How Writing Helps Me Manage My Anxiety
Let's meet for another Q&A Friday, March 21st, 11AM CST
Hello Friends,
A few days ago I received a wonderful message from
author Joe Guay. I know him from my work on medium. It’s interesting how you get to know people based on their profiles. Whenever I see Joe’s name and picture, I know I can relax because I’ll be receiving a kind and thoughtful comment rather than an attack.Thanks for that Joe! As I’m writing this, it occurs to me that Joe and so many others probably don’t know how big an impact they make just by writing something nice.
Joe mentioned that he was impressed by the number of quality articles I’ve been managing to publish lately. I haven’t done the math lately, but I am writing a lot. In addition to what you see on Medium and Substack, I am also doing work on a couple of novels. Generally I’m doing about 5,000 words a day, plus voice overs, plus illustrations.
On Saturday I think, “I don’t have to work today.” A second later I think, “But I might as well.” Ditto for Sunday. So, I’m producing about 35,000 words a week, which is about the equivalent of a short novel. This is double what I was doing on November 4th, 2025.
Hmmmm, I wonder what changed?
I think you know.
Writing is how I’m dealing with the crushing anxiety of our times. In fact, I might have to start writing even more because I’ve started to develop a weird kind of nerve pain in my cheek. I figure as long as I can still smile, it can’t be all that serious.
The constant crushing lawlessness and the lack of a response is hard to deal with.
Other presidents age in office as the nation prospers.
The current president prospers while the nation ages.
Every night when I go to bed I’m grateful that one more day of his presidency is gone forever. Every morning when I wake up, I’m grateful that the secret police didn’t come and get me in the middle of the night.
I’ve been thinking of writing an emergency post and scheduling it for the future. The title would be, “If you’re reading this, it’s because the government has taken me. Please download my stories so they can’t erase me from history.”
Damn it. I’m not even joking. These are the challenges of our times.
I’m also not joking when I credit the people who follow this newsletter for helping me get through. Our community is growing, and we hit another milestone this week:
I think I wrote a note that really took off. I’ve had around 300 new followers in the last few days. I think it’s this one (don’t sleep on notes, it’s a powerful growth tool):
Another source of anxiety is that I got hit with a $1,200 veterinary bill on Monday. Don’t worry, the puppy is fine. I’m still debating whether or not to write that story. I find that I can handle one or two sources of anxiety, but when they start stacking on top of each other, I eventually break down.
Maybe that’s not just me, maybe that’s everybody.
I did a voice note in the evening when we got home. The puppy was all drugged up and I brought his bed into the living room and slept beside him on the couch. I wanted to sleep with my hand on him so I could tell if he stopped breathing in the night. He’s back to his old self now… that was just not the extra stress I needed right now. I’m not even really ready to revisit that sobbing voice note, but I expect it will make an emotionally impactful article.
Maybe when I feel a bit stronger.
Speaking of things that bring me strength. We did the first video meet since my last one got attacked by an angry conservative group. I am the target of a lot of hatred for saying things like we should have free lunches at public schools and universal healthcare.
I say things like, “We should heal the sick and feed the hungry.”
Conservatives spit at me and start throwing stones and insults (stones first, then the insults).
But I followed the security protocols you told me to implement in the comments (thank you), and it worked fine.
The next meeting is:
Mar 21, 2025 11:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
If you want to join, or if you have a question for me, please fill in this form. This worked great last time. I printed out the question list and I was able to read them whenever there was a lull in the conversation. It’s so useful to me to get your questions. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own process that I don’t recognize how complicated it is.
I think to myself, “It’s easy!” Then I start to explain it and find myself talking for two hours.
Finally, I’m doing another one of my Movie Break chats with
today (Thursday) at 1PM CST (give or take 5 minutes). He’s going to be discussing Jurassic Park and For All Mankind, and I’m going to be talking about Ladyhawke and The Secret Kingdom. Ben mentioned that he wanted to bring in Robocop again too, so we’ll probably add that as an aside. If there are other movies you want me to talk about, you can put that in the video meet up form too.This will be a meeting on Substack live.
One kind viewer offered these suggestions: TMNT (1990 movie), Cool Runnings, Robocop, There will be blood, The two popes, Tombstone, Fear and loathing, JFK, The Professional. I’ll get to them, I promise!
That’s it for now! Thursday and Friday have turned into my “video” days. I find that’s really important for my mental health because when I’m just stewing in my thoughts I get really worn out. It’s excellent to get feedback from all of you! Also, if Friday at 11AM CST is just an awful time for you for the video meet, let me know that too and I can alternate it with a different day every other week or something!
Here’s one of my previous movie chats with Ben. Thanks everyone!
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Writing helps me process my world!
I'm writing in a notebook news events that trouble me, along with (usually) brief commentary on how I feel about that particular news. I didn't think it was helping, but I'm genuinely less anxious, although still angry. Thanks for sharing how your writing helps you! Really enjoyed this piece!