⌖ 10 + 3 = 3ᛚ ⌖

One of the most difficult things, I think, when you are a creator (of content, a writer, a painter, or any other kind of creator) is dealing with that moment when you are sitting in front of your favourite medium and it remains completely blank. Overcoming writeI can’t speak for others, but apparently some creators don’t experience the anxiety of the blank page. And that’s a strength. I have been trying for many years to find a remedy for this anxiety.

After years of practice, and blank pages, creation and fighting my demons, I think that the myth of the artist who has inspiration – or not – is a very nice story… based on mistaken beliefs. The belief that we cannot access, not inspiration itself, but what blocks inspiration, and that we cannot help, overcome, or find ways to avoid the blockage seems to me to be what maintains the illusion that inspiration only comes when it wants to.

Far be it from me to say that this is easy. Far be it from me to say that there is never anything in art that is a little mystical, in the sense of the unfathomable depth of the human being. I am simply saying that when we are subject to this anxiety, we can move forward, progress, and help ourselves so that this anxiety of the blank page returns less and less.

Because, for me, creating is not an option. It is a need. And the anxiety of the blank page is torture.

My tips for overcoming writer’s block

So, for many years now, I’ve been trying to find little hacks to help my brain get around this difficulty. I have three main ones, depending on what I would call my ‘state of blockage’.

The first, when the blockage isn’t total, is to start small. Just start. Don’t try to create the work of the century. Don’t clutter your mind, don’t set the bar too high. If I want to write, turning on the computer, picking up a pen and paper, is the first step. If I want to paint, I get out my sketching materials and jot down my ideas. Then get started on something. If I don’t have any ideas, just drawing a circle on a piece of paper, then a small landscape, allows me to let go. My mind then begins to wander on its own. And the process begins.

But sometimes the block is more serious. Even starting small is inconceivable. So, rather than staring at a blank page, I do some physical activity. The best thing is to go for a walk. Walking frees the mind and ideas start to flow. Not necessarily good ideas, sometimes my brain goes round and round in circles about something that happened during the week. But it’s always better than staying stuck.

And when the block is total, you might ask? There’s no point in fighting it. When I fight it, the block persists and I fall into a spiral of guilt that makes the problem worse. After many years, I’ve come to understand that in these cases, I have to do something completely different. I do some housework, or treat myself to a coffee and biscuits, or anything else that requires minimal effort. This helps to defuse the anxiety and get back to phase 1: start small.

And now, the next step

Recently, I realised that I needed to go even further. Until now, I had always thought that it was my mind that was driving the process. So I learned these techniques, albeit a little shaky, to help my mind. But it seems that the blockage goes deeper than that, as I mentioned in my previous article, “Art, trauma, catharsis“.

It seems that when I am in a state of total blockage, it is my body that does not want to move forward. My mind is powerless to do anything about it. This is the state of shock I mentioned in my previous article.

The next step for me today, in order to overcome this fear of the blank page, is to find a way to bring to the surface the beliefs that have been ingrained in my body since I was a child. The belief that I am inadequate. That everything I do is pointless. That kind of belief. My conscious mind manages to regulate these thoughts, but my body never verbalises them. All that remains is for me to transform this latent anxiety into a conscious state, to allow it to express itself in words.

It’s a big undertaking, but I believe in it. If you have any tips for moving forward more serenely, please share them in the comments!

Today I am going to talk to you about what I believe led me to become an artist. I am not a psychologist; this only reflects my own view of things, my own experiences, combined with my reading and research on my own traumas. I do not claim to be someone who knows, but someone who feels. That is why I have entitled this article Art, Trauma, Catharsis.

I hope that you will find something in this account that resonates with you, or that it will pique your curiosity.

A troubled childhood, the birth of trauma

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a writer or a painter. From a very young age, I always had things to say, as if a huge universe was contained in my head and wanted to come out. I had more than just things to say; in fact, I felt like my head would explode if what was inside didn’t come out. And to cope with that, I often entered a state where I did nothing. I slept through entire afternoons.

A chaotic life, art as a rock

So, not knowing what to do, I lived several lives, trying to find meaning, serenity, and peace. I travelled despite myself, tossed about by a life I couldn’t control. I was a laboratory technician, a graphic designer, a computer developer, and even a bookseller for a week. I lived in several cities in France, England and Belgium. I became a mother, worked in more than a dozen companies, and clung to life and normality in an attempt to calm my inner storm.

When art and trauma come together

Then, because normality didn’t suit me, I threw it all away. I left my old life behind, and the alternation between moments of intense living and months of withdrawal increased to such an extent that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

And I decided to be myself. I became a painter.

Then I started a company and released a narrative video game.

I thought I had found a kind of refuge, far from others, in my own world. I believed I had found a kind of peace. Not every day, not all the time. But sometimes. After 36 years of wandering and suffering, life had become bearable.

And yet…

A step backwards

Recently, the nightmare has started again. I am unable to generate enough income from my art and must once again confront reality and normality.

When I spend too much time conforming to normality, facing reality, shopping, cleaning, looking for a job so I can eat, I feel like my head is going to explode if what’s inside doesn’t come out. And I relive those long, strange periods of emptiness where I do nothing and want nothing. I’m not really unhappy, or at least not all the time. It’s just that my body doesn’t want to do anything. Even when my brain wants to. It’s not laziness or fatigue. I just CAN’T.

I’ve also been plunged back into my childhood demons, which I had forgotten, by force of circumstance. Family obligations. But this time, the adult I’ve grown into decided to tell everyone I had to interact with about it. My family, my carers. I stopped keeping quiet and telling myself I had a problem, I said how I felt. And it was accepted, heard. That had never happened to me before.

The beginning of a new start, perhaps?

So I moved forward. With the help of my psychiatrist and a psychologist friend, I discovered that the summer when my body refused to do anything even when my mind wanted it to was probably a state of shock. Shock is apparently caused by traumatic events. I will skip some details as they would take too long to explain here, but my reflection led me to believe that it is childhood trauma, perpetuated by certain unfortunate professional experiences, that causes this state of shock.

I do not have access to the part of my psyche where this trauma is hidden, even though I can perceive some fragments of it. My childhood memories help me. I have flashes of anxiety where I perceive a few ideas, a few words, a few fears. I try to capture them to extract the information. It’s tiny, but it’s a clue.

I have explained all this to you in order to arrive at my current view of my irrepressible need for expression, which led me to paint in order to express myself and, at the same time, to finally feel like an artist. Beyond the technical aspects, some of my paintings are genuine messages.

Art, trauma, catharsis, where I am now

I realised this thanks to the psychologically violent events I experienced last summer, which plunged me back into my past. I now believe that this intolerable need to express what is inside me through images is due to one or more traumas, because I have not yet had the opportunity to access these traumas. As they are not verbalised, but are intolerable, it seems imperative for me at times to express them. Like an overflow. That’s it, or a state of shock. Hence the alternation between moments of vitality and intense creativity – the feeling of living at 300% – and moments of depressive shock.

I have often been told that I am ‘too much’.

I need to reclaim my own way of functioning. I am not ‘too much’. I am. That’s all.