Falling at the trauma hurdle

I didn’t meet my goals last month.

Read a Book: Done.

Post here: Not done until right now, and I think it’s crossed the line where this one has to count for November and not a late October.

Novel progress: Wrote a little on WIP (maybe 1000 words, don’t want to over sell it) and submitted a pitch for the completed novel to a couple of publishers.

Write a Short Story: Got half way through.

I started strong. Began the short story early, kept thinking and letting it brew and adding little bits. But then I went off the rails.

I had a Trauma Reaction.

That’s what I call it. I have PTSD following multiple miscarriages. There’s probably an official name for what I am referring to, possibly triggered. To me, a Trauma Reaction is when something sets off (triggers, I guess) the trauma bits lodged in my brain, and I feel indefinably crappy for … however long.

It’s ‘indefinably crappy’ because for ages I could not define it beyond ‘idk, crappy?’ Before I had my PTSD diagnosis I assumed I must be having some variant on my usual bouts of depression and anxiety, even though it didn’t quite match. I would feel wired, kind of like anxiety, but without the Immediate Threat of Body Combustion panic factor. And it lasted way too long, sometimes days or weeks. It brought negative self-talk with it, but didn’t seem to hinge on it, and it never felt dark enough to be a depression spiral. It was more like I would get emotionally stuck somewhere else, my body and brain in the right scene but my emotions reading from another script.

Panic is acid yellow. Depression is flat grey. This was dull red.

As I didn’t know what it was, I would try to deal with it the way I would deal with anxiety or depression. Which didn’t work.

When I was told I had PTSD, it made sense. It didn’t feel like depression or anxiety because it wasn’t. It wasn’t responding to the things that worked for them because it was different.

It’s been easier to deal with since figuring that out, but I’m still learning the ropes.

Which brings us to this last month I went to a book-launch/author-talk thing with a friend from my writer’s group and had a Trauma Reaction.

To be clear, the author-talk was really good. I am not at all mad about anything that was discussed. She was great. My reaction was my own baggage I brought and is my own business to deal with.

It was with Holly Ringland, who was very insightful, on the subject of creativity. What hit me was when she talked about the difference between procrastination due to fear and procrastination due to trauma. She described facing trauma through her work, particularly how it made it hard to sit down and write, and how that felt different to the more garden variety procrastination urge from fear of failure. And my entire body went

The world narrowed to red. It wasn’t just a Trauma Reaction, it was more like a Trauma-Reaction-Ception, because what I really had was a Trauma Reaction about realising I keep having Trauma Reactions whenever I try to write.

Right up until that moment, I had no clue there was anything sinister behind me having such a hard time getting words down.

I’ve spent a few of week trying to figure out why I’ve been having Trauma Reactions about writing. I mean, my trauma is around pregnancy, pregnancy loss, fertility, health and medicine. I write commercial fantasy in which (at least so far) I have not included a pregnant or trying character or anything overtly to do with my issues.

Why would writing set off a Trauma Reaction?

My best guess is because I wrote through the time when it all happened. I was in this haze for years while I went through loss after loss, test after test. I had so many ultrasounds I lost count. (For real, recently me and my doctor were trying to find the official report on one of them and we couldn’t because there were so many other ultrasound records for it to hide amongst in her records system). I had nothing else, so I wrote. I wrote and I wrote. Right up until the day I gave birth to my daughter.

And then … I didn’t.

I had just done a childbirth and had a newborn to look after. I didn’t even think about writing for months. And while those months passed, my world turned. It became something full of happiness and love and snuggles (and screaming and sleeplessness and mastitis but, you know, overall). Everything became golden. The red world from before faded to a ghost.

And it took writing with it, as I had accidentally stitched them together.

Just realising all this has helped. After, I managed to submit pitches to two different publishers for my finished novel, which is something I’ve been avoiding for a long time now. So something has shaken loose. But I haven’t written a word of fiction (even this took weeks to face).

So.

My job now is to bring writing back into the present.

Quite frankly, I’m not sure how I do that.

All I’ve come up with so far is to keep at my one-short-story-a-month idea (since I didn’t write them before and the quick turn around should keep everything fresh and moving) even though it hasn’t worked yet, and to try write in locations around the house I didn’t write in back then. My therapist suggested to also start to wear a writing hat and maybe put a plant in my new writing location. Which, honestly, I don’t hate. Any excuse for new hats and plants.

Any tips? Have you experienced something like this?