A Study In Stress

When writers write about their craft, stress tends to become a recurring theme. Have you noticed that?

Not that this site would have anything to do with stress. (And if you’re not drowning in sarcasm right now, I’m doing it wrong.)

When it comes to writing specifically, stress comes in many forms: the inner critic who tries to convince you that it’ll never be good enough, obligations you may feel toward your family to obtain/maintain a “real job”, stress that comes from giving or receiving a critique, or from letting someone read your baby for the first time . . .

Then there’s the stress of whatever day job you happen to have (and they all come with their fair share and more of stress), or the stress of unemployment, the stress of keeping your home or maybe not having one at all, or wondering how you’ll feed your kids this week (never mind next); maybe the stress of school, of getting good grades of wondering if your friends are really your friends or if they’re stabbing you in the back . . .

I’ll do us all a favor and stop listing them. Just thinking about all the various scenarios is stressing me out.

But there are also good kinds of stress! I promise!

Well, there are for me. I love the stress of a writing deadline. Writing under limitations pushes me to do more, to stretch my imagination further. Some of my best ideas come to me then.

I also love doing things that scare me. Not for the stress, how I feel before, but for the exhilaration during and after of having done it. Whatever it is, every single time has become an amazing experience.

Which kind of leads me to my whole point: everyone reacts to stress — and to different kinds of stress — differently.

Good-for-me stress makes me thrive. Bad stress tends to keep me from writing, which makes me even more stressed, so I write even less . . . see where this is going?

Some of us lash out at the world around us. I tend to turn it inward. Bad stress pushes my self-destruct button. Bad stress most often leads directly to depression.

And it’s this sneaky, evil thing that wriggles and worms around so you don’t know what, precisely, is wrong. I’ve gotten better at identifying it in myself. In the aftermath of my dad’s death, noticing it before it grew too bad became a survival skill.

When I’m bad-stressed, I make lists. Lists help me feel in control and make everything a little less overwhelming. I try to unplug or at least avoid excess screen-time. If I need an escape, I have plenty of books awaiting reading. And books don’t encourage the downward spiral like endless time-wasting in front of a screen.

Most of all, I write. If story-writing seems beyond me, then I free-write — usually an attempt at stream-of-conscious. If nothing else, that sort of writing tends to help me figure out what is bothering me and stressing me out.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do you have any sources of good-stress? What are some of your (helpful and healthful) coping mechanisms of bad-stress? And if you’re feeling really brave: what is something you would like to change about your reactions to stress?

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