On Writing + Chronic Illness: PART TWO: Events

FROM THE DESK OF E. KRISTIN ANDERSON:

A few weeks ago I posted about my struggles with mental illness. Because I needed to talk about that in order to talk about this. About what it's like to be a writer when you also struggle with chronic illness. I'd intended this to be only one post -- to write about my struggle and the writing part all at once. That didn't happen. The topic is too big -- bigger than even I thought, and I'm living it.

There are things you can and can't do when you have a chronic illness. These things vary depending on what you're dealing with. I'm going to use bipolar, depression, and anxiety as the basis for this, but I think that folks with other types of illnesses will be able to relate. Some of the stuff is big -- traveling for conferences, financial strains, deadlines. Others are seemingly small -- going to a friend's release party, getting up early for an event or just to meet your writing group for coffee, staring at the blank screen and not being able to write a thing because not only is the blank screen intimidating but also the topic your'e writing on is kind of triggering. Today, though, I want to talk about what it's like dealing with some of the big stuff. Specifically events -- social and professional and the blurry spaces in between.



Writing for a living is a hard path to choose, though I don't know many people who write who consider it a choice. Writing for a living really does choose you. It's stressful, and it's unstable, and it's tough to do right now when you have a lot of days when you can barely tweet let alone leave the house. One question I get a lot is, "if you're so sick, how do you manage to go to a conference?" I can't even begin to describe how frustrating questions like this are. For one, it questions my experience as a person suffering from an invisible illness. But it's also nearly impossible to explain to a person who has a "normal" body and mind how a person who has a very limited about of energy can do things like this. It's sort of like charging a battery. When I'm getting ready for a conference, I try and spend a lot of time doing less stressful things -- as much as possible, you all know how stressful prepping for an event can be -- so that I don't have to run on an empty tank for the whole weekend at conference time. Usually I do anyway. The empty tank, that is. And afterward? After spending a weekend in Author Mode (you know, where you talk to people as your professional self -- in my case, as my pen name, Kristin Anderson) and coming home, back to my personal self (just Emily, the friend, the sister, the neighbor, the cat momma), it's like crashing. You crash because you HAVE been running at a deficit. You crash because you are switching between personas. You crash because you've forced yourself into a state of mania for several days in order to handle the constant social encounters, the pitches, the talks, the signings. And now you've cycled so hard into depression that you pass out. You sleep hard. You watch TV that you don't have to pay attention to. And even that is hard. There's something both lonely and relieving about this, but mostly, you're so physically and mentally exhausted that being not in bed seems insane.


After the Texas Book Festival this year, I didn't even make it to the evening events. I only went on Saturday, to moderate a panel. I went to a few other panels while I was there, spent some time with the nice guy I was dating, and then attended a cocktail party. I was anxious. I didn't want to talk to new people, only the people I knew from Austin. Only people I knew REALLY well from Austin. I wanted to introduce them to my then-boyfriend, and sit somewhere with a glass of coke (no wine, never wine or beer or champagne or cocktails in public, because a person with chronic illness -- let alone mental illness -- can't drink or can only drink in especially monitored circumstances due to medication and God is that annoying to explain over and over) and maybe impress the aforementioned boyfriend by introducing him to a favorite author if I could get the courage to, like, move off of this comfortable sofa.




After the Texas Book Festival this year, I came home, and the kind man I was with tucked me into bed with my laptop. It wasn't even 7pm. I fell asleep at my computer while trying to catch up on email. And I woke up at 10pm when my grandmother messaged me on Skype. She told me to go back to bed, that I needed my rest. So I did. And I slept until noon the next day, prying myself out of bed when the cats started batting at my face and crying to be fed. I could have slept another ten hours. But even when you're sick, you have to make yourself do something, or you start to feel bad about yourself.


So how, when a single day at an in-town book festival wears me out to this point, do I travel to events like ALA in Chicago? To TLA in Fort Worth? To AWP, in just a little over a month, in Seattle? Part of it is a mystery to me. I think there's something to be said for ambition. I've always been an ambitious girl. A "serious" girl, according to my family. A little competitive. A lot motivated. In some ways, being a pro writer is natural for me because of this. Rejection has never gotten me down, because I know there's room for error and room for mistakes and room for improvement and so many opportunities. (Sure, some rejections suck more than others, especially on bad days, but this is a career with a lot of second and third and fourth chances.) I think that understanding the kinds of opportunities that arise from attending these events outweigh the monumental crash and burn that follows has allowed me to allow this motivation and ambition to help me charge my batteries just enough to get to the event, survive it, and accept that the recovery will be hard.

But what about the little events? A friend's book launch, for example. I have so often missed out on these because my body told me I had to rest. In a town like Austin where I'm fortunate to have many friends and colleagues who are SO talented...well, there's always a book launch. And I have missed many not because I couldn't find a ride (my anxiety keeps me from driving) or because I had another obligation or even because I had a "real" (read: visible) illness...but because I was mentally incapable of being a person in public that day. It's the worst. You feel guilty. You feel mean. You feel like a liar. Because you've spent your whole life being told you're a liar. You've heard things like "suck it up" and "just grin and bear it" or even "get over it." And that sticks in you. You wonder, could I really go if I wanted to? Am I being lazy? Or even, you know, just kind of a selfish asshole?



It's hard to find an answer in this kind of situation. Because you can't measure it. You can't see it. You can only feel it. And there are days where it's better to push yourself. Like when your writing group is meeting at ten and your friend is going to pick you up at nine-thirty and you couldn't sleep last night and were up until five and even on a day when you fell asleep at midnight you'd stay in bed until noon, maybe noon-thirty. You can push yourself. Because you know that a small gathering where you can just be yourself (Emily) instead of your writer self (Kristin) and have a cup of coffee and a muffin and maybe even gripe about the industry while possibly getting a little work done is going to be good for you. Being around people who are members of your support group? Usually very good. It's a fine line though, and one that's hard to discern. I mean, isn't every member of your local SCBWI (or RWA, or Writer's League, or etc. etc.) a member of your support group? They support you. But it's different, even if you can't put your finger on it. Even if you love all of them. You have to make choices to keep yourself from falling off the deep end. Especially when it feels like you're always teetering on the edge.


People ask me about stuff like this a lot, even people close to me. And I'm getting used to it. I guess what's hard is that -- as you can see -- the explanation is a lot longer and more complicated than most people are ready -- or even willing -- to hear. And while many people are compassionate and even great with empathy, others aren't. Even good, wonderful people don't fully understand. And nothing you can do will get them to wrap their heads around it. In an age where being an author is also being a marketing guru, a personality, a blogger, and a public speaker, there aren't a lot of options other than working around your illness in order to do these things. And some days you can. Some days you make it work because you have to, and some days you make it work because you're excited about it, and some days you just plain make it work. But you have to give yourself the leeway to suck. To say no. To take a nap in the middle of the day during a conference because if you don't you're going to be burnt out later that night at a get-together. It doesn't make you a bad person. Or lazy or lame or stupid or disgusting or weird or a failure. It just makes you a person who is taking care of herself. And that makes you smart.


I'm going to keep reminding myself of this. Hopefully it will help me get to the next part of what is turning into a blog series rather than a single or two-part post with a little more ease.

Next time: Deadlines and projects and motivation and the writing part of writing with chronic illness.