So in this blog post, I’m going to talk about the creative process and how I navigate having a lot of obstacles in my way of creating, as well as things that have helped me overcome said obstacles.
This is the first blog in a series I am planning about different aspects of being neurodivergent, mentally and physically ill, and still trying to be a creator. These will just be the first very basic things I did to come back from a very extreme artistic block. Future blogs will go into this more. Also if you aren’t sick or neurodivergent these tips are really good for anyone I think!
So we all nowadays I’m sure are aware of toxic positivity, the pitfalls of hustle culture, and how striving for perfection can often set us back in our quest to do more. But sometimes in spite of this, we forget these things and push ourselves too far and too hard. I am especially guilty of this, although I am trying to get better at taking care of myself and avoiding burnout. I am going to be talking mostly about my own experience in this post, but a lot of my thoughts and processes are very similar and possibly the same as other “creatives” so maybe you will find some comfort in reading this, you are not alone type thing I guess. Also, I’m not a medical professional and I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do want to share things that have helped me.
I think the first and worst struggle I have is with general mental and physical health greatly impacting my output of creative projects. I have a condition called “Schizoaffective Disorder” which is basically a blend of schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder. This is not the only mental health issue I have, but it is the most serious. Thankfully the more extreme symptoms have been (mostly) under control for about five years (roughly). I still have visual or audio hallucinations at times but it’s becoming more and more rare. I also deal with paranoia and intrusive thoughts sometimes. My mood symptoms are mostly under control now, but every so often I will have periods of mania, but these mostly just look like hyper productivity or spending money. But lately, I have been really careful with money, it’s not as much of a challenge as it has been in the past (thank god!).
Throughout my whole life, I have suffered from periods of extreme sometimes at their worst catatonic inactivity and inability to function or create. These episodes were caused by stress, trauma, mental illness, physical illness, and sometimes different combinations of these things. The longest period was from mid-2014 to mid-2017. I was on a lot more medication and obviously, my schizoaffective and PTSD symptoms were severe. Creatively this meant I was literally producing almost nothing. At the height of that time, I was so messed up I couldn’t even hold a pen or write my own name. Also, I obviously had no ability or motivation to be creative in the ways I typically am. To add insult to injury I had to drop out of college right when this problematic period began, where I had actually been very successful because my symptoms started to hurt my education and ability to function in a school setting. It’s still one of the greatest losses I feel I have faced, and I’ve seen some shit. College meant so much to me and my own body and brain sabotaged me. It’s weird to feel betrayed by your own body. So I went from a state of learning and massive creativity and personal achievements to one of the worst periods of my life creatively and personally. In the middle of all this, my father who I was very close to and had always been my biggest fan and supporter when it came to my art, (even when I would just copy X-Men comic panels at eight…) passed away very suddenly. I found myself disabled, mostly agoraphobic, unmoving, and unspeaking for sometimes days at a time, and worst of all, I was left without the creative output or the amount of personal accomplishment and joy I felt from being creative.
I’m not sharing this to get sympathy or explain how hard it was, it was obviously terrible for a very creative output-driven person to become completely disabled. I share this because I know someone reading this might be going through one of these periods or “droughts” as some call them. I bring this up for you, to tell you it is possible to recover and begin creating again. For me, it came back slowly, but the years of 2018 and 2020-2023 have been the most prolific that I have had since I was quite young. I swear to you it is possible to recover and begin creating again.
The way I began creating again started as I mentioned quite slowly. I first had to relearn how to function on a basic level. The depths of depression for me by 2015 were so deep and they were getting very, very dangerous. A large chunk of my sadness and anxiety and actual despair was my inability to take photos or write or paint or draw or make music or any of the things I used to do to feel good or work through bad emotions or experiences. I couldn’t even speak or cry about these things. I would just sit mostly in silence with my therapist and repeat in a monotone manner that I couldn’t do ANYTHING and I felt like I was going to die. My therapist initially worked with me to change one small thing in my day-to-day at a time. The first thing was accepting that black-and-white thinking (all or nothing, yes or no, completely binary thinking whatever flavor you have or can relate to) was destroying my ability to live comfortably. We focused on looking at things on a scale of black to grey to white to everywhere in between.
Being on the spectrum and having some pretty severe mental illnesses it was and sometimes still is almost impossible to not see things like binary, ones and zeros, positive and negative all or nothing. My whole life I have struggled to not see the world this way. Things that I could not categorize enraged and confused me, people especially, “don’t make sense and don’t communicate clearly.” The world felt like a game at times. I find I struggle the most with subtlety or nuance in emotions, although after a life of watching and studying other people, it has improved. So my need for categorization led me to a simple yes or no viewpoint, a simple system to try to avoid stress, but in many ways a very damaging way to look at the world. I have since learned it is imperative that you learn to see the in-between and the nonsensical and the things that don’t fit nicely in a black-or-white category. I also suffer from a lot of control issues, but I will get into that another time.
