I’ve got writing anxiety. A rather big one I’d say – at least it’s big for me. At times it got to the point that it’d take me over 5 hours to write a sentence and a half. I’ve experienced anxiety attacks over essays, assignments and so on as well as I’ve had some experience of fear and mild panic attacks even when writing in my diary. I’ve tried to get to the bottom of that fear and anxiety and when I did, I don’t think I acknowledged the issues properly, but rejected them on the grounds that I was looking for excuses and I was just lazy or too weak to get a grip and start doing something about them. My Inner-Critic has been perhaps as big as my fear of writing, but I think she makes some good points too. But maybe that’s a topic for some other time.
I looked back at my childhood and I believe that reading ignited the idea of writing. I always loved reading books. I don’t have any recollection of what my first ever book I’d read was, or even how I got into reading ( but I can make a pretty accurate assumption that my parents must have played an important role in this.) I remember I enjoyed being read to as a child – I don’t think it was a regular occurrence, but I can clearly see this picture in my head when my dad or my mother were reading stories to me. I don’t remember not having books in my childhood. In my primary school, apart from compulsory reading we had to do for our classes, I’d read more books and stories at home just because I loved reading. I’d swallow even 3 books a week, which now I think was a tremendous thing to achieve for a little kid. Sometimes I feel envy of a younger version of me in relation to reading. I loved Andersen, Grimm, Polish and Scandinavian writers and so on, but Lindgren was my favourite at that time – I believe I’ve read ‘The Six Bullerby Children’ probably at least 50 times! And I wouldn’t mind reading it again… I had a lot of books in my private library and I also had a membership card to my school and local libraries. I’d read some books more than once as they provided me with comfort or they were just a pure joy to read. I’d read books, mainly fiction, which were addressed to the teenage audience when I was still in my primary school- it didn’t make me any better or smarter than other kids my age, I just simply read pretty much everything available in my school library written for my school age. My experience of reading made me start dreaming that one day maybe I could write a book myself too.
Writing ups and downs
I started writing when I was still in primary school. I don’t exactly remember how it happened, but I started writing short poems. At school I was one of the best students in terms of writing essays. I was even encouraged to take part in so-called ‘Olympics’, where children would compete in their knowledge of literature, grammar and story writing in Polish language (my native language). I wrote a story about a teenage girl on a wheelchair who suffered from multiple sclerosis (MS). I don’t think I got far in the competition ( my knowledge of grammar theories wasn’t that great!), but I remember having discussions with my teacher who was suggesting different ending to my story and my mother putting pressure on me to change the story as had been suggested by the teacher. And I did. With aching heart I accepted that they knew better. My best friend at the time told me that I hadn’t had guts to stick to my story and given in to pressure – I thought she was right, but I was too scared to do anything about it- my writing confidence was nearing the ground. I felt bad.
Nevertheless I could still write for myself. I started writing a diary, which became an integral part of my young life. I continued to write short poems and also humours odes based on my observations of my family and my surroundings. I was mostly prolific during my summer holidays. I was happy to share my poems and odes with people. My dad used to laugh out loud when he was reading them and he’d also comment on how well I was able to capture characteristics of my late granddad and what a great sense of humour I had. His words really made a difference to me and I felt encouraged to write my odes and poems.
In my teenage years I embarked on writing a novel! I laugh about it now, but I was rather serious then about becoming a writer and write a book that would one day become a compulsory book for school children to read. I wanted to produce something deep, meaningful and profound. And I believed I could do it – after all I could write! I didn’t have a clue that there was something called ‘research’ that needed to be done, I didn’t have much of a life experience to know all the intricacies and complexities of human relationships etc, but I just loved writing my novel! I based my novel on all my knowledge I got from books I’d read, events from school, secrets I shared with my best friend at the time, my dreams and fantasies. I didn’t share this novel, or my work on my novel with anyone but my best friend and one of my favourite uncles. Once I caught my dad reading my manuscript and I took it away from him saying he wasn’t allowed to read it! I was rather protective of my work. I’ve never finished my ‘novel’, but I can still remember the feeling I had about writing process – I felt empowered, wise and very happy. I could imagine myself as a successful writer in the future and someone who would make a profound stamp on literary world by the age of 18 or 19. I saw the picture in my head of myself looking elegant, wearing nice clothes, having neatly combed hair, having a car and, in all of that, feeling humble about my success. Hmmmm…..
