Mental Health – J.R. Rainville

Lifting the Fog

Back at the end of February I had a major mental shift: an upswing, where suddenly the fog cleared and I felt like I could function. I worked to do a LOT in that last weekend of February, at home, at work, and personally with my writing, etc. I got a tenuous handle on my ‘adult’ things: appointments, catching up with things I need to reply to, scheduling, that sort of thing. And one of the major things I wanted to do was speak with my doctor at my mid-March appointment about the potential for adult ADHD.

I’m very fortunate to have a doctor who truly listens and doesn’t dismiss concerns. She understands that her patients know themselves best. She’s empathetic. She’s sympathetic. She’s not bent on getting patients in and out–she wants to listen and treat them, and for that I’m grateful. When I moved eight years ago, I still kept her and drive an hour to see her because it’s worth it. I felt comfortable raising my concerns.

We talked, and because I don’t have a history (because I always did really well in school–never mind the all-nighters and procrastination and daydreaming and scattered thoughts) my teachers never raised a concern. I figured that’s just how I operated, that I worked well under pressure. Lately I’ve started to realize that working well under pressure is just a great cover for my anxiety. I shared this with her, and an actual diagnosis would take a workup with a psychiatrist if I wanted to try a stimulant-based prescription. However, before that, she suggested I try Wellbutrin in addition to my other depression medication.

I’ve gone from

No, I didn’t dye my hair–that’s not the difference. The difference is in three weeks I haven’t been as scattered. I don’t lose swathes of time staring or scrolling. I get things done around the house more efficiently. I balance my work tasks, reading, writing, gaming, parenting, etc. I don’t get as irritable as quickly, and I don’t dwell on what’s irritating me. Most importantly, the other night husband looked at me and said, “You’ve been a lot happier these last two weeks.”

My brain has stopped fighting itself. It lets me focus on what’s important, on what I want to be doing. I’ve read some books; I’ve connected with friends; I’ve gotten appointments scheduled and kept. I haven’t been impulse buying. I’m not stressed over my writing, and feel like I can be creative when I want and need to be. I can use my planner, rather than having it stare at me accusingly! Checklists work again. As for the side effects, so far all I’ve noticed was yesterday I was dizzy from it for the first time (I knew it could happen). The best way I can describe it is all the spinny-spin without any of the drinky-drink!

I’m excited about things again. There’s promise. The fog has lifted, and it’s going to be a beautiful day.

While I’m Thinking of It

Tools of the trade are great. When I remember to use them. Image by Freepik

I don’t really remember the last time I posted; it may have been December, for Dragon Age Day. Time has gotten away from me; it tends to do that anyway, but in the strange hellscape that was 2020, it happened even more. Changing the year to 2021 did not magically reset everything. Not that I expected it to! But at least it meant that even 2020 could end (and could be–wait for it–hindsight!) and that a new year could mean new hope.

I’m not one for resolutions; I don’t like setting myself up for failure. The best year was the year I decided I was going to resolve not to do things, because then I wouldn’t feel like I’d failed when I didn’t do something. Reverse psychology, right? But that gets me to thinking. The pandemic has been tough in a lot of ways, and the mental health toll is just one. This past year, working from home with a special needs pre-schooler turned kindergartner, who was also home for a lot of it, had me seriously evaluating some of my mental health more than usual.

Major changes tend to bring out my depression/anxiety more. Starting full-time teaching when I was in my mid-twenties triggered constant panic attacks that eventually led me to being diagnosed with depression/anxiety disorder. I managed pretty well with medication, and have for the most part. I still have some trouble with focus and procrastination though. I love a planner… if I can remember to use it. I love project management theories and tools… if I can remember to use and apply them. Organizational hacks? Fun! If I can recall where I put things or why I set it up in the first place.

I liken my mind this past year to an Internet Explorer window with about 25 tabs open; one is playing music. Another is trying to play a video. I’m not sure which tab is doing which, and I’m trying to catch up all the time. I have a dozen projects I want to start and a dozen more I have started, but haven’t finished. What’s for dinner? Did I make that appointment? I had a list somewhere. What was that? Sorry, I was daydreaming, missed that!

Not me, but a fairly accurate depiction of how I felt most of 2020. From Freepik.