I find this relevant to the creative process as well because your work, the quality, the scope, the scale, and the output will never be black or white in any way you can imagine it to be (except if you are only using black or white paint lol. But even that is not truly representative of a definite thing, some blacks are actually blacker than others and there are many temperatures and shades of white…but I digress). Things will always be on a nebulous scale that you have the power to define. And also some works will scale in different ways than others and some projects are impossible to compare to one another. Also, I’m a firm believer that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad in art truly. Not universally defined measurements at least. So as a creative, I feel it helps to not think of anything in an inflexible black-or-white sense. (Using black or white figuratively insert whatever system you like here.)
I am not saying there is no such thing as a project failing, there are many ways a project may fail or conversely succeed. What I’m saying is it is never a complete failing or an absolute state. Art is all about continuous learning, experimenting, and inspiration, all art is constantly in flux. The physical characteristics of it may not change after a certain point, but the reality around it, the reality it’s viewed in and through is never stagnant.
So my advice is, treat even the stupidest scribble, the worst paragraph, the most out-of-step melody as something important because they all are in your journey as an artist.
This is how I broke through the art block and inability to really even think clearly. I started out just writing the alphabet, then I practiced writing in my journal, then I was well enough to make a big leap! I still remember it, a crisp October day… I got out my watercolor blocks and started to paint. For two weeks after this, I made strange gelatinous orbs or abstract forms. I still display these paintings here on my website, not because they are really nice to look at or interesting or technically good, but because they represent me coming back from a very dark period of my life. In a way, they are some of the pieces I am the most proud of. After this initial breakthrough, I practiced more and more, and very slowly began to create again. I’m still not technically back to the level I was at when I was in Art School, but having the ability to create again has probably saved my life, and I am grateful for everything I make, even if it’s terrible in some way, a failure in any way, cringe or I never show it to anyone. This brings me to the next step in my recovery and return to being creative.
The next step my therapist and an interim therapist I had because my therapist had a baby, was gratitude.
I know you are probably groaning here. Gratitude is something cheesy Life Coaches and gurus push a lot I know. But there is actual science behind it. If you want to read more about this I will link a paper about it here it’s very interesting. I could explain it but that would take a lot of words.
I’m in no way saying all you need is gratitude and a good attitude to be successful. I AM going to tell you, it helps.
In the beginning, my mandatory therapy homework was making a list of five things I felt grateful for. At first, even this was a challenge. Just my partner, my family, my friends and my cats, and YouTube. That was literally all I could think of. I stayed with the habit almost every day for a while and it gave me an amazing reason to buy another cute notebook! But over time as I healed and my gratitude practice spread through my life, my list actually grew a lot and right now I don’t even have to list things on paper anymore, it’s simply a mental exercise I do from time to time, and after every creative project.
When you are an artist it is important to feel gratitude towards your own and other people’s creations. It’s a good exercise to list what you value about your favorite media or characters or even aesthetics if you want. Not only does gratitude with art help you feel more positive about your work even if it all doesn’t turn out how you wanted… it helps you through examination of things you enjoy figuring out what you value and you can put this back into your own work!
The next step is self-care. I know you have heard this a million times before too, but it is important.
You don’t need to buy products like super shakes or expensive yoga mats to have self-care. Corporations try to profit off of our self-improvement and while it’s ok to buy yourself things, please be aware many things that are touted as self-help are just gimmicks to make money. Self-care can look like anything, it’s completely up to the individual. You know deep down when you are taking care of yourself or not, and what you need to give yourself reasonable, not excessive self-care. It can be simple too, like a fancy soda or a nap after or before you work. This is something I still struggle with, I tend to work through hunger or sleepiness at times which I really need to get better with.
The next step in healing my creative self and improving creative processes is kind of related to and is a subsection of black-and-white thinking: ditch perfectionism. This was a huge one for me. I am a perfectionist to the point of obsession and self-sabotage. I used to literally destroy works I made because they didn’t turn out in a state I framed “perfect”. No seriously, I cannot tell you how many things I have burned, I even burned three books of all my poetry from age 12 to age 18. I regret the destruction so much now that I’m older and thinking a bit more clearly.
