your best when you can, and when you can't, do something else if you can.

L M Ashton said:

Do your best when you can, and when you can't, do something else if you can.

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For which case there's always Talisker.

caw

Alpha Echo said:

It is clear that this time in my life is going to be hard. It's not just going to be hard for a week or two, but quite possibly a year or two. When I say everything is crashing down, I mean EVERthing in my life is crashing.

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I'm going through something like this. It's been hard for a long time, now. It's "harder" for about 1 1/2 years, and it's really hard right now. But maybe I'm reacting differently to it, or I have different words.

Writing has become increasingly difficult, but it's only become really difficult now, when depression is very noticable. While I was still feeling the pain, writing was viable. Right now? It's not so much writing through the pain, as it is writing through the... jelly. Everything's hard. I'm moving in slow motion. I'm noticing that I'll be dropping things for what appears to be ages, but I can't seem to interfere in time. Life in the bubble.

Now, I've always been a slow writer; since I'm generally slower this means I'm writing slower as well. Which means that I need more time to write. Which means that I need more computer access, and that's just not viable. I'm trying to go back to pen/paper, but that's hard for a different reason: I'm very much a creature of habit. I used to write pen/paper all the time, but now I have to make an effort to get into it. And trying to change your habits isn't exactly easy when many other things come unhinged... It may seem trivial, but you don't exactly want more change.

But that's not the biggest problem. Why am I slow writer? That's mostly because I mull over sentences. I go online to research single word choices. I delete, reorganise sentence. There's no such thing as a writing flow for me. My mistakes do include typos, but they don't include - say - the rushed sentences (forgetting conjunctions, punctuation etc.) that I see with others. Instead, I get copy/paste errors. Fragments of previous sentences I fail to delete. Things like that.

But this kind of writing approach requires "judgement". And here's the real problem. During my depression I have this instinctive idea that "I suck". Generally. Everything about me sucks. It's hard to fight. But a side-effect is that when formulating a sentence I lose the ability to decide which sentence version I like better. And - for my writing style - that's a desaster. I can write. I have to spin into objective mode, a bit like roleplaying a non-depressed self. Working from memory. But that's extremely exhausting, and when I'm done I won't feel any sort of satisfaction. I then have to resist the temptation to delete what I've just written (deleting bad stuff is a habit of mine; I don't like clutter). I need something there for later editing.

I don't think I can get a handle on that problem without getting a handle on the depression itself. I also have to stop beating myself up over not writing. That's, in a way, being depressed about being depressed - unhelpful.

I'm nearing the climax of my first novel. Talk about bad timing, huh? I'll get done what I'll get done, I suppose, and continue to try to revert to pen-paper mode.

Not much else to do, writingwise, I think.

L M Ashton said:

Yeah, it isn't just you.

I'll echo what was said above. If you can't write because it's just that bad, don't beat yourself up. Sometimes, that's a perfectly reasonable response. Do your best when you can, and when you can't, do something else if you can.

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I agree. You don't have to write. Do whatever works and don't put yourself under unecessary pressure. It is really OK not to write every day, to give yourself time to deal with bad stuff. If writing doesn't help but becomes a burden - ditch it and take it up again later.
I think the 'write every day' dictat can be very damaging.

Alpha Echo said:

Any suggestions on how to write through the pain and depression, shock and anger?

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Take all that pain and depression, shock and anger, and channel it into a new character. Let everything you feel and every word you want to say, yell, shout, or whisper to someone(s) flow through you into the character. Basically purge yourself by writing a character that is having, confronting, and resolving the issues you are having in the way you wish they could be resolved.

Always works for me, at least.

Best of luck.

Prozyan said:

Take all that pain and depression, shock and anger, and channel it into a new character. Let everything you feel and every word you want to say, yell, shout, or whisper to someone(s) flow through you into the character. Basically purge yourself by writing a character that is having, confronting, and resolving the issues you are having in the way you wish they could be resolved.

Always works for me, at least.

Best of luck.

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I can relate to emotional pain of the very worst kind. My daughter was murdered in 1988 and out of all the pain, anger, helplessness, came some of the best writing I've ever done. What was it Wordsworth said about poetry being emotion reflected upon in tranquility?

My heart goes out to all of you who suffer, emotionally or physically.

Part of what keeps me going is the small things to find joy in. The cats are crazy: slapping each other, bouncing sideways and tails the size of bottle brushes. I nearly choked on breakfast laughing so much. We make fun of the cats too, so that is a mood lifter. Our cactuses bloom--tiny things maybe 6" high and 3-4 pink or yellow flowers delicate & a 180 degree from the prickly sides. Even going to Icanhascheezburger for a smile helps. It may not last but it can ease the heart for a bit.

