Okay. As I sit down to write this piece, it's 12:17am MST. It's now officially Monday, February 4, and I once again find that sleep will not come. For me personally, this is nothing new. In October of 2014, I was unknowingly staring in to the pit of what the next four years would become - crises, near-death illnesses, rape, and the inability to find steady and gainful employment. As I write this, it occurs to me that it has been FOUR YEARS of one-thing-after-another, with very few high points between the lows. It has literally been what feels like a never-ending nosedive into nothing... into something I can't quite name, but I could certainly describe the feeling of. What started off as any other regular Monday morning in October 2014, would mark the day that my Mum was rushed to the closest hospital and promptly put on life support for the next 3 weeks. It was then that I began to find myself laying awake until the wee hours of the morning and sometimes even all night, racked with worry and fear, guilt and sadness at the thought of my mother's life coming to a premature end.
Luckily for me, she survived. I have been blessed with ongoing opportunities to tell her how much I love her, and how much she means to me. And I am so grateful for those little moments when we sit together and laugh over a cup of Maura-strength coffee (it has been said that you can literally stand a spoon in a mug of my home-brew), which continue to this day.
I have always been creatively minded. From an early age, I was lured in by the idea of standing in front of a crowd of people and making them laugh; making a complete fool of myself just to hear the applause. Legend has it that when I was no more than four years old, I "gave birth" on the couch in a neighbour's living room, much to the horror and wonder of the adults in the room. No fear. It just came naturally to me, I guess. (And the one thing that is abundantly clear from the countless times I've heard this particular 'Maura story' is that my performance was, in fact, rather on point...)
Now a-days, you'll often find me sitting at the bar top counter in my kitchen, scribbling down ideas for new short stories, films I want to make, and books I plan to write. I tend to find myself a part of more than one creative project at a time - something that does not always lend itself to thorough and completed work, but rather allows me the chance to flex all the folds in the creative section of my brain at once. It is exceedingly frustrating - not just for me, but for people I occasionally work with. You'd have to ask Kate if this is something she's experienced with me, but I'm pretty sure she has at one time or another since we met all those years ago.
Here's the thing - in the late spring of 2015, I was formally diagnosed with acute anxiety. Though it shed much light on labelling the symptoms I found myself living with, it also opened a whole new can of worms for me. This diagnosis came on the heels of a serious work-related injury in which I completely moved my right kneecap to the back of my leg. My physiotherapist noticed I was doing strange things in the parking lot as I was coming and going from the sessions with him - when pressed, he told me he'd watched me freeze as I made my way to my vehicle, and after seeing it occur a few times, realized it happened when I was approaching an icy patch or puddle. I slipped on a patch of ice that was cleverly disguised under a decent-sized puddle as I was getting in to my vehicle at work, and managed to lodge myself almost completely under my SUV, at which point the damage to my knee happened... so, I guess it stands to reason that I would subconsciously have a fear of puddles and ice. (It's totally fair to say that I still DO.) After getting this feedback from my PT, I reported it to the workers' compensation organization that had my file, and was immediately referred to a counsellor at a local clinic. I'm SO GLAD I was sent to see her - after a few verbal assessments, she stamped "Acute Anxiety and PTSD as a result of injury" on my file, and thus began my formal adventure with anxiety.
In the years since this all went down, I have started and stopped countless creative projects: there were two documentary films I attempted to get off the ground; the first podcast I tried to produce never quite swelled with the life I knew it could have; the outline for a book about my Pagan lifestyle still sits in outline form in a worn-out notebook that is somewhere in my home office. And these are just the ones I can remember. For a few of these projects, I engaged people on social media, inviting them to speak with me as I lay in my hospital bed in my living room, nursing my broken knee. A few actually made it to my house. But the majority of those who expressed interest never did.
But the fact that the conversations never happened is no reflection of those folks. They are not responsible for the lack of follow-through that seemed to plague the good work I intended to do. Truthfully, I just sort of let those particular tasks drift away from me, the communication between myself and my community members never quite coming to fruition. I remember laying in my living room, staring at the ceiling until all the wee hours of the morning, racked with guilt for not continuing the work with people who seemed very willing to lend me their time and energy to bring my ideas off the page and in to life... I placed the blame squarely and entirely on myself, and began to withdraw from so many of these potential works that I had dreamed up in my brain.
At first, I blamed it on all the morphine I was on to control the pain in my leg. At times, it was worse than childbirth - and I say that with all sincerity, since I did in fact give birth to my second child sans drugs. The morphine took most of the pain away, but conveniently, could also be blamed for much of the haze that was blanketing my mind. But then I had to get off the morphine (which was also a terrible, horrible experience), and all of a sudden, I no longer had that excuse for my lack of accomplishment. Now, it was clearer than ever that there was something going on with me that was preventing me from getting on with my ideas...
