The other day I was talking to someone in one of my group chats and they asked how I write about things to cope without getting triggered in the process. I essentially said “I just get triggered a lot”.
And it’s true. One thing my therapist has talked about a lot is not being afraid to feel things. So I write about them and hope for the best. And a lot of the time it’s really really hard. For one thing, I have trouble talking about my mental health openly when it’s not to people I know very well. So even this is hard. I wonder who will see it and what they’ll think. So of course writing everything down, even fictionally, is really hard.
I don’t want to go too in depth into any particular diagnoses or anything, but let’s just say my mental health has never been the best. In the last year it has probably gotten the worst it has in a long time. A lot of this is because I’ve been trying to heal and healing often involves getting worse before you can get better. Overall, I have a lot of issues and a lot going on.
Enter Moses.
When I started plotting my current WIP, Moses did not exist. Or he did, but he was an extremely vague concept. That’s how many characters start, of course. They usually take some kind of form throughout the process and eventually seem so real to us that we wonder how others can see them as only characters in a book. That’s how Moses has been for me. He started as a couple words on a page. Maybe even just the word “boy”. And he’s blossomed into a human that I love more than most other humans. I call him my son to people a lot, kind of as a joke. But as time has gone on I really feel like I love him that much.
I’ve written an entire post on Moses in the past, talking a little about his mental health and how it has gotten to the point it is at, but I wanted to talk a little more about why I relate to the kid so damn much.
Moses is a special guy. Like I said, over revisions and replotting Moses has transformed entirely. When I first started developing the storyline revolving around his sister I was just looking for some past trauma or tragedy to build the character. Soon after I began basing him more off of a friend of mine, taking bits and pieces from her journey and shoving them together to form Moses. But during this rewrite— my second draft— he has come to resemble me more and more. We don’t have the same personalities (I think I actually act a lot more like his boyfriend in real life) but we have a lot of the same stuff going on.
I was working on a chapter one day when I realized I wrote 3 chapters into one. This meant I needed to go back and fully replot the first half of my story. Which sucks. Because I hate plotting. But I went back and did it and realized I really needed to work on developing Moses’ backstory more. And when I did I ended up drawing a lot of inspiration from my own mental health journey. As I said, I don’t want to go into detail on that, but basically, we both developed a lot of the same issues as a result of similar things. I just don’t handle it by smoking or drinking like him.
So how in the world do I write this?
How do you go about writing your own issues into a story without completely breaking down in the process?
As I said, the first thing that comes to mind is: you don’t. Sometimes breaking down comes with the territory and sometimes that helps you and the character work through things you need to work through. Part of Moses’ storyline is healing and I think in the process of writing this, I’m healing too.
But when I really thought about how to write about your own mental health without entirely losing it, I came up with three main points that have helped me in the past:
1) Breaks- When I’m writing something that’s really hard for me mentally I take a lot of breaks. And I mean breaks like every other sentence. I write a couple sentences and then pull away and scroll on twitter for a couple minutes. Then I go back and write a little more. Sometimes I throw on a song that has nothing to do with the situation to get out of the headspace for a minute. But, breaks, no matter what you do during them, are sooooo important when you’re pushing yourself through something like this.
2) Outlining- Anytime I’m going to be writing a particularly tough scene I outline beforehand. I don’t like plotting very much, but I like outlining scenes when they’re hard to get through. If I know what’s coming next, I’m not surprising my brain with anything hard. I can work through things a lot easier when they’re planned and when I have a defined route through them.
3) Self care- This should be a given for anyone dealing with mental illness. Self care should ALWAYS be the most important thing, even if you’re not mentally ill. If you’re writing a storyline or a character that involves heavy stuff you need to be making sure you’re taking care of yourself. Eat good food, practice good hygiene, make sure you’re drinking water. And pamper yourself. Write in your pajamas in a blanket fort. Get a nice drink from Starbucks. Promise yourself something fun when you’re done writing. Make sure that you’re putting yourself in a position to not lose it while you write. Make sure you’re practicing good mental hygiene while you work.
Of course, it’s still not going to be easy, but unless you know it’s not healthy for you, I don’t think writing about our own journeys is something we should shy away from. The main reason I write these days is to let people know they’re not alone. I want people to identify with Moses, to see him and know that they can get through it. And if I can’t be brave enough to write him, how am I supposed to do that?
How about you? Have you ever written to cope with mental illness? What strategies do you use?
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