A Hiatus, But It Was More Than That

There comes a time when you are rolling right along, the ideas are coming from all directions, and then WHAM…NOTHING! It’s strange. The ideas just disappear. It’s not just writers block as this has affected everything I have been creating. Writing, art, videos, podcasts…everything! I call this a creative block. It has hit me kind of hard and this is the reason why I haven’t written a blog in a while or released much else. So I took a hiatus. Something I needed to do and something I needed to allow myself to do, but it was much more than a hiatus.

I started this whole endeavor almost two years ago. It started in my basement where I have a music room. I began to come up with my own instrumental songs using the guitars and drums I have set up. I began to share this on You Tube. My goal was to provide some level of a distraction and also use the music to help promote mental health awareness. The ideas really came quick and I started branching out beyond You Tube. I made a Facebook page and began sharing the music I was creating there.

I was having other ideas and really wanted to use multiple ways to spread mental health awareness and also to begin to tell my own personal story. I started writing this blog. Blog writing has really opened my brain up in a way I never thought it would. I’m not a writer and really had no desire to write, but I quickly found out I like writing about my story and experiences. The goal being to spread awareness along with providing a means to help myself as well.

This morphed into doing a podcast which kind of mirrored the blog, but also had it’s own direction in sharing my story. I was wanting to use multiple forms of media to provide a choice. We all have our ways we like to receive our information.

A website idea began to form, so I created a website where I could share what I was doing. It also provided me a way to share other things I was already doing, such as art. The website was meant to be a centralized place to share my mission to spread mental health awareness.

Eventually I got the crazy idea of turning this into a non-profit organization. A website being the center of it. I wanted a place where I could continue to share my stuff, and also be a place where others could and can share their works and stories too. This is the website as it sits today: rockingmentalhealth.com.

So, I’ve been cruising right along. Working on the website and also continuing to create and share content. And then one day…POOF…the ideas were gone! Where did they go?

This was a couple of months ago.

I decided a bit of a hiatus was in order. I’m allowed that. I just need to recharge the creative side of my brain and then get back to it. I’ve had some little moments of creative block before, took some time to regroup, and then I was back. Maybe a week or two tops.

This hiatus was different.

The ideas left. I was struggling to come up with anything I felt was worth while. I took a break thinking if I don’t try to come up with something then something will come up. I started to get used to not creating anything. I also became very nervous to create anything.

This nervous feeling was weird. I’ve been doing stuff and sharing it for a couple of years now. Never was a problem before and now it is a problem.

I was afraid to get back into creating because I was nervous (maybe afraid) to share it. It gets really hard to spread awareness when you don’t share. I didn’t want to do anything that would make someone comment back or make me interact in any way with anything on social media.

I began to not care what I did. I really just wanted to hide for a while. I was feeling this way in multiple areas of my life, not just the creative-sharing side.

This has all been during the trial of all these different medications. Some of the most recent ones really helped my depression, but I was having this constant nervous feeling all of the time.

It’s “manageable”, but it is nagging all at once. A constant slight nervous feeling can raise in intensity in your mind over time if you allow it and I basically allowed it to happen.

During this time, I was feeling very nervous, anxious, and scared about doing almost anything.

I began to shut myself off and I began to not leave the house if I didn’t have to. Anything involving the public, not even just a crowd, was making me lock down.

I would check my phone a thousand times worried about anybody messaging me. I was worried I wouldn’t say the right thing. It got to the point I didn’t want to talk to anyone at all. All of these thoughts and actions make it really hard to live your life.

Something needed to change.

It became apparent that the medication I was on was a big part of the way I was feeling. The constant nervous feeling was shutting me down, but part of me didn’t want to see it because I really didn’t want to try yet another med.

I tried to trick myself. That backfired!

I called the nurse practitioner’s office and I was able to get an appointment to see her. We discussed how I was feeling and decided the current med had to be changed as I couldn’t keep going feeling this way.

Oh boy…yet another medication, but I was willing to do anything at that point to get rid of the nervous feeling. I stopped the previous one and started the new one.

The nervous feeling began to subside! Thank you, God!

The constant nervous feeling has gone away. The depression has been pretty good, mostly, except for one week stretch I had where I sank pretty low. I remain to have intermittent shut down nervousness/anxiety, but it isn’t as frequent.

This tells me it was more than the medication making me feel how I did. There tends to always be more than one factor which leads to how we may be currently feeling. I try to keep that in mind.

I am happy to report that the ideas are returning! I am beginning to get back to what I love doing. I’ve even had some successful ventures into the crowds in the form of a couple of concerts. It hasn’t been easy, but it did seem to get easier each time I went.

Things seem to be easing up some. I’ve even shared a couple of things recently. I remain to have some nervousness related to that, but it also seems to be easing up which makes me happy.

Easing up. I like that phrase. I’ve been needing it for a while now. This ride I’m on, while also changing medications around a ton, has been exhausting and has led to a lot of frustration. But it feels like things are easing up.

I’ve been locked in a huge learning process over the past 6 months plus. It’s been good. It’s been horrible. It’s been helpful. It’s been hurtful. I have learned a lot and that I will take.

I’ll take the feeling of things easing up.

The hiatus was good. The hiatus was weird and uncertain. The hiatus was needed. I’m working on reemerging, but I’m giving myself some time.

Today I feel good and that’s where I’m at right now. This is my current pace.

There comes a time when we have to unplug and give ourselves a break from it all. These moments can also be loaded with additional information about ourselves. We can recharge while at the same time we learn and come out even stronger than we were before.

You Got This! I Got This! We Got This! Let’s keep walking this journey together.

Have a great day!

Jason

Feel free to come and visit over at rockingmentalhealth.com. You will find mental health stories and experiences told through multiple forms of creative expression.