#Moritaka Mashiro | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

schmedterlingfreud · 4 months ago

Text

Welp, I really think I'm in the middle of another good ol' burnout. It's been a long time since we saw each other, you and me, old champ.

This time, in addition to being painful, exhausting, it was also almost embarrassing, because I was about to have a crisis in the middle of my work shift. The worst and most difficult part of it went on for about an hour and a half -- two hours, maybe -- but that didn't stopped me and I continued to work. The scene is as pathetic to imagine as it was to play it in my shoes. My swollen and red eyes; tears held back between quivering eyelashes; patches of redness that gradually spread on the cheeks and the tip of my nose; the trembling of my lower lip; and the repeated sucking noise from my dripping nose.

But I didn't cry. Not even a tear runned down my cheek. I continued to work in the bubble of scorching heat being hold by the factory walls. Putting packages in the cartons, stacking the cartons, taking the pallet away -- all of this with the miserable face of someone who has just been scolded by the shift boss in the locker room bathrooms. Maybe it would have been better. I would have inspired more compassion.

I carried on. I carried on as always, despite the desire to grab my hair, to fall on my knees on the cracker-strewn floor, and to scream, even louder and louder than the commotion of the wrapping machines. “It's okay,” I kept telling myself, blowing slow and deep breaths through my mouth. "It's okay. Keep working, finish your eight hours, and then you can go home and vent as much as you want, even streaming a tears flood in your car during the road trip." And the idea was tempting, indeed. Just figuring it made me feel better. Getting into the car, leaning against the steering wheel squeezed in my hands, and screaming until feeling my head deflated, until all the horrible voices that gave me no peace were broken. "Pathetic, pathetic, lame, weak, failure, useless, you're just a failure…"

I held back tears out of pride and professionality -- we were still working, after all. But there was a moment in which I sincerely considered the idea of grabbing one of my closest coworkers, one of those who I don't even like too much, and then falling into her arms, simply letting her hold me for a few minutes. Crying on her chest, sobbing until my throat hurts and my eyes melt. I was looking at her from afar, thinking, "Please, E., please, come here and hug me. Just for a little while, just for a minute, but come here and hold me, let me feel just a little bit of love." Obviously that didn't happen.

Then things got better. During the midnight break I was already began to feel better. Bad voices faded, my mind was calm but still fogged. A very typical situation: "You're not youself when you're hungry, here, have a Snickers." But the pain remained. And I know it will return, sparked by the smallest thing, the smallest thought, the simplest and harmless image.

Maybe I should take a break from writing, if I'm so distressed about it, but I don't want to. The thought of not writing makes me a thousand times more anxious than the thought of writing and getting a burnout from it.

I'm scared because I've already lived through a period like this, and I came out of it badly, broken and exhausted. I'm still broken and exhausted, despite everything I did to heal from it.

That time it was way worse, yes. That time I understood what it meant to burn myself out to the point of being consumed. Making writing an obsession, depriving myself of sleep or food in order to remain with my hands on the laptop keys and continue tapping and working, to the point of exhaustion, trembling and crying with fear at the idea that something could stop me from continuing. Being victim of that little voice that tells you: "If you stop now, no one will read you anymore. If you stop writing, if you don't spend every single minute of your free time writing, your failure will be your own fault. You don't want to have regrets, right? Do you know what will happen if you give the impression that you are slowing down? All your readers will disappear, no one will ever read what you write again, and all the efforts you have made so far will have been in vain."

Scary as Hell, right?

Needless to say, it didn't end well. I burned like a fucking match, and I'm still paying the consequences -- my permanent self-harm scars are there and will be with me for the rest of my life.

I'm scared because I feel like I did then, and the images that flash in my head are the ones that pushed me to those horrible actions years ago.

I even started taking Xanax again after years of abstinence, without telling anyone. I dip it from old supplies, in fact. I hope it hasn't expired. If it is, it's working anyway, so let's rejoice! It's not a good thing to have to rely on meds, tho. It's not a good thing to be unable to control your anxiety and obsessive thoughts after all this time.

I feel like it's the same, I still feel broken like I was that time, and yet I also feel different. I'm not in a depressive state, absolutely not. In fact, since I moved away from my old home, I feel much more lively and productive than before, both in terms of housework, leaving the house to go to work, and in terms of writing. I write a lot more, and I do it with more energy. Maybe this is exactly why I feel the burnout approaching. I'm giving it my all, I'm burning more than ever, with no one to feed me with more wood.

It's a recurring image that I also had in my past years, when I happened to stop and think about my most intense writing periods, when I used to sacrifice my body and soul for my stories, but without ever managing to achieve what I aspired to. I felt like an exploited and withered old cow. The agonized cries, the old and sore skin, the peeled hooves, the dried up udders yet red from the constant chafing marks. She is milked every day, without mercy, deprived of the last drop of milk, and forced to nibble only on a few tufts of dry grass, without being offered anything else.

What recognition did I hope -- and still hope -- to receive? I'm still wondering that.

It's no readers's fault if I don't feel fulfilled, at all. The real problem is that writing is my whole life. I have a "real" job, of course. I need a roof and a meal, and I don't lack these things. I chose a job that doesn't require passion or emotional involvement -- I work in a fucking factory, for fuck sake! -- because it allows me to concentrate all my mental energy on the only thing that gives me true happiness: writing.

I have no friends. My family is broken. I don't have a social life. I don't go out to have fun and I have nobody to go out and have fun. When I'm at work I think about what I'll write when I'm at home, and when I'm at home I use all the time I have to write and work on what I'll publish online. "You have to do it" the little voices tell me. "If you don't write until your soul is dry, then you can at least say you tried with all of your strenght."

