“We’re still waiting for that book,” said a friend many years ago. 

We were having one of our rare lunch meetings because we lived miles apart. I always looked forward to seeing her and enjoyed our time together, but this felt like a comment spoken at me, not to me. I remember feeling small in the shade of her disappointment. My well-practiced defences kicked in, and without missing a beat I directed the conversation back at her, asking, “What about your book?”. At different times in her career she’d mentioned she might write a business book. But she dismissed my question, lightly waving a hand, saying her work was always busy, and her kids still needed her even though they were adults and working. She didn’t ask what was getting in the way of my writing.

Closer to home, another friend would question me about what I was writing. I’d fall back on the oft-repeated response: “I have a few things on the go. A few short stories and some poems. They need reworking.”

The struggle to write: When emotional detachment stalls creativity

Their probing came in part from me telling them I wanted to write, and the publication of three poems in Ontario magazines. Even though I’d studied journalism, completed a BA in history and politics, I couldn’t sustain my creative writing practice. My efforts to access depth, energy, and concentration were blocked. Something was badly off, and when it seemed to me that things were off, I became anxious. Whatever it was, it felt impenetrable and inexplicable. 

Once or twice a month I would sit down and begin writing . . . again. Then I’d compare my work to the poetry I read or heard at readings and rip up my drafts, telling myself my prose was shabby, dull, and shallow. It wasn’t good enough and never would be. But, as some writers know, the need, urge, or desire to write cannot be extinguished easily. The next month would arrive and so would the need to write. I would open a new notebook and begin writing, telling myself that this time it was a fresh start. But I kept falling back on those fresh starts and soon they were no longer fresh, but ingrained habits.  

Understanding emotional detachment as a barrier to creative writing

It wasn’t until the death of a close friend in 1990 that the true and enormous issues around creative expression began to erupt. My friend’s death dislodged an emotional trauma from early childhood, a trauma sealed off and never felt. In the six months after my friend’s death, the trauma re-emerged with a raging pressure that, initially, could only be expressed in therapy sessions with screams and punches. Panic attacks followed, and the fury of the repressed emotions continued to ambush me regularly.

I would freeze and then thaw, freeze and feel, and this pendulum-like life went on for the next two years or so. Those decades-old emotions demanded to be felt; if I wanted to grow, to heal, to write, I had to feel, recognize, and understand my wounding, something I’d been incapable of doing when I first experienced that trauma as a two year old.

With a basic knowledge of psychology and psychotherapy and help from a few librarians (these were pre-internet times), I searched for writers who could offer answers to my attempts to come to terms with my reactions to that early trauma, and the events that caused it. Some of the best books I read at the time were Judith Viorst’s Necessary Losses and works by Aaron Beck, a humanist and psychiatrist who wrote extensively about the impact of early childhood loss on adults in their later years.

My writing moved into a more reflective style and began to feel somewhat easier as I worked through deeply painful memories and tried to understand who I was. Joan Didion once said, “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” That still resonates with me. My writing was about making sense of events in the past and a family that had been destroyed long before I knew it. 

What did my friend’s death and the re-emergence of an unfelt childhood trauma reveal about emotional detachment as a barrier to writing? Probably the most important thing I had to accept was that I’d spent long tracts of time in a state of emotional detachment (1), and more often than not those periods of detachment were from myself. This made creative writing a massive struggle. For a lot of the time I wasn’t emotionally connected or engaged (2), so how could I hope to be creative, or even deeply creative?

I learned that being emotionally detached for extended periods prevented me from finding deeper meaning in writing and without meaning, there was little, if any, satisfaction. I’d get an idea, a fragment of thought, or a connection between A and B, and would begin to write, pushing forward with intellectual effort or external motivation. But with only limited enthusiasm or excitement, intellectual effort could only take me so far, just far enough to feel empty. Diligently I tried to follow the advice of friends, authors, and other so-called experts who recommend meditation, therapy, running, doing nothing, or talking with friends. But I still couldn’t find the drive and motivation required for sustained creative expression.

Finding meaning in writing: Reconnecting with emotions

Through my friend’s death, after a lot of work I discovered that being able to sense and identify emotions opened up a “feelings” lens through which I could view and evaluate thoughts. Ideas could take on new meaning, depth, lightness, or significance. For example, ideas such as “democracy matters” or “emotions give my creativity drive and intensity” become compelling and worth writing about when a writer feels anger about attempts to corrupt democracy, or excitement about a new creative project. Emotion and feeling are essential to drive forward writing and to create something more powerful, more meaningful, and more relatable.

In the years since, I’ve met and read about other writers who’ve admitted experiencing emotional detachment and how it made the act of creating almost impossible. Some would say they longed to write but struggled to begin (or quickly gave up), even though doing so could have helped them become aware of their emotions and, using the term psychologists use, become attached to their emotions. Some forced themselves to confront their inner turmoil began a journey towards integration and, after some time passed, revealed they could finally set in place a sustainable creative practice.

Interested in sharing? How connecting with others creates community and supports creativity

An important goal for my writing on this site is to support other writers and creatives who’ve lived with emotional detachment. That support can come in the form of sharing your own writing here as a guest and anonymously if you wish, reading my words so that some things resonating with you, or it could be in the form of some kind of community—please get in touch if you are a creative writer or work in the creative arts have have had a similar experience and want to share your story.

Sharing matters because because too few people who’ve developed this coping mechanism have an opportunity to share their stories story—and sharing is a powerful antidote to the isolation, shame, and feeling deficient—things that can arise from being emotional detached. 

There are plenty of experts sharing their knowledge about repressed trauma and emotional detachment, and their knowledge is invaluable. But so are the voices of those who have lived through this and who can illuminate the expereince, and inform and support others. 

I’m particularly interested in hearing about what helped you heal. Was it a relationship, close friends, books, nature, reflective writing, therapy, or something else? You’re welcome to get in touch with me and tell your story. Connecting and sharing experiences can bring about inspiration and those things, too, can help healing.

1. Today, neuroscientists and most psychologists accept the following definitions of emotions and feelings and the differences between the two:Emotions: Research suggests that emotions originate in the unconscious and are felt within the body. They give us in-the-moment information about what we’re experiencing internally and what’s happening around us. Yet, emotions can exist inside us without us being aware of them. Feelings: Feelings are conscious and are the meaning we give to our emotions. If/when we begin to notice our emotions, we are feeling them. Feelings are subjective and influenced by how we interpret our emotions. Our feelings can be affected by our thoughts, preferences, memories, beliefs, past experiences, or what’s taking place around us.
   
2. Emotionally connected: A way of being where you’re connected to yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings, or as C.G. Jung would write, you are integrated. More about integration in an upcoming article.