Looking back this isn’t new; it’s a pattern I can trace back to grade school. And I was a horrible procrastinator in high school. I managed decently in college, but took on so much that I kept myself constantly busy, coped by pushing myself and not giving myself the opportunity to fall into some of those patterns. For the most part. Keeping up that coping strategy for the first three years of college took a toll, which I realized when I discovered Lord of the Rings my senior year of college, and that was that for the rest of my undergrad career.

Which brought me to my other pattern: hyperfixation. I can also look back and track obsessive periods: original Legend of Zelda, Edward Scissorhands, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dragon Age, MCU Captain America and especially Bucky/Winter Soldier (and still Dragon Age)… things that captivated me and demanded my attention. And then in 2018 I started writing Sneakthief, and had many hyper phases on that. And there was that time in 2011 when I was SO into Mass Effect 2 that I played all weekend and forgot to do progress report grades. Oops.

So while I’m thinking of it I’m going to speak more with my PCP about the likelihood of something else besides my depression/anxiety–something that plays well with the two. Medication helps the depression part of it, but that hyperfixation tendency is still there, the fractured thinking is still there, feeling of just KNOWING I need to do a thing, but just. Can’t. MAKE MYSELF do it is still there. Like I said, I love a good checklist… when I remember to make it.

While I’m thinking of it I’m going to do as much as I can during this current mental upswing. I already finished the Sneakthief 5.0 edit, already sent it to a friend for editing. I did groceries, and some frozen meal prep. I booked a vet appointment for my geriatric cat (17.5 years!) and made a note to call for another appointment at another doc for myself. I completed a beta read, and remembered to get cash to repay a friend, and finally wrote out those postcards from an exchange I’d joined up with back at Christmas. I’m taking tomorrow off (it’s my birthday!) and planning a few errands, as well as creating some backlog of content so I can have stuff when I’m not quite so “up” in the future–and I know that will happen.

I don’t post this to be proud of all I got done, but so I can remember the circumstances around it all. That I was in a downward trend as far as focus, productivity, etc. went, and then something clicked and I was able to think (also did not feel the urge to make any crazy impulse purchases recently, another thing that I find myself doing when I’m down). I post to remind myself to take advantage of these moments ‘while I’m thinking of it’. And because I know I’m not alone, and if it hadn’t been for a friend blogging about her strategies for working with her brain rather than against it, I don’t think this weekend could have happened the way it did.

With everything I hope to do with Sneakthief and The Ungifted Series as a whole, I’m going to need to take advantage of these moments of clarity. At least I’m starting to recognize them for what they are, so, while I’m thinking of it, I’m going to go try and get some more stuff done.

New Year, Who Dis?

I could start off by making a corny joke about having 2020 vision. I could list my goals and resolutions. I could apologize profusely for not having updated since… November-ish? Definitely since last year. I could wish I had some champagne right now. Or I could just write.

I think my supervisor put it best when she said, during my annual evaluation, that I’d had a tough year. It didn’t impact my work at all–contrary to that, my performance at work is great. I love my job and the work I do and the people I work with. But that doesn’t mean that 2019 was actually kind of tough in a lot of ways. I guess this is where that corny 2020 pun comes in?

The last couple of years have been a whirlwind. Or several different whirlwinds; one picks me up, sets me down reeling, and another comes along as I’m trying to recalibrate. In early 2018, Sneakthief took over my life, and quickly became an idea for a series. The story woke me up at night. I dreamed of my characters. I wrote whenever I could. I finished a draft and started the next draft of the next book. 2019 started off with major revisions to Sneakthief while its sequel, Turncoat, percolated. But 2019 also kicked off with a pretty horrible strep strain that went through our house; husband and I were both horribly sick. I remember vividly because I left work early after getting the diagnosis at urgent care, and realized, when I got home, that my note cards had fallen out of my bag and were likely in the parking lot, and husband went out to find them for me. The short story is, he did, and he saved the Sneakthief revision.

But it just sort of kept going from there. We were finally able to get our Smol Human’s autism formally diagnosed, and then started the journey to get him services. It wasn’t that I had to fight for it–I just had trouble knowing where to start and how to go about things. But once we did, it was helpful. Of course it’s not quite that simple, because then other things kept coming up, but Smol Human is getting his services and therapies and he is thriving. He also had adenoids out, which is a huge help as well!

