GET YOUR HEAD RIGHT

I struggle most with writing when my head isn’t in the right place. What is the right place? For each person it’s different. For me, it’s when I feel good physically and when I feel good about myself, emotionally. Physically, it’s just hard to write when you’re not feeling well, when you’re coughing or blowing your nose every five minutes, or making frequent trips to the bathroom…nuff said.

But emotionally is where I’m most fragile. It’s very easy for me to get down on myself. A very negative and mentally abusive father, though long dead now, still “lives rent free in my head,” as they say. He’s in there moving furniture around, leaving fingerprints on the glasses, changing all the presets on the remote. He knows where all my buttons are hidden, where all the worst things I can think about myself are stashed.

In truth, as is always the case, it’s really not him, it’s me. When alive he convinced me I’m not good enough, and even if I were, I don’t deserve any success, because I am only bound to f–k it up eventually anyway. In what I’m told is a common psychological twist I still don’t quite understand, after I moved out, instead of leaving all that behind, I’ve taken up his mantel and now do all those things to myself. That guy in my head is just an avatar of him – it’s really me.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve managed to lock him in a basement room and, for the most part, ignore him. There are even times when I’ve had the pleasure of going down there and gloating over some success or triumph. Those are the good days. But it also doesn’t take much for him to pick the lock and get out, running around up there wreaking havoc yet again.

A careless or off-hand hurtful word from a loved one or even a stranger; a moment of carelessness on my part, hurting someone else and making me ashamed of myself; even putting effort into a project and failing. All of these are the skeleton keys, not only to letting him out of his cell, but giving him access to all the past things I’ve tried to forget, dragging them out and parading them in front of me, making me feel even lower.

How do I write on days when outside events have shaken my confidence? I have to be honest with you, I haven’t found a sure way yet. For me, the only thing that works is just to force myself to write. Sure, the first few paragraphs I put on the page at a moment like this are, in the vernacular of my ancestors, pure shite! But if I can stick with it, sooner or later it smooths out and suddenly I’m in my other world, the world of my making, where I control all outcomes, where the good guys eventually win and the bad guys get paid back for all their evil. I can always go back later, after I’m feeling good again, and fix the bad parts.

Meanwhile, this doesn’t just make me feel better while I’m writing. When I come up for air it’s with a fresher perspective on all my problems, a realization that no problem is so great it can’t me handled, somehow, and compared to some, my life hardly sucks. My writing isn’t just a job for me, or even a hobby.

My writing is essential therapy!