I Never Risk the Fett Man

Lately I've been struggling to sit down and write on here or anywhere else. I'm so self-conscious doing it that it almost causes anxiety just thinking about it. The reasons here are threefold: one, I'm still loath to share this much of myself. Two, I'm constantly doubting that I have thoughts worth sharing, and three, I'm worried that my content isn't high-quality. This is a real problem for me, since the only thing I've ever really wanted to do with my life (aside from playing first base for the Yankees) is be an author. To actually hold a book I wrote in my hands, to talk about it with people, and to have those people make my work something that touches their lives and stays with them. I can not, for the life of me, convince myself that it's worth my time to sit down and spend years of my life trying to actually get good at this. I blame, in part, my companion Wesley Crusher.

Wesley is a dick, but I've had him mostly in the brig since I realized that his entire existence is actually a symptom and he's someone I can shout down. When it comes to writing though, Wesley persists, and loudly. I've heard/read that OCD in TS patients can target the thing(s) about ourselves we most love, and while I'm not an OCD patient in any official capacity, I think that's part of the problem here. Like, when I get in the car to go to work, he's not like "YOU'RE A TERRIBLE DRIVER! YOU'RE GONNA CAUSE AN ACCIDENT AND GET PEOPLE KILLED!" When I get the groceries, he never stops me to say, "DON'T GET THOSE BANANAS! THEY'RE POISONOUS AND THEY'LL KILL YOU ALL!" But when I even think about writing, this little assclown WILL NOT SHUT UP. I'm only partially joking when I say I'd go full on Faustian-deal-with-the-devil if I thought it would let me get over this crushing feeling of artistic worthlessness to create something that, if it were not universally loved, would at least be something I could be proud of.

I've seen in the last year or so so many other people with TS (and other conditions!) who rise above their diagnoses to create and contribute beautiful, amazing work to our community and to the greater world at large, so that gives me hope. I just wish I could accurately describe the feeling of "You'll never be able to do it so why even bother trying" that so frequently overwhelms me. Sadly, and this just popped into my head, is that the best way to share this feeling is to imagine how quickly your brain tells you "obviously not" when you wonder if you can fly. I just so completely lack any capacity to concentrate on something for more than a few seconds that it all seems impossible.