My Healing Journey, and Overcoming Creative Blocks

I had a remarkable radio interview tonight with Kate Loving Shenk.  We explored my healing journey, and my upcoming book Healing The Writer.  Listen at the end, when Kate gives me a direction that had been sitting there in front of me, but I hadn’t seen it yet.  Helping other people with creative blocks, based on my experience. The picture is me at age 19 – and I’m reclaiming that creative soul!

Here’s a link to the radio show:

My Healing Journey

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Insomnia: A Writer’s Night Journey

“Insomnia: A Writer’s Night Journey.” Accessing old memories leads a writer into nights of insomnia and fear, and brings him closer to publication.

Published in Life As A Human.

Photo Credit:

“Eminem at 3 a.m.”

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How My Writing Got Locked Up

“How My Writing Got Locked Up.” An author writes an inner child exercise, and discovers a horrible incident with his grandmother when he was eight years old that locked up his writing for many years.

Published in Life As A Human.

Photo Credit:

“Locked Up” Derekskey @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

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The Fearful Writer – Monsters in the Closet

“The Fearful Writer – Monsters in the Closet.”  As he purges intense fear, a writer comes closer to facing some deep abuse issues, and he prepares to face the “monsters in the closet.”

Published in Life As A Human.

Photo Credit:

“Scary_04″ Aliwest44 @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

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The Fear And The Light

“The Fear And The Light.” A writer struggles to uncover and release deep childhood fears that are hampering his ability to write and publish.

Published in Life As A Human.

Photo Credit:

“Deprivation” Jeremy @ Flickr.com Creative Commons.  Some Rights Reserved.

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Scared To Put It In The Mail

“Scared To Put It In The Mail.” An author is ready to send his manuscript information to publishers, but hesitates. He uncovers a terrible resistance — a paralyzing fear — and he’s not sure why.

Published in Life As A Human.

Photo credit:

“Attack of the Lunesta Moth (cropped)”; original by Maxintosh @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

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If I Should Die Before I Wake

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Wait – what’s this about dying?  Am I going to die?  Who said anything about that?  That sounds really scary!

—–

Who would say this prayer to a six year old child?

I’ve struggled with a sleep disorder since I was very young.  I’m working on the issues around sleeping and safety late at night involving some abuse by my grandmother.  But this prayer every night sure didn’t help things.

I remember when I was 8 years old, going to see the movie “The Blob” with Steve McQueen, and for months after, looking under the bed to make sure there weren’t monsters or blobs under there.

I would get into a panic when I couldn’t go to sleep, and go ask my Mom if I could stay home from school if I couldn’t sleep.  She would generally agree, and then I’d fall asleep and be disappointed when I felt rested enough to go to school the next day.

But I just ran across a reference to this prayer in my journal.  I seem to remember it was said to me every night – it may have been something my grandparents said to my parents, and my parents just passed along without thinking about it too much.  It was intended to be an innocent prayer, I guess, of assurance that God would take care of us.  But the “If I should die” part seems like a totally insane thing to say to a small child.

I guess it still bothers me, because upon reading about this prayer, I immediately sat down to write this blog post.

 

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PTSD – And Didn’t Know It!

I spent a lot of time walking around Houston in the middle ’80s with many of the symptoms of PTSD, and didn’t know it.  I was having flashbacks – of occurrences I didn’t remember.  I felt like the man in the Bourne Identity with amnesia, who was getting glimpses of his past – a past he could not recall.  Sometimes it was like feeling memories – like I was somewhere else living through something.  But I had no idea what was going on, and it was terribly frustrating and confusing.

I would disassociate under stress – I would emotionally numb out, feel like I was up in a corner of the room watching events, totally apart from what was happening.  I had a sleep pattern where I would go to bed at 11 PM nice and tired, suddenly pop awake and be wide awake until 3 AM.  I had outbursts of anger that were way out of proportion to the event that might have triggered my explosion.  I had hypervigilance – I called it my “on patrol” mentality, where I was alert with all my threat detectors going off – but not sure why.  I had an exaggerated startle response – slip up behind me and poke me in the ribs and I was like someone jolted with electricity.  I had stomach problems a lot, feelings of guilt and shame, feelings of betrayal, suicidal thoughts, struggles with substance abuse.

I had all these things going on, and one time in the library found a discussion of this thing called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – only recently recognized as a formal diagnosis.  The short definition was – exposure to a traumatic event in which the person experienced, witnessed or was confronted with an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, and the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness or horror.  That definition, with all the associated symptoms, sure looked like what I was experiencing.

The puzzling thing was – I didn’t have a traumatic event I could point to that might have triggered all of those symptoms.

That was the state I was in when the events in my book “Freedom’s Just Another Word” began.

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