Between that, I’ve been working; teaching online on the side; rebuilding a creative writing class; and yes, writing. Sneakthief is sneaking about and a large part of my anxiety has been a result of that, but I know what I can and can’t control so I’m trying not to worry. I also completely overhauled and rewrote Turncoat, and it’s a much more cohesive novel. I think realizing what was wrong with it, structurally, and committing to basically rewriting it, was really helpful and I really feel good about the draft. I finished it at 11:11pm on 12/31/19. My goal was to finish the draft by the end of the year. I did it with 39 minutes to spare (and the final clocked in at 111,111 words!)

I’m still revising it, but feel pretty content. And I’ve started work on draft one of Scapegoat, the third book! I’m happy with where it’s going and feeling good. Something about getting through Turncoat and resolving it in a way that feels structurally sound makes editing it feel more realistic.

Do I have goals for 2020? Sure! But I’m also trying to be realistic about my bandwidth and responsibilities. I have books I want to read, but I haven’t set a number. I think writing-wise my biggest would be to really polish up Turncoat, and finish the first working draft of Scapegoat. I think overall, continue to drink lots of coffee and maintain my sanity and not stretch myself too thin. Lately I’ve felt like 4-way stretch Lycra pulled between two too-far-apart seams (seams–oh yeah, I’ve been sewing more, too). I have to figure out what is work, what feels like work and should be fun, and what is fun and feels like fun.

And I want to blog more. I have a lot of things I’d like to write about, but they’re piling into a backlog where I feel like I have to start chipping away at it, so just writing this has been cathartic and helpful. It’s a blog post. It’s not a review of a game or a movie or a book; it’s not an analysis of writing and characters and such. But it’s a post, it’s on a blog, and that’ll do just fine for now.

2020: Yes, I have vision and goals, but I need to just be fine for now.

Of Doubt and Fanfiction

Time gets away from me sometimes. I feel like I blinked and it was the end of September, and now we’re finishing the first week of October! I did an Instagram post a little earlier about some goals for October. I spent September alternating between being super creative and super stressed/struggling with my mental health, and it’s taken a toll. I think the biggest thing I’m experiencing right now is doubt.

Just a heads up, what follows is some self-pity; it’s a lot of what’s going through my mind lately, and I just feel like I needed to put words to it to understand it a bit better. (Spoiler–by the end, I did!)

Sneakthief is kind of in limbo right now, and I’m trying to remain optimistic that no news is good news. I’ve been in a holding pattern with it since the beginning of August, and am just being patient. But every so often doubt creeps in and I think, “This book is terrible.” or “I should have fixed XYZ before sending it anywhere.” And begin to think maybe I should just scrap the whole Ungifted series altogether.

Because the Turncoat rewrite has stalled yet again. There was a point earlier in September where I made some major headway and it was almost a state of mania to get it written and worked on. Nearly all of what I was writing in the rewrite was brand new material vs. cutting/pasting/smoothing. Creating new stuff felt good. But now that I’m past that point and at a standstill again, trying to figure out how to get around this latest block, I’m wondering what the point is.

Recently, I picked up GreedFall, a new IP from Spiders and Focus Interactive. It looked good, and now that I’m playing it, I have an energy and excitement for a game/fandom I haven’t had in a loooong time. I still love Dragon Age. Dragon Age will be a part of me forever (and I’m dying for the next game!) and I’m still very much into the lore and the world. But this has woken me up creatively again. The world is new and different, the characters pretty good (I’m absolutely Forever a Naut and total #VascoTrash), and the plot makes some pretty uncomfortable statements about human nature, greed, colonialism, and the like. And most notably, for me anyway…

I’m writing fanfiction of it.

I started writing fanfiction years ago, when I got out of college and had nowhere to place my fandom love. I joined fanfiction.net in 2003. I took a hiatus from fanfiction when I started grad school, mostly because I didn’t have the time. But after grad school, when I did have the time to be creative again and write for fun again, I tried to make myself write original stuff. I did some lackluster submissions of my MFA thesis novel, but my heart wasn’t into it. And in 2011, I discovered Dragon Age.

It made me want to write again.

Dragon Age has been one of the best things to happen to me personally and creatively. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of Dragon Age fanfic, and through that, have moved into my original work with Ungifted, and feel a passion for original writing again, something that was lacking when I was trying to do something more with my thesis after graduating.

But I’ve also been focused on Ungifted and its various parts almost nonstop since January 2018. Having new fanfiction to write, in a new world with a new story and new characters to get to know, is exciting. I love the feeling of updating and getting feedback. It makes me giddy, it makes me grin. I feel a little more fulfilled writing-wise. It does make me doubt my original work, and make me wonder if I should just stick with fic.