I tried. I'm trying. Why then can't I be happy?

From this point of view I feel a bit like Joe, the main character of "Soul", the Pixar movie. He has dedicated his whole life to music. Music is the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep. Having reached middle age, despite having sacrificed his entire life in the name of his passion, he still cannot feel satisfied. He suddenly realizes that he has never really lived. Then, finally taking the opportunity he has been chasing for all his life, he realizes: "Is that all? Now what?"

I'm starting to understand him more and more.

The satisfaction I got from my writing and my stories was never enough. There was never a moment when I found myself thinking, "This is what I wanted. This is the recognition I expected to receive. This is the satisfaction I hoped to feel all along." I don't want to feel this way. I feel so so so ungrateful, but still…

It happens to me many times, reading stories online, seeing authors write sentences like: "Wow! I didn't expect all this warmth from you readers! The success of the previous chapter was truly unexpected! When I started this story and this adventure, I never expected to receive all this support and all this enthusiasm." In the comments section, to testify to this, hundreds and hundreds of different users who are enthusiastic, showering them with kudos. So many readers the author doesn't have time to answer to all of them.

I used to be happy to read famous stories. They inspired me, involve me, gave me the desire to improve and to write like that. Now I only feel a rotten and terrible envy that makes my stomach burn and crawl.

The character I most associate with this feeling is Antonio Salieri. The character from the movie "Amadeus", not the real musician Antonio Salieri. For him too, like Joe from "Soul", music is everything. Salieri sacrifices everything to achieve the success he feels he deserves in the musical field. He even takes a vow of chastity. My everything for my success! There is nothing else in his life, nothing worth living, other than the pursuing of that dream. Then here comes Mozart, who takes music as a game, so naturally, without forgetting everything else in his life, and who still achieves more success than him. And poor Salieri ends his life in madness, forgotten, crushed under the weight of his mediocrity.

The point is, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I love writing so much. I love sharing my work and I hope readers will partecipate to my enthusiasm with me. When I see that this enthusiasm falls on deaf ears, like a stone in a well, I feel a part of me crumbling and collapsing with it.

Maybe I should just… stop setting expectations? I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I've been posting and sharing my work online for more than 13 years, and I feel like I've accomplished nothing, like there's something wrong with me.

I'm a shitty person. Not just to say so. It's just what I am. I am selfish, cold, closed in my solitude, not inclined to affection. Maybe that's why I don't have any friends, duh? Furthermore, I have a shitty job that offers no career opportunities -- but that's okay, I knew the deal, this is what I chose. The only shred of value I see in myself is what I pour into my writing. But this writing has no recognition. Does that mean I'm worthless in every way?

In all these years, I have crossed and spaced many genres, I have written shorter stories and longer stories, fan fiction and originals. No feedback has ever proportionally repaid all the work and effort I put behind my words.

Maybe I simply don't have the sparkle? Maybe I'm just a mediocre author? Maybe I have to resign myself that what I write will never appeal to a wide audience as much as I want it to?

At this point I feel obligated to mention one final storytelling comparison -- Mashiro and Takagi from "Bakuman".

Same old story already told with Joe and Salieri. All life and youth sacrificed in the name of one cause and one dream, in this case not music, but manga. To achieve success, they sweat, fight backlash after backlash, and even find themselves envious of other manga artists. Of Nizuma, the genius, who doesn't seem to make an effort to be the number one. But also of Hiramaru. Hiramaru hates his job, he hates working hard and he hates drawing manga, yet he succeeds. He does it well and is more successful than Mashiro and Takagi who instead spit tears and blood on every page they write and draw.

Their editor often warns them, faced with their desire to be successful: "Just deal with it: what you do well is not suitable for the bigger public, but only for a niche audience, so you will never be able to compare yourself to other authors like Nizuma who instead are able to capture much larger segments of the public. Put your heart at rest, continue to draw with your audience in mind, and be satisfied with it."

I'm not so presumptuous as to compare myself to truly talented authors like Mashiro and Takagi, of course not. Because at this point I'm thinking that my writing is just as bad that it doesn't even deserve a niche audience.

And I know that the situation is going to get worse from now on, for one simple fact. I'm getting old. The older I get, the more I distance myself from the fandom target, that is, a younger audience who will consequently be looking for thoughts and ideas that align with the minds of their generation. And that's okay. But for whom should I continue to write, then? Just for myself? Should I resign myself to the idea of continuing to scream into the void for the rest of my life?

But what can I do about it? This problem may seem insignificant, yet my pain is real and it is consuming me as it has consumed me once before, devouring my thoughts, burning in the center of my head, and shattering every beat of my soul.

Now, I know that despite everything I will carry on. I will continue to write, despite the pain, and I will continue to look for my happiness, my fulfillment. Trying, in the meantime, not to return to "bad old habits" to vent the pain and frustration that would otherwise eat my brain away.

... fuck, I need a Xanax so bad, right now.

I wrote this text to vent, but I hope it can also help someone else. And please: don't take it as a whine or a complaint. I love my readers, even if they're few and even if sporadic or quiet. You are truly the only smiles of my days, the only thing that is worth continuing to sit down and type on the word document.

I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm not looking for pity. Maybe just a little… solidarity?

Do you writers (or artists!) also experience similar feelings? Do you also feel like your efforts are in vain? Do you also feel like you are constantly looking for approval that never comes? Have you also faced bad burnouts? Please, if you have any stories and experiences to share, I would be so happy to hear them. To support each other, perhaps. Or to have a little vent, to feel better and not so alone.

If you made it so far and if you read all of this: you rock! You're amazing. Please, have a candy, stay hydrate, and treat yourself well. 🍬

You deserve it. You are worth it.

0 notes