The biggest thing for me was allowing myself to:

1. Actually write through the pain

2. Be brutally honest with myself and where I was when I was going through the pain

The hardest thing for me to learn was that love can be very ugly. True, unconditional love is a mixture of both love and hate. And that all the pieces that were shattered in my life could and would be pieced back together in time.

Writing through the pain was some of the hardest writing I've ever done, but looking back, it was probably the best writing I've ever done.

I would start with an idea. I would think over the thing that was causing my pain, and I would ask myself "how do I REALLY feel about this? When the chips fall, where do I stand on this issue?"

Then, I'd set my mind to write. At first it would come out stilted, but the more I wrote about it, the easier it got. The easier it got, the more I was able to let go and be honest with myself. The more honest I got with myself, the more healing I found in the situation. To me it was like a salve squeezed out on a wound...painful at first, but then refreshing and calm.

Is there any way you can "give" your pain to your characters to deal with? Not permanently or literally, but to help you work through it? If you write fiction, there are all these people in your head who can act as a sort of mental support, if one knows how.

I'm constantly anxious and depressed. There's no "huge crashing moment" with me--it's almost always a low. I can't write when I'm terribly upset, but seeing as I'm never at a peak moment (chronically depressed), I have to write through the continual low somehow. When I was little, I would give my bad feelings to my characters, by slipping into their minds/personalities and "pretending" to be them, and since they're better at dealing with such things (I don't really have a support system to rely on, no friends or anything), that would help me feel a little better.

I've lost the ability to do this as I forced myself not to (I thought it was "silly" and childish to do it, but I never developed any other ways of dealing with pain in the meantime), though I'd like to regain it somehow. Meanwhile, it sometimes helps to give my characters painful situations to deal with--they're not the same situations, but the emotions are the same, and as before, my characters are better equipped to deal with such things than I am. I'm not completely alone if I'm writing them. (Though a real-life support system is still something I need and am looking for--I would never advise anyone to rely solely on their imagination, but for some of us, it's literally all we have.)

I don't know what kind of writing you do, so if you don't write character-based fiction this wouldn't work well, I'm afraid. Well, maybe even if you write nonfiction, there are still "characters," and their emotions can be explored. Just within tighter guidelines.

Sorry if this isn't terribly helpful.

ETA: Prozyan hit the nail on the head.

tehuti88 said:

Is there any way you can "give" your pain to your characters to deal with? Not permanently or literally, but to help you work through it? If you write fiction, there are all these people in your head who can act as a sort of mental support, if one knows how..

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Yes you can. I have a character in my book A Bucket of Ashes who loses a daughter in an accident. Her pain is my pain.

Hey, I know how you feel I got Obessesive compolsive disorder, it was terrible! I am still getting over it... The worst part is since its a mental illness I think that i am crazy,
Celeste

I also had depression, 2007 just wasn't my year at all...

Alpha,

I agree with Timewaster. So many writers claim you have to write every day, but you shouldn't pressure yourself.

In addition, I'd consider all the great writers who were suffering and/or depressed. Perhaps write through your pain, as stated above, and let your life be your story.

The only other advice I'd give would be to be careful re addictive substances (besides keyboards), and to try prayer. The latter works every time I've ever tried it.

Jim

Alpha Echo said:

It is clear that this time in my life is going to be hard. It's not just going to be hard for a week or two, but quite possibly a year or two. When I say everything is crashing down, I mean EVERthing in my life is crashing.

I am really, really trying to focus on my writing. I find that when I can, it sort of grounds me. But it's hard to focus.

Any suggestions on how to write through the pain and depression, shock and anger?

Click to expand...

I totally get you on this. I'm fighting infertility and, like you, I have no idea when--or if--it will get better. And it sucks. Big time. I can't even begin to describe the devastation of being 24 years old, married to the absolute love of my f*cking life and having crapped out ovaries. I mean, there just aren't any words strong enough.

I, too, find that writing grounds me. In those hours spent at my keyboard, I can escape all those humiliating and painful tests, forget about the dozens of negative pee sticks piling up in the trashcan, dodge the phone calls from ecstatic (and not so ecstatic) friends and family announcing their unexpected (and sometimes unwanted) pregnancies, and ignore the trite and often dismissive "advice" from friends/family.

I've tried channeling my feelings into my work...but yeah it doesn't quite work when you write erotic romance. There's really nothing *sexy* about infertility. Of course, my roiling emotions were perfect for the dark urban fantasy I recently completed...

I wish I had some better advice. Some days I feel like Gatsby. You know, boats beating on against the current and all that. I think the best we can do in these situations is just keep on keeping on, you know? Hell, it's got to get better eventually. Right?