And then I went to secondary school. From the start I knew that I’d be taught by a well-known – for variety of reasons!- literature teacher. I was scared, but I decided to stay open-minded about him. And I believed in my ability to write. Boy, was I wrong! Very soon it became clear to me that whatever I produced for school, was nowhere near as good as what I used to do in the past- at least for this teacher. I could never raise above an average or mediocre grade and that didn’t do any good for my confidence. But I tried really hard, believing I could one day satisfy his literary requirements. I was wrong again. I didn’t understand what had been required of me and on top of that I had to ensure any political, economical and cultural discussions were in line with my teacher’s beliefs. Additionally, my love for reading was substituted by enormous guilt : we were not supposed to read, write or watch (!) anything that wouldn’t benefit our classes and knowledge of our native language. So I stopped reading all together , apart from compulsory books required for that class. I felt stupid. All.The.Time. But I was still eager to work on my writing, I still believed things would improve if I worked hard, followed teacher’s advice and I still believed at that point that I could write- I just needed practice. And then we got an assignment. We needed to write an article about our school trip. I did a lot of research of the genre, studied and read articles in magazines and newspapers as I was determined to produce something really good. And I did! Well…When I got my work back, I saw the best grade I’d ever received from that teacher! And it was crossed out…And replaced with the lowest grade I’d ever received. And his comments, in a red pen of course, were : ‘It was the best work you’d ever done. A spelling mistake lowers your grade’. And that was it. That was the moment when I officially, in my heart and soul, gave up writing. I couldn’t believe that one spelling mistake would overshadow the rest of my work. But it did. And it was my reality at that time. After this, I didn’t care anymore. I wrote what I had to write, I was ok with my average grades. I wasn’t dreaming about becoming a writer anymore- hey, I couldn’t write after all, right? I kissed, whatever was left of my confidence, good-bye.
All that was left for me in terms of writing was my diary. I wasn’t writing anything else that wasn’t ‘related to my native language’- no poems, no odes, no novel. And some time later I stopped writing my diary too after my boyfriend at that time read parts of it. Since then I’ve struggled to get back into a habit of recording my thoughts and feelings even in diaries.
When I was studying English at the university, I had to take a compulsory writing course. I already had no confidence about writing in my native language, so I was terrified about writing anything in a foreign language. I had to produce different pieces of writing, different styles and genres. But once we were asked to freestyle- we could write whatever we wanted, whatever style, just needed to meet a certain word limit. I wrote something. Just a short story that came to my mind, about a daughter who was to visit her father after years of not seeing each other. I submitted my story, hoping I’d pass that part of the course. When I received my work back, I was stunned- I got the best mark I’d ever got. Not only that – it was actually THE best mark on our grading scale at that time! I actually got something more from this than just a great grade- my teacher came to me and said that that was a great suspense story and she congratulated me. I didn’t continue writing after that either as I was busy with finishing my studies and I was getting ready to move to the UK. But I still remember how positively stunned and elated I felt.
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After I moved to the UK, I had to write reports for conferences, courts, keeping daily record of my work and so on. I didn’t have too much issues with that- I wasn’t looking at writing as a pleasure or enjoyment anymore- it was just something I had to do. My anxiety came up strongly when I failed some professional courses where I had to write academic essays UK style- and I hadn’t done that before! Since then, any attempt of writing anything even remotely academic, has ended up in tears, hyperventilation, anxiety, stress and so on. Of course, it doesn’t mean that I stopped taking courses: I have and still do, and I have been passing them too, but when it comes to writing an assignment or essay, I hit a wall of anxiety head first. And it hurts!
But then something happened… Recently I did mindfulness course online where in order to pass the course, I had to write some assignments. I saw them as semi-academic assignments with a lot of personal reflection. I completed and passed them all. My last assignment was to write a letter to self and reflect on my journey throughout the course. I decided to share part of it with you here (edited version) as it shows an important change for me:
“The very thought of Peer-assessed assignments terrified you, remember? All your anxiety about not being able to write well, feeling confused, different, stupid , ‘so-not-academic’ came to forth and, as usually, paralysed you quite a bit. Clenched jaws, sweating, not being able to stop thinking about it- or rather about how bad you are at writing assignments (…) you noticed fear and anxiety and you faced them all! (…)
And then you were shocked that you’d been complemented on your…writing! (…) [some of the] comments were: “great depth, thank you for sharing”,“Beautiful text, well written…”. You were stunned. You were speechless. You felt something arising in you from the bottom of your stomach to the top of your head- this lovely, warm feeling of happiness and rising confidence. And then this one moment of clarity when you said to yourself : “maybe it’s time I believe I CAN write after all”. And you said it with gentle pride 🙂 And look at you now: just few days after your last assignment, you made a serious step towards writing your own blog 😀
(…)
Keep going, keep meditating, keep being mindful 😀
And don’t forget: YOU CAN WRITE 😀 “
I got some constructive criticism and pointers too, which I am really grateful for.
The Aftermath
So I’m going to write a blog to overcome my writing anxiety and to regain my love of writing and being creative. I’m feeling proud of myself that I took this step and I don’t care at the moment that I may not be a great writer. The most important thing for me now is that I started writing again and that I have courage to face my fears and anxieties. The rest I think it’s just a matter of practice.
It’s been rather cathartic to look back at some issues which I believe weren’t helpful for my writing. I needed to acknowledge that they had had a serious and often upsetting impact on me. But I also need to acknowledge that it was I who let those adversities to take over and it was I who hadn’t taken any action, for perhaps too long, to do something about them. But I am here now!
I watched a really inspiring interview with Cheryl Strayed today and she quoted Margaret Atwood who had said:
“A word, after a word, after a word after a word is power”.
And this is what I need to do: just write a word, after a word, after a word…. It’s all I need to do now.
