And so now I must make a decision in my life that is hard, one that may not appear hard to others but is quite nearly heartbreaking for me. I have to decide whether I want to give up writing or keep taking my anti-anxiety meds. Since this war started, I've suffered from terrible anxiety attacks and nightmares, insomnia, fits of crying, anger...it's been the worst since 9/11, which nearly had my husband taking me to the hospital. So I went to the doctor and she first prescribed Zyprexa which turned me into a total zombie, so I changed to Clonazepam twice daily.
Don't get me wrong. It helps. I sleep very well now, the nightmares have gone away, I am able to watch news coverage without feeling like I'm having a heart attack. But the downside is that I can't write. My mind is so quiet, so calm, so dulled that I have no creative drive. I stare at blank pieces of paper, at my journal, at my novel that I'm trying to rewrite, and nothing comes. My eyes wander around the room and I end up just going to take a nap or a bath or to sit in front of the t.v. I don't sketch anymore, don't knit, don't sew. I sit calmly and flip through magazines I've read three times and watch television. But I am calm. I relish being calm, because I can't handle, my body can't handle being scared.
But I had a day once, a day I miss so terribly, where I sat in front of my computer and wrote 23 pages of a short story without stopping. My brain never slowed down until I had wrung every word from it. And now, there's nothing, not a sentence, a paragraph. I have no desire to do it. My desires are for sleep and staring.
Is it worth it?