Writer’s block and mental health

Mental health and the content creator’s worst nightmare

Writer’s block – the content creator’s worst nightmare, and I’ve got it in the worst way. In my case, it’s a reoccurring nightmare exacerbated and intensified by living with mental illness and all its associated imps of the mind. More often than not, searching within for inspiration and motivation feels like navigating blindfold in pitch darkness through a labyrinth of suffocating black curtains in waist-deep, wet cement. For every curtain I pull aside or tear down, those impish shits unfurl another in its place, all the while jesting and jeering and having a grand ole time at my expense. One could simply argue that inspiration, the impetus to create, is all around us—it’s out there in the great, wide world. Just open your eyes and see (“I’ve seen the light, and it burns!” – H. Simpson). They aren’t wrong.

Content creation and the struggles we face…

The problem is, I’m not creating content for the sake of ‘creating content’. I do so to educate. By default, that content must originate from the heart (from within). However, when I’m trapped deep in the catacombs of my own mind, my heart’s connection to the outside world is lost—cut off—and creating feels impossible. I know I’m not alone. There are others struggling as well. I can hear their muffled cries for help interspersed with intricate and expletive-ridden recitations of verse perfected through time spent in writer’s hell.

Mike Ness of Social Distortion put it eloquently in his matter-of-fact, brutally-honest way of delivery, singing “That’s the way that it goes when you’re down here with the rest of us…and I know how you feel.” I do know how you feel. If you’re out there groping and stumbling in the dark, speak up. Perhaps we can help each other to find daylight again, that we may continue to create and educate from the heart. – Brian