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Deleted member 18673
I’ve been talking to my youngest brother, who is a writer and artist like me, about my panic, depression, and suicidalness surrounding my writing (I write novels, short stories, and poems, and am a photorealistic artist).
The underlying problems are my perfectionism, my fear of being nothing without my art, my struggle with worrying about meaning and purpose in my life and whether I have anything worthwhile to live for, fear of other people’s thoughts of me, etc.
I find writing for an audience so stressful right now that it’s completely consumed me and my days. I need to just write for myself, just as a personal form of expression, for awhile before I try navigating again the stresses of sharing my writing. I need to free myself of the fear of other people’s thoughts about me and my work, and separate the quality of my work from my intrinsic worth as a human being, so that I can move past this suffocating perfectionism that is completely crippling me artistically.
I probably also need to do some therapy on the way my mother used to react to some of my art, questioning whether my creative muse was really me being inspired by the devil. I’ve been absolutely debilitated at times by my mother’s strictures on my art. I wasn’t even allowed to paint anything impressionistic or abstract because that was of the devil. The music I composed was of the devil. I couldn’t use jazz or blues chords because that was of the devil. Etc.
I have a lot to work through, psychologically and artistically. So for right now I’m going to do my art privately, for myself and no one else.
The underlying problems are my perfectionism, my fear of being nothing without my art, my struggle with worrying about meaning and purpose in my life and whether I have anything worthwhile to live for, fear of other people’s thoughts of me, etc.
I find writing for an audience so stressful right now that it’s completely consumed me and my days. I need to just write for myself, just as a personal form of expression, for awhile before I try navigating again the stresses of sharing my writing. I need to free myself of the fear of other people’s thoughts about me and my work, and separate the quality of my work from my intrinsic worth as a human being, so that I can move past this suffocating perfectionism that is completely crippling me artistically.
I probably also need to do some therapy on the way my mother used to react to some of my art, questioning whether my creative muse was really me being inspired by the devil. I’ve been absolutely debilitated at times by my mother’s strictures on my art. I wasn’t even allowed to paint anything impressionistic or abstract because that was of the devil. The music I composed was of the devil. I couldn’t use jazz or blues chords because that was of the devil. Etc.
I have a lot to work through, psychologically and artistically. So for right now I’m going to do my art privately, for myself and no one else.
