Let me know if this sounds familiar:
Every time I sit down to write I get this massive wave of anxiety that takes over me. I second guess every word -even when writing in Spanish-, and I find myself correcting a paragraph over and over, always starting from scratch.
I also struggle focusing. I read emails. I like a pictures on Instagram. I get terrified with the news on Facebook. I read and answer a WhatsApp thread.
I feel stupid. I shake my head, go get coffee, sit down and think about maybe doing some yoga later (which I never do).
I try to breathe. CBD oil. Eating a salad. Meditation apps. I pick the "Focus" playlist on iTunes. Nothing. Everything else seems more interesting than sitting down and facing the Word-Monster. My flawed creation that will never meet the high standars I've set for myself.
So I try to sleep and go to bed. I roll in bed with my phone in my hands. I remember what I read about your phone keeping you up instead of soothing you, so I might exchange it for a comic book that I read completely without feeling tired. I turn off the light and take deep breaths. Then images come at me: lists of things that I need to do, an email I forgot to answer, I will tell Virginia we need to do laundry on Saturday... and then, all of the sudden, these deep questions start to pop up: What am I doing with my life? Is this it? Is this all that I am? What is my "contribution" to academia, not to mention the real world?
The Word-Monster is waiting, locked up in my laptop, dangerously complex: "It's a trap" -I say to myself- "I've set myself in a trap". I was told I couldn't be without school. Maybe I was told a lie. Can I do this? Can I still do this? Can I even do life?
Now it's not just the Word-Monster that I am horrible at taking down, but life. Life, in all its apparent simplicity, is becoming an impossible obstacle. Life is kicking my butt.
I sit in my bed. I tell myself "Nothing is happening... Look around, everything is fine!". I can hear the dog snoring, the cat licking her paws at the bottom of the bed, my partner's breathing. And yet I seem unfit for it all.
Unfit to write, unfit for life.
#GradSchool #ItsATrap!