It is frustrating to not be able to express yourself in the way you want to due to a lack of practice, skill, or concentration. These are normal feelings. To a point, it is good to try for happiness and quality in your creative work. It is damaging when nothing is allowed to have flaws or you hold yourself to some impossible standard. Whether you are comparing yourself to your creative influences or idols or you are impatient in the processes of creating art you find well done and valuable, this is a very damaging thing for a creative.
I know people who won’t query their novels because they are forever editing them, trying to achieve some flawless state when in reality it is a process that probably will never end. Anxiety makes it worse, as does comparison. I am also guilty of this but I know many talented people who don’t query or never display their art even though their goal is to share their art. It’s ok to make art just for yourself, or if you don’t ever want anyone to see the art, but if exhibiting or releasing your art or music or book or whatever is your goal, know this: It will never be perfect, it’s ok to edit or improve but when it becomes a neverending thing you need to stop at some point. It’s ok to take a long time making things, each person’s processes or timelines, or goals are different. But many artists and writers I know fall into this trap.
Consistency was another thing and making time to be creative. I found scheduling time but still being flexible to be the thing that works best for me. You have to keep going. I’m not advocating for toxic productivity here, I’m simply saying… you need to actually create or take time to think about creating to reach your goals of creating things. I know it’s common sense but art doesn’t appear from thin air through sheer force of will…at least not yet. I made a loose goal of one creative project no matter how small a week and went from there. If you haven’t created anything in a while it’s going to feel weird and sort of awkward, you may still have no inspiration, but at a point, you have to tear off the bandaid and push through. But if you aren’t ready to do this or need more time on the previous steps I mentioned, that’s ok too. It’s a balance of not making excuses but also respecting yourself and your overall health and time costs.
My friend Sako calls this “butt in chair time”, and that’s what it is, Art takes time, at least a second to a few minutes at minimum. I know you who are reading this know this, but you have to create to create. You have to do something, anything. This is a process and it’s ok if you barely do anything, it all will add up in the long run. I promise.
Also, I should mention a form of creativity and self-care is taking time to study and learn or immerse yourself in things that inspire you. If you have trouble thinking of things or finding things to inspire you, a simple thing to do is go to the local Library (if you have one). Libraries online and in physical brick-and-mortar buildings have so many free resources, movies, books, and even video games can be found at some libraries. Again I will say, it’s basically all FREE.
These are just basic steps to work on if you are having trouble such as mental health or physical health issues (within reason obviously) and you want to reintroduce creativity into your life.
Also, I’ll add creativity is anything creative. It could be photography, coloring books, reading, knitting, music, writing, or painting as well as a whole myriad of other things. The possibilities and definitions are ever-changing and possibly endless and it’s all within your power to personalize what you do or do not do.
(* Obviously if you are socially or financially disadvantaged certain creative pursuits are harder to do than others. I would recommend if you are having trouble pursuing your passions to start a gofundme or look for a community center that might offer free or cheap classes. I’m not going to get into how tragic I find it that not everyone can pursue art due to the way our society is right now. But trust me, I think it’s literally a crime. If you are a creative who needs assistance I am a part of a wonderful Discord my friend Iggy runs that is there to help artists who need money or anything else within reason. This discord also has a lot of literature, links, and resources that might help. Message me and I’ll get you the info!*)
Another side note. You will also find the process of re-introducing creativity to your life much easier if you find things you actually enjoy doing or learning to do. Don’t try to force yourself to do something you don’t feel a spark for but also be open-minded flexible and experiment. Also keep in mind that you need to deal in smaller terms, just because you can’t, let us say, “make glass vases” right now, doesn’t mean you never will. You can always add in more things when the creativity is flowing more or you are feeling better.
I know this is a lot but I randomly felt compelled to write about this.
So another note is obviously I had a lot of therapy, and I spent a long time working with a good doctor who respected me and my goals to find medications that helped and allowed me to recover. If you are struggling please seek professional help and keep yourself connected to people who are good for you to be around and are positive healthy influences.
If you ever have questions about my therapy experience or things that I find helpful being a physically and mentally ill person, please ask! I am most active on Instagram but my socials are all linked here. Also if you want an art or writing buddy/personal cheerleader for your projects whatever they may be, I will totally cheer so loud for you.
This is just the first part of a series I’m going to write about creativity. In the future, I’ll go into more details of my journey and my recovery as well as things that help me to create even when I’m not at my optimal state of being! I hope this was enjoyable or helpful in some way, hopefully, I will have more of this series soon! (The topic for next time might be organization and planning skills or debunking the myth of “THE TORTURED ARTIST”. I’ll decide soon. Stay Tuned!)
Have a good day or night !!
Aisling 🤍