Then again, maybe I just need a break, doing something completely different and without any pressure, to recharge and then get back to it. I’m really close to the end of Turncoat. Finishing that rewrite is one of my October goals, along with outlining the next book, Scapegoat; and continuing work on Tempest, my spur of the moment GreedFall fic. I want to finish the game, and promptly replay it. I want to read a book or two, and get recharged.

Maybe that’s what I need. Along with considering why I’m writing. Often I’ve maintained that I write because I love to, so if I’m losing that focus, I need to regain it.

Doubt can be a bad thing, because it can hold you back. But I think in this case, what started out as a bad thing is actually good, because it’s making me reevaluate and renew my commitment to my creativity.

I Took a Break

Time can have a funny way of getting away from you. I feel like I blinked and two weeks went by and suddenly it’s September, and I wonder where the last of August went.

I have depression and anxiety disorder, and sometimes I wonder if there’s some ADD there as well, though it may be my other disorders mimicking similar symptoms. That can be part of where time goes. Another part is work; I love my job, and we’re at a point in the term where things are picking up to get ready for fall term.

Looking back at the last two weeks of August in retrospect I can plot out how things have gone since my last blog. So this is what’s been happening…

I read a book. On the recommendation of a good friend, I read Witchmark by C.L. Polk. PLEASE READ IT. It blew my mind with how intricate the world was, and how fantastically plotted and paced it was. I loved the characters and just how when I thought I figured it out, there was yet another turn. It wasn’t a long book, just over 300 pages or so, but as a result it packed even more of a punch, because everything in those 300 pages counted. This leads to the next thing.
I’ve been in a rewrite of Turncoat while waiting for Sneakthief to do some sneaking. I’ve been slogging through, having some trouble figuring out what needs to stay or go, and what needs to change completely and after reading Witchmark, something unlocked in my mind and I’ve been writing furiously. I have probably close to 10,000 words of brand new material that really makes the book so much better than any of the other drafts and I’ve been writing every day. Except yesterday, but more on that later.
Last week I had a persistent anxiety attack that just wouldn’t go away. I’ve had anxiety/depression (officially diagnosed) for the last 15 years. I’m medicated, I do well with the medication, and with being able to trace my triggers. This week I just couldn’t. I had to do some serious soul searching to figure out what was up.

I figured out that I’d been avoiding building my fall course shell for my class starting later this month. I’d been putting off some other things so I just sucked it up and got them done. And I felt way better! Also, Smol Human had his initial referral for special ed in our town. He was diagnosed with Autism earlier this spring, and is still in preschool, so we have time to get his services in order before he enters public school next year (side note thank all deities that I have a background in education, because even this is still kind of overwhelming, so I can’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t know what I already do).

In the midst of all that I’d been channeling the anxious energy into the Turncoat rewrite. And then yesterday I didn’t write. I’d caught up on my other projects. Smol’s meeting went very well. I’d been going almost nonstop, with the story waking me up at night and getting me up early. I’d thought I’d spend some time yesterday writing. Instead?

It was beautiful. Smol and I went to the park and then walked around it for over an hour. We went to play at a play place in town. Then I went shopping with my sister-in-law, and we had a big dinner all together. Then I hung out watching some Good Omens (yes I’m behind, I’m getting caught up!). But I didn’t write. I thought about the story; it’s impossible not to. But I enjoyed a lovely day with my Smol and my family, and I took a much needed break from everything that had been building.

Last month at Readercon I went to a panel titled “Periods of Not Writing”. It was good to hear published writers discuss when they knew they needed breaks, and that it’s important to take breaks. PAX East this past spring also had a panel about avoiding burnout in creative professions. Where I can get super focused on my pursuits, it’s important to remember that not only can I take breaks, but I should.

So yesterday I did, and today is looking like a break day as well as I’m vising at my parents’ with the Smol. Maybe I’ll get some writing in later, maybe I won’t, and I’m not going to feel badly about either one. I’m giving myself permission to rest, to take a break, to relax and recharge so I don’t get caught in an anxiety loop again. Turncoat will get written, and Scapegoat after that. I’m committed to this, and taking a breaks to regroup is just another part of the process.

I guess the bottom line is be kind to yourself. Recognize when you need to pull back, when you need to push ahead, when you need support. Be reasonable and be realistic. Don’t settle, but don’t burn out, either. I took a break. And I’m glad I did.