Enter the counsellor and the diagnosis of anxiety. LIGHTBULB MOMENT. Now, it was easy to make the connection between the initial burst of inspiration followed by the quick extinguishing of the creative fire. My anxiety convinced me that nothing I could create would ever be good enough; self-doubt is so common though, right? The concern of never producing the perfect piece of art weighs heavily on the minds of so many creative people I know, and I am no different. I began to wonder how many of the people in my artistic circles did in fact suffer from a similar mental illness, and even more so, how many of those folks actually had successful careers in the arts and entertainment industries? Dollars to donuts, most of them have anxiety and depression, and yet... they have developed an ability to flow through those moments in order to achieve their dreams and their goals. So why was this so hard for me??? How did they manage to cope with the darkness and still produce in the light? Where is the balance?
Since I spent close to a year in bed in my living room, I have found a few successes with my writing - I have now been featured three times on a popular Canadian podcast called Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. In front of packed venues, I have brought audiences in to the mind of teenage Maura, and when I had the opportunity to hear myself on the show, the response was deafening - the laughs rumbled throughout each of the stories, and I was and still am so proud of my participation in those events. (FYI - If you're in Edmonton, I'll be back to read for the next edition of the show on March 12!) I co-wrote/co-adapted a few radio plays for the Capitol Theatre at Fort Edmonton Park, and audiences responded once more in such a way that I felt somewhat accomplished for being a part of those productions... and yet...
I continue to struggle with the idea of putting myself out there as an 'artist'. I went to theatre school; I studied film in university; and, more recently, with the success of performing my personal writing, I have started to find my voice in spoken word events. But I still don't feel like I should be there. A part of my brain continues to tell me how awful my work is - how undeserving I am of any recognition for what I have created. Kate and I have our podcast, and we have dedicated hours and hours to generating the content and recording our conversations on a variety of subjects. But I still don't feel like I deserve to be heard.
BUT WHY NOT? Why shouldn't I have the opportunity to put myself out there and demonstrate just how creative and capable I truly am? Could it be all the times I have been burned by senior members of the Edmonton arts community? Could we trace it back further to all those times I didn't get the parts I auditioned for? Or could it actually be the security blanket I have wound around myself as an excuse for never being quite ready to show people the creative me? In recent weeks (and perhaps we can credit this to finally being on a dosage of anti-depressant that seems to be working for me), I have found myself asking more pointed questions - WHY THE HELL NOT? WHY THE HELL AM I NOT BRAVE ENOUGH TO GET OUT THERE? The worst that can happen is people will dislike my work, voicing their negative opinions across social media for all to see... but WHO CARES? I suddenly just remembered a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is actively participating in a number of creative projects in Edmonton in which he said to me, "Continue to create art IN SPITE of all those people." ANOTHER LIGHTBULB MOMENT.
While I have zero academic knowledge of the true connection between creativity and the anxious mind, I do have personal experience with the relationship. I allowed myself to convince me that I was unworthy of putting my art forward, a fraud of an artist who deserves to stand on the outside of success and the accomplished feelings that go with it. And I'm tired of standing here - weary of always looking towards that "inner circle", having to stand on tip-toes to see over the top of the anxiety monster I have wedged between myself and that group. I've smothered myself in enough self-doubt, and likely some self-pity that, should I decide to shed that layer (which I feel is beginning to slowly happen at this very moment), there will be a Maura-shaped mass that perhaps will always stand on the outside - a constant reminder that it's cold and dark over there, every time I turn around to see just how far I've come. And maybe that's the way it should be. While I know I will live with mental illness for the rest of my life, I no longer feel the need to allow it to control me. It is a by-product of a number of battles I found myself facing - most of those I never signed up to be in in the first place - all of which I have fought and lived through.
There's no more time to waste, really. I've spent far too much time allowing pre-conceived ideas to control how far I'm willing to push myself with my creative work. I intend to push through the slumps - always remembering to be gentle to myself when the going gets particularly tough - and back up the hill towards success. I need this. I deserve this. I am worthy of this.
If you're like me, and facing similar struggles with your own work, reach out to me - I would love to chat. Tell me about your experiences with creativity and the anxious mind. While I can't promise I will solve it all, I can guarantee you I will trudge along beside you, offering my hand when you need it, my shoulder when you want to rest, and my heart when you forget how incredible you truly are. We all deserve this.
Now, go forth and create. It's 1:19am, and I've got a play to continue writing. Thanks for taking this little road trip with me.
All my love,
Maura xx
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