May is Anxiety Awareness Month.

THE ANXIETY & PHOBIA WORKBOOK

BUY @ BOOKSHOP

At first glance, this doesn’t look like a book for writers, does it? 

But many writers suffer from anxiety and panic attacks.

I do.

And I’m willing to bet several of you do, too. Or you have in the past. And, although I hope not, you may in the future.

When you suffer from anxiety as a writer, it can impact your writing, your creativity, your energy.

It’s impossible to write when your heart is pounding a-mile-a-minute, when you can’t breathe, when you feel as though you may be sick,  when you’re shaking, when you can’t get your present worry off your mind, when you have ANY symptom of an anxiety or panic attack.

NOTE: An anxiety attack has a trigger and a build-up, which could be as little as a handful of minutes or over the course of days, weeks, or months. A panic attack is sudden, with no warning, no trigger. They share many of the same symptoms, though, and you can have an anxiety attack and a panic attack at the same time. Last year, I had both, separately.

MY STORY:

Anxiety didn’t use to be something that I worried about. Before my anxiety, it was depression and burnout that I feared the most, both of which I discuss in my book Keep Writing with Fey.

Depression is a monster, but anxiety is a nasty beast all of it’s own. Sometimes anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand, two monsters teaming up for a double whammy. And both (either together or by themselves) can be a symptom of burnout. What’s more? Anxiety can cause depression as well as burnout. It’s that sly, that evil.

Now that anxiety is a major concern for me, I am able to look back and see that I’d been experiencing anxiety for much longer than I’d realized. 

The incident in 2016 (which coincidentally occurred in the blogosphere and which I detailed in my book) that brought on my worst case of depression started with a massive anxiety attack. What I had described in my book (but hadn’t realized) was an anxiety attack triggered by what had occurred. Since then, blogging and the blogosphere has remained one of my triggers. I love my blog, and I know many great bloggers, but that doesn’t change the negative impacts I’ve experienced.

It wasn’t until last year (2021), though, when I realized I had a problem. My anxiety had grown from Gremlin-sized to Abominable Snowman-sized. And there were triggers everywhere.