Hi all,
I hope this isn't a rambling post. I'm struggling at the moment with having too many creative ideas in my head. I have always been a visual, creative person and my profession, when I could work, was as a set and costume designer. I haven't worked for 20+ years due to increasing mental health problems and particularly the sensory problems that I experience. It sounds contradictory that I work best with visual material but give me too much of it and I just have a meltdown. Yesterday I had to spend 5-6 hours lying in a dark room as I was completely overwhelmed. My question is this, do any of you guys experience such a high volume of ideas that your brain simply cannot cope with them? I've tried all the 'tools' in my cognitive toolbox (I had been receiving CBT sessions) and all of my other coping strategies. I've listed all the artwork projects that I would like to attempt or complete but this in itself has led to each project being broken down into sub-categories, it is an immense list. I can visualise each project and piece of work in my mind and I think just going through these is leading to my meltdowns. I've sat down and tried to just doodle but end up getting frustrated, I've tried to allocate the projects time slots just to get myself started but then panic ensues when I cannot 'perform'. I've read many of your articles and see that meditation/mindfulness seems to help a lot of people. Meditation itself I find counterproductive and mindfulness is an abstract concept that I can't understand. Does anyone have any other suggestions? This has ended up sounding rather negative but I appreciate that I am fortunate to have any ideas at all. Thanks for taking the time to read.