Origin Story

I hoped to write a book, but I didn't mean to write Maladaptive. 

It began as a therapy exercise. A practice project to re-engage my creative muscles, stimulate inspiration, and hopefully lead to real writing. 

My main reason for starting therapy was a feeling of shutting down, and everything that came with that, like not wanting to do literally anything. I've had depression before, and managed with anti-depressants, until they just stopped working. It was clear that another type of intervention was needed.

I didn't really know what the problem was, but I knew what I wanted to fix. For a few years, I had been slowly losing interest in everything that made me me, until there was nothing left to lose interest in. A severe case of anhedonia. Zero interest in the things that have always brought me joy, like listening to music, going to concerts, record collecting, singing, drawing, painting, crafting, reading, and the most unbearable of all, loss of interest in writing. That one was the first to go.

While losing interest in all of those creative pursuits has been distressing to me, as someone who writes for a living, that has been the most painful, and yet oddly, it was not my breaking point.

It was this: just feeling so utterly exhausted from pretending to still be that person who cared about those things in order to relate to everyone who knows and loves me. And the consequence of that was a level of paralysis and dissociation that I hadn't experienced before.

Let me just say, yes I know, everybody daydreams. Some do it more than others, like me. Either way, it's normal. There's nothing wrong with it. Unless it becomes excessive to the point of being harmful, as in disruptive to daily life, interfering with work, social relationships and quality of life, even personal safety. Then it becomes maladaptive.

I didn't know it was called that when I started therapy. I just knew my lifelong daydreaming habit had tipped over into something unhealthy. Thus began explorations and investigations into the way my mind works and the way I cope with stress, leading to the revelation that I was experiencing burnout which seemed to be the result of forty-odd years of masking due to undiagnosed ADHD. 

The signs were always there since childhood. The chronic inattentiveness, the struggle to complete or even begin basic tasks while hyper-focusing on others, the inability to follow instructions. Eventually I forced myself to learn how to get by, motivated by an abyssally deep fear of disappointing everyone. And honestly, getting diagnosed with ADHD was not on my to-do list (though it is official). I just wanted to feel like myself again. Be able to relate to people again. And most importantly, start writing again.

It wasn't my therapist's idea for me to start journaling my maladaptive daydreams, but it did indirectly emerge from the work we were doing treating my burnout. I didn't think of it as actual creative writing. Just a way of getting it all out of my head, clearing away the heroine fantasy clutter and wish fulfillment garbage to make room for actual creativity. It wasn't real, so I never intended to do anything with it. 

Until somehow, it became creative. What started out as a dump of barely literate junk in journal form turned into a story. The exercise worked. It had the exact effect I had intended, but there was one problem: I couldn't ever share it with anyone. The thirst to connect through creating something could not be quenched.

Why, you ask? (You're still reading, so I assume you must be wondering). The short answer is: I would be mortified if my loved ones ever knew I wrote it. It's not what they expect from me. It goes into sensitive territory. Scandalous, even. It might even be... (gasp)... unwholesome. It's not for them.

For the record, this isn't my first book, and Zinnia Sherwood isn't my real name. She's a pen name, an avatar, a character who freed me from the limitations of what others expect from me, and allowed me to finish the first truly creative act I've undertaken in over five years.

Finishing it was just the first hurdle. The next one is putting it out there. Honestly, my expectations are not high. I'm rusty. My voice isn't what it used to be. But if I'm ever going to get back to myself, jumping through these hoops is necessary, regardless of the outcome.

I hope it finds an audience. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. Zinnia Sherwood can take it.