The Other Me
‘Shut In’ viii. The first time I’d come out of major issues with anxiety and depression, it was with a sense of triumph and liberation. I was free. It was like overcoming an illness, and putting it behind me forever. Of course, I was only twenty-one, so I was still at an age where I had a sense of invulnerability about my health, and the prospect of my future was new and exciting. I didn’t feel that this time. This time, there was a sense of tentativeness, to come back out into the world and yet have this hang over my head, an unwanted visitor who could strike again. You…
The Other Me
‘Shut In’ v. Writing was my best therapy. It had always been my best therapy. I could live vicariously through writing, but I could also vent and make sense of the thoughts tumbling around in my head; I could be biographical, through events, through characters, through emotions, whilst writing fiction; I could tell and share stories with the world around me … if I could ever make it. Because making it was another matter entirely. Once, there’d been an unassailable self-belief that it would happen, but now I was pushing past my mid-20s, had a couple of (unpublished) novels, a handful of screenplays, and lots of short stories behind me,…