Facing the Sun: An Introduction

    Writing has been important to me for quite sometime now.  I can remember devoting much of my free time in high school working on long, chaptered stories.  Even now, I’m slowly putting together a novel.  What is most often the challenge for me is finding a subject about which to write. 

    The purpose of creative writing is to allow the readers to experience something from a different point of view or learn something while also entertaining them.  Most often, it seems as if the subjects that need to be written about the most are the hardest to get down onto paper because, once those thoughts and ideas are transferred from the mind into ink on a page, they become accessible to the world and its criticisms.

    I had never intended for these following works to be connected by a single theme.  For the most part, they were individual assignments for my creative writing class in college.  As I was writing each of these, though, I was also fighting a war within my own mind.  As my sophomore year of college continued, I began to learn about the enemy that had controlled my life for almost a decade. 

    Quite simply, I suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder which, for me, is an intense stress reaction during social situations.  Notice, I didn't say 'fear'.  I don't have a phobia of social situations.  I just tend to find them overwhelming.  I never went to a doctor.  I didn’t really think I needed a Ph.D. to tell me what was wrong and, quite frankly, the thought of telling anyone I might have a psychological disorder scared me to death. 

    The entries contained within this portfolio were my first steps towards overcoming this fear.  All were difficult to write because I knew I would have to share them with the class.  Some are a bit depressing because depression is associated with the disorder.  The good news is that I am beginning to make progress.  But, it will take time.  I know I will never be without the anxiety, but with a lot of prayer and hard work I know I can overcome it.

    The portfolio entries are a glimpse at what goes on inside the mind of a person suffering from this disorder.  For a long time, especially during high school, I was depressed because I always felt alone.  I believed that I was being punished for something I couldn’t understand.  But now, as I’ve put forth real effort to grow beyond this difficulty, I’ve realized that it wasn’t my purpose in life to be alone, and that God was as saddened by my loneliness as I was.  I honestly believe that God uses every pain we experience to help us to grow into who we were meant to be.  True, God did allow me to suffer from this overwhelming stress; however he also gave be the ability and the untapped strength to overcome it. 

    I’m not sure what my purpose in life is yet but, for now, all I’m concerning myself with is the next step in conquering this anxiety.  Part of the disorder is the fear that others will learn that you suffer from it.  This portfolio is my opposition to that fear.  I hope I’m not the only one to learn something from it.

    The items within this folder are the original documents compiled for my creative writing class.  Their order is specific.  The selections I made were specifically chosen because they were the best examples of my attempts to confront the fear created by my Social Anxiety Disorder.  "The Fire Within"  is a prose poem that hints at constant battle against a fear that always seems to rise from the ashes once again. 

    I chose it first because, in a sense, the poem reflects how my mind operated before I actively tried to change myself.  It was written not long after I had a fight with my brother.  Now, these fights weren’t uncommon back then.  We are brothers after all.  However, during the countless confrontations I can recall we’ve had, I don’t ever remember actually punching him, until the night that inspired this poem.  I won’t say what he did, but what he did managed to release all of the bottled up emotion I worked so hard to keep hidden from the world. 

    You see, when I was younger, I wasn’t sure how to deal with all of the fear and loneliness.  I never even told my parents about it until after I’d had that fight with my brother.  I was angry, but not at my brother.  My anger with him vanished as soon as my fist connected with his jaw.  I wasn’t even sure how hard I hit him, but it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that I lost my self-control for that brief moment in time, and that irritated me.  My belief then was that if I could just repress the emotion, I could make the pain go away.  In retrospect, I know that it only hindered my progress.

    "Veil" , "Against the Wall" , and "Change"  are all poems that reflect my desire to break away from my irrational fear of social situations.  They also allow readers to see things, even the most normal events, in a less optimistic light.  This is how my mental process works most of the time.  No matter what's happening, whether I verbalize it or not, I can often find the down side.  As such, I’ve been a pessimist for most of my life. 

    Against the Wall is the best example of this.  The assignment was to write a ghazal poem, which usually is about parties or relationships.  On average, they are very optimistic poems.  When my teacher assigned this poem, I was rather nervous.  I hadn’t had much experience with either.  Even today, I still get anxious at parties.  So, I decided to write about parties from my perspective, which has rarely been that of enjoyment.

    The poem entitled Veil is quite obviously about secrets and lies.  This was the point in my life when I tried to convince myself and the world that there was nothing wrong with me.  I always got angry when my brother mocked me for not having any friends.  In reality, I was always afraid that he might have discovered that simple conversations with people unsettled me.  I always told him that I could make friends if I wanted.  I just wanted to focus on school.  The truth of the matter was quite the opposite.  School was the last place I wanted to be, and the one thing I desired most of all was for someone, just one person, to be my friend despite my awkwardness.  It's still a struggle for me today.

    Change is the poem I wrote when things in my mind started to do just that.  I was realizing that all of the problems I had with social situations were all in my head.  You see, there’s a sort of reasoning behind the stress associated with Social Anxiety Disorder.  It basically rationalizes the irrational tension that arises when dealing with people.  I saw other people as enemies in a way.  I never truly trusted anyone, dismissing any compliment as a blatant lie to get me to do something.  I knew I was always one mistake away from being the laughing stock of the entire room.

    The short story, "Shadows" , was included because the character, named Wyatt, and I share an unreasonable fear, though what we feared were two different things.  In the end it doesn’t really matter.  Fear is fear, a hindrance, an obstacle to be overcome.  It is the reason for the title of this entire portfolio.  The wise old man in the woods compares our fears to shadows that stalk us wherever we go, and the only way to put those fears behind us is to face the sun, in other words, the source of our fear.  You must understand, as I’ve come to realize, that without fear, courage wouldn’t exist.  Strength is forged in weakness.  We live in a world of opposites.  How can we appreciate the good things if we don’t experience the bad?  The story is also my favorite entry because it gives you all the ability to dwell inside the mind of a phobic person for a short time. 

    The final two poems in the original portfolio are "The Star"  and "The Last Day of Winter" .  They reflect the change I have experienced in myself since my graduation from college.  They are a bit more hopeful that the previous entries.  This proves to me that I am making progress, albeit slow.  One thing God is teaching me though this whole ordeal is the meaning of the word ‘patience.’  It is a recurring lesson for me to learn, it seems.

    My work is not finished.  I realize now that I will never be without this anxiety.  I can work to overcome it, but it will always be there, lurking.  Some of the poems keep the theme of fear, while others don’t.  Whatever the subject, these works mark the continuance of my journey to keep my shadow behind me and face the sun.





If you would like to see the items in order, follow the link below.

ID: 1496304   (Rated: ASR) Facing the Sun  This is my Creative Writing Portfolio from my college writing class. by JDMac