A Positive Detour
Sometimes
life can take detours for which you had not planned. Coming out of high school and
entering college, I thought I would write poetry and fiction as my career. That was a goal I was moving towards. In many
ways I was wearing blinders, but the only thing I cared about was the written
word. I spent hours jotting poetry in a spiral notebook that was not far away
from my back pocket. I figured I was not going to be a bestselling writer, but
I enjoyed the high that came from a single line that provided temporary
inspiration.
Suddenly a slap to face knocked the blinders from my eyes.
I received a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. How would this detour
affect my writing? In the beginning
stages of recovery, I felt no inspiration to write. It was more than a mental
block--I lost my inspiration. My inspiration took the form of delusions that I
didn’t want to describe in writing.
Over a longer period of time, I slowly began to write
about my own personal struggles with my illness and other positive ways of
dealing with my symptoms. Somehow I
started to write about everyday living with a mental illness. After that I
began to realize that I wasn’t the only one. There was a whole community
battling the same demons I was battling. With my permission one of my doctors
began to share my writings with some of the other patients who had similar
diagnoses as I. They told me that my writing was helpful to them, and that gave
me more motivation to write for them.
Without my diagnosis of mental illness, I’m not sure
where my writing would have taken me.
Before I never thought about writing as helping someone. I don’t carry a notebook anymore, but I have
found creativity and insight in the detour that life gave me. Now, I can’t imagine a life without this
detour.
