Why I Am Not Writing…

March 3, 2024

I joke around a lot about being an overthinker, as I understand how ridiculous it can get, especially when I begin to overthink my overthinking. I have never been able to comprehend how people manage to see a clear path forward and execute plans without doing the insane mental gymnastics that I am unable to escape. I envy these people deeply. 

Being diagnosed with ADHD at age 40 gave me a certain amount of relief because I came to understand that task paralysis is just a part of my 

August 15, 2024

Yep. That’s where a post about ADHD and overthinking got left for five months, hahahahaaaa. Have I mentioned that I also struggle with task completion? I’ll continue with what I would have said had I not suffered from a bout of sentence interruptus…

brain, but that relief is undone when I realise that educating myself about my ADHD has not made it any easier to quit the mental gymnastics to which I seem to have an addiction. 

The aforementioned mental gymnastics, or overthinking tornadoes as I sometimes call them, are as much a part of me as my left foot. I can’t make a decision or take action while I am letting my brain run its program, sifting and sorting and connecting ad nauseam.

So. Why do I not write?! That is the post I intended to make when I sat down today (as you may have noticed by the title). I can’t seem to write until my brain comes to some sort of conclusion about the cacophony of thoughts and reasonings and conclusions weighed against one another under several different “what if” scenarios. This has been going on for months, because of a life event that I am not going to share, but was a repetition of an old pattern I swore I would never repeat.

As sometimes happens, I sit down to write and discover that I already made a false start on the same topic on a different day and completely forgot about it. Have I mentioned that I have ADHD? Here is that forgotten post:

Why Don’t I  Write?!

July 28, 2024

I already know the answer to my own question.  I am not writing because once I write something down,  it is real and I can’t live in a state of emotional ambiguity any longer. I often wonder why that is, because I obviously know that it’s real once it has happened, but the impulse to deny the obvious or wait for my  brain to find some sort of narrative within which a crap event makes sense and is therefore acceptable is not one I can seem to quit. 

        I rarely write just to express and process my emotions, I write in the hopes that a solution to whichever problem in my life is causing me distress and/or rancour will somehow emerge.  It’s my downfall in many cases,  refusing to accept that what is, is, and that nothing I can do (or think) will affect the outcome.  That sounds like quitter talk to me,  but I am told that it’s just acceptance. 

        I need to remind myself often that the only thing I have control over in this life is my own behaviour. Actions don’t only speak louder than words,  to me they are the only way to know the contents of somebody’s character and heart. This does not bode well for my current situation, and it is also the reason that I always restrain myself from action during moments of what should be heated emotion. 

I have always thought that was a sound policy, and people always comment on what a great person I am and how I am cool under pressure, but I am starting to wonder if my actions can possibly define me if I can not act without overthinking. I am beginning to think that it smothers my true feelings under the guise of being rational, just as it stifles my creativity. I am beginning to see how difficult it must have been for my ex-husband, among others, to be in a relationship with me. In fact, as I age, it is beginning to reek of inauthenticity at best and self-deceit (leading to outright deceit) at worst. 

My current partner comments happily that we never fight, but I don’t think that’s a good thing. I wonder if I am just avoiding inevitable outcomes by refusing to express feelings. He’s having a relationship with the over-processed thoughts rather than having a relationship with the emotive human being in front of him at any given moment. That doesn’t seem fair to him, and it leaves me feeling that nobody actually knows me. I don’t even know me, if it is true that I never let myself process emotion in the moment and instead overthink for extended periods of time. 

Well. There you have two or three starts on posts that I began while I was wondering (worrying about) why I could not seem to write a blog post if my life depended on it. I’ve read about writer’s block, but I have always thought that each writer who can’t seem to write is blocked in ways as unique as their fingerprint, so I usually read the beginning and tune out pretty quickly.  

Recently, I have been in therapy where the main goal is for me to “feel my feelings” because for the most part, I refuse to do so. I have for a long time. It has enabled me to achieve a lot of great things during long periods of trauma and unrelenting stress. If I had stopped long enough to feel stuff, I would never have gotten anything done. 

It seems to me that writing is the complete opposite. I can’t write if I am refusing to feel my feelings. I used to compose stories in my head or write narratives of interesting things that were happening around me, but I was never committing anything to the page. Then I read “The Idiot” by Elif Batuman and had an epiphany, but that’s a story for another day. Gotta keep this train of thought on track. 

My point… and I do have one… is that I can’t write when I have a tornadic event of overthinking taking up all of my brain power. Often, these tornadic events of overthinking are a result of: 

1. ADHD. Not just the task paralysis and other executive functioning issues but the accompanying emotional dysregulation. 
2. Not feeling my feelings, not reacting to things, and letting my overthinking brain run its “program” in the background for weeks on end until an answer spits out. This is usually a time of extreme DOING to try and manage the physical energy created by the stress of the overthink. Gold star for being productive during a stressful time! 
3. Fighting the feeling that once something is committed to the page, it is real and therefore permanent. I don’t like writing down inconvenient feelings, even if they are true. 

So. Why bother writing all of this down? Why this rambling, ridiculous post? 

I can’t write because I am resisting feeling my feelings. I am resisting practising mindfulness because it is all but impossible to lie to yourself when you do. I have been too “product focussed” and I need to remember to respect the process, to write and interact in the moment even if it is messy and causes fights. Even when the process is inconvenient and uncomfortable. 

For those of you who are writers, I would really love to hear your process, but I would also really love to hear about your particular blocks and the steps you take (or don’t take) to resolve them. 

I also wonder if it is the same for writers of fiction as it is for people who share stories about their own lives. I have made some starts on short works of fiction, but you know, I’ll probably have to make a few false starts because most of them end mid sentence.