Where my creatives at?!
Today I’m speaking to the creatives, the doers, the thinkers, the outside the boxers, and the big feelers.
I don’t know about y’all but, I struggle pretty frequently with my mental health and I’m starting to notice the ways in which it affects my work and how I show up in life. I know I’m far from alone in this but it still feels like something that doesn’t get talked about a lot.
The thing is, if more people had been talking about mental health (in a productive way) throughout my youth and young adult life, maybe I wouldn’t have found myself in the alcohol-soaked, self-destructing spiral I was swirling in when I turned 30. Maybe I would have, who knows honestly? The point I want to make here is that talking about shared experiences as they relate to mental health is helpful and important and people don’t really do it, so here I am… talking.
I’d like to share two things I’ve learned about myself in the last 4 years and I’m curious how many of you can relate.
The first thing relates to how my mental health sometimes affects my work.
I was raised to have a super strong work ethic. Working hard for what you have builds character and gives a person more appreciation for hard-earned possessions and/or experiences. I truly believe that to be true.
The thing that people tend to glaze over is that sometimes (oftentimes) a person can work really really hard and still not achieve those goals. Sometimes a person can work really really hard, actually acquire those hard-earned prizes…and then loose them. No one really talks about what to do then, or how it feels to make that realization or be faced with that loss.
They say you find out who your friends are right? For me personally, I was dealing with loss and some pretty heavy, fucked up stuff in my early thirties and most of the people closest to me disappeared, or became hyper-critical of my actions, almost no one asked me if I was ok, or how they could support me, even if they had, I’m not sure that my pride would have allowed me to accept that support.
In my mind, my tribe didn’t want me anymore, they thought I was bad. I know now that they probably didn’t know how to be there for me so they avoided me, I was self destructing after all and who wants to sit too close to a ticking time bomb?
The shit of it is that it caused me to retreat into the loneliest, darkest, numbest place I knew to go- the bottom of the bottle. I’m grateful everyday that I was able to find my way back, and I didn’t do it alone.
This isn’t a story about that though. It’s a reminder to folks that if someone you really care about is struggling, sometimes all you need to do is sit quietly with them in the dark. Ask how you can help. Kindness is free and you never know when you might be saving someone’s life.
That being said, it’s also each individual person’s responsibility to heal. Learn your triggers, make note of your self-destructive patterns and behaviors and do the work to learn how to best manage that shit. Friends and family can only watch self-destruction for so long before the best choice for their own mental well-being has to be made.
The second thing I’ve learned about myself in doing that work to heal my self-destructive tendencies is that when I get in these moods, I have a really hard time creating. My tendency has always been to try to push through it, tough it out…but I’m not sure that’s the best way.
I put a lot of love into my work. I overworked myself and gave more than I had to my hairdressing career, the result of that effort is that I burned myself out. That strong work ethic tho… I kept showing up, looooong after I should have taken a breather, but I wasn’t showing up as my best self and it left me feeling bad about myself and my work almost every day. I really hope I can find that spark for doing hair again someday but for now…I’m out of the game.
I’m working really hard not to do the same thing to myself behind the camera. As a result, sometimes my edits take a little longer to get out to people, but I refuse to look at those beautiful photos through tired, burned out eyes. For me, it’s worth not being the fastest photo deliverer because I know the heart that I put into each edit. While I’m editing, I’m generally always smiling because I’m thinking about the funny joke I told you to make you laugh like that or remembering that big, genuine smile that I captured right after I told you how amazing you did on all your other shots.
I never want that feeling to change, so I don’t edit when I feel too depressed, stressed or pressured, I’ve found that doing so always changes the outcome of my creative work.
If you managed to make it through this whole post, maybe it resonates with you somehow?
I’d love to hear your experience.
Do you find that the mental state you’re working from has an affect on the outcome of your creative work? What are some ways that you’ve found to work through it while still meeting reasonable deadlines?
Drop me a comment ✨
Love to my creative tribe, I feel like y’all get me ☺️
