I have been sitting in front of this blank page for almost an hour. I have so much to say and not enough words to say it with. It’s a feeling I’ve had to struggle with a lot this last month.
A few weeks ago, I shared a little about my struggles with depression and since then my Inbox has been full of email after email, message after message, sharing stories, sharing anecdotes, and what leaves me without the words to answer—asking for advice.
I have sat with this question of how to help others when I’m still finding my own path and it occurred to me yesterday that the answer to dealing with mental health, or any life challenge really, is not all that different from how we deal with the struggle of writing.
There is a universe of resources, advice, and how-to articles out there, but in the end, how we learn to write is exactly how we must learn to deal with our depression or other mental health issues: We must become experts in our own selves, of our own minds.
Last year, having written 90,000 words of my second novel in a single week while walking four miles a day, sleeping four hours a night, doing all the childcare, and running the entire household like it was no big deal, it was brought to my attention that I don’t have depression but manic depression, and that I seemed to be the only one in my immediate family to not know this.
Just like that, my whole life began to make sense to me. I looked back over the last two decades and the pieces just snapped into place. And I decided then, that I would become a student of my own mind, that I would understand how my mind worked in the day-to-day just as I had understood how my mind worked creatively. I was determined to never again be so ignorant or cavalier about how my brain functioned, what had been so obvious to others but not to me.
When I first decided to become a professional writer fifteen years ago, I did the only logical thing there was to do—I learned everything there was to learn about the craft.
I listened to interiews with writers who wrote their first drafts longhand and I tried the same. It didn’t work for me, so I ditched that idea quickly.
I heard writers say they never outlined, so I tried writing like that.
I heard others say they did outline, so I tried writing like that, too.
I tried things. I paid attention to what came easily and what felt like a battle. I discovered what made me more productive, what made me resistant to even show up to my desk, and what it was that I was good at, even if it came with a struggle.
I learned by (a lot of) trial and error. But I learned.
And what I have discovered over the last fifteen years of writing (almost thirty, if you consider that I wrote my first short story at age 6) is that it is important—no, essential—that you take classes, see how other people do it, learn the skills necessary to become a better writer or better at marketing, and to surround yourself with all the advice in the world so that you know what’s out there. But that, in the end, your mind will not work like mine or the other person who’s taking that online class with you and that you will take what works for you, tweak it and make it your own, and discard the rest.
It’s important for you to know what’s out there, to have a palette of colors to choose from. But you—and only you—can know how exactly your mind works, and therefore how you can color in the events of your life.
You and only you can accurately determine how to be more creative, work more productively, and accomplish the goals you’ve set out to achieve.
The way you write your novel will be different from the way I write mine. And the ways in which you choose to deal with your mental health will be different from mine, too. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss resources, but my advice on therapy, medication, and writing 1,000 words a day is useless to you if, at the core, your mind and body function differently to mine.
To know who you are, you have to become first the student, then the expert, of your own mind.
That is true for mental health. It is true for writing. And it is true for all of life.
Make sure to educate yourself about the various options. Try whatever appeals to your sensibilities. Keep what works. Make it your own. Then build on that.
There is no cure. For me, there is no recovery. But I have gone over a period of a decade from thinking of bad days and worse days to good days and better days.
You can live a very happy and fulfilling life and have a stellar career when it is made up of good days and better days.
I am still constantly learning about how my mind works. So must you.
That is the only advice that ever worked for me.
And it is the only advice I can now give to you.