Creativity, Imagination and Anxiety

For years I insisted that I didn't have a creative bone in my body. It was a lament. I honestly believed I had no imagination or creativity.

For whatever reason, I completely overlooked the fact that, as far back as I can remember, I've made up stories in my head. I control them and they play like movies. Doing so helps me make sense of things, right wrongs, change endings and make me feel better about things. The righting of wrongs and changing of endings is metaphoric, of course, but doing so really does make me feel better.

It never occurred to me to write many stories or a novel because the stories in my head were visual. About eighteen months ago, however, I realised I wasn't visualising but writing a narrative in my head. I jumped up and sat in front of the computer and began to write. I didn't know where it would take me at the time; I simply wanted to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. The end result is a 90K word novel which I'm currently editing.

Over the course of writing the novel, I realised that I was a creative and imaginative person; I simply hadn't acknowledged it. I began keeping a diary when I was eleven years old and haven't stopped. When I feel particularly low, poems pour out of me. The poems and diaries are overflowing with images, metaphors and analogies. Not creative? What the hell was I thinking when I used to say that?

Yesterday I saw the dark side of my imagination. It's been there all along but I had an experience in which I came to fully understand the link between imagination and anxiety. Awhile back I blogged about the link between mindfulness, writing and anxiety. In fact, the SA Writers Centre has a workshop coming up, Writing in Flow, which looks as if it is going to expand on what I wrote. If you want to read that post, click here.

My son had a dental procedure done. He had a baby tooth removed and an incision made in his gum so that the adult tooth would come down. When it was done, the periodontist asked if I wanted to see it. I quickly replied, "No, I'm a fainter." And I am. Big time. I fainted once in a First Aid course when we were learning how to stem blood flow. The instructor asked me all kinds of questions as to whether I'd eaten, if I was sick, menstruating etc and I kept having to repeat that it was the subject that had made me faint, nothing else.

Saying no was of little use. I began to picture my son's mouth. Soon the taste of blood filled my own mouth, my bowel and stomach both turned, black spots danced in front of my eyes and my legs felt weak. I didn't faint or vomit but I became acutely aware of what my imagination was capable of doing to me. That is essentially what a panic or anxiety attack is. It's the mind creating a scenario which is unlikely to occur and the body following with its "fight or flight" response. Even as I write, I can taste blood in my mouth. (I guess I'd make a pretty crappy vampire!)

One of my friends was seeing a psychologist for her anxiety but stopped. She told me that he would mention situations she hadn't thought of and then she would add them to her list of anxiety inducing ones. It was probably not his intention but he fed her imagination and exacerbated the problem.

Many high profile creative people suffer from anxiety. It just never occurred to me that there might actually be a link. Maybe it's not random. If we have the imagination to create, surely we have the side of imagination which shows us dark and frightening things. Maybe some can assimilate it perfectly into their work and not be physically affected. Others can't.