I have anxiety and depression, and I've noticed an unusual trend. When I'm more manic and have higher anxiety I can write. I write a lot! (up to ten+ pages a day on great days! 5 on okay days.) But when I fall into a depressive episode I can't write a lot. I'm lucky to get a paragraph. When I'm having a Manic/Anxiety trend it isn't really positive, it just the exact opposite of my depression, but not in a good way.

Does anyone else have a similar trend? I can actually set my clock by mine.

In high school, I had a tendency to write more when I was depressed (diagnosed with clinical depression freshmen year), but writing was about the only positive outlet I had at the time. I'd get so focused on the writing, I'd forget about everything else.

I don't know a lot about mania, but I have read that it can help with cranking out the creativity. When you're experiencing it, are you worried about what you write or just keep going, not nitpicking at everything? I've developed that nitpicking habit which has greatly slowed my writing process down. I'm trying to break out it. There's also days where I just feel like I'm in a rut and won't write at all. I commend you for even getting a paragraph done during you low periods because some days, it's just really hard to get the words on the page.

I can get a bit nitpicky, but usually, when I'm manic/Anxious (because for me the two go hand-in-hand) I don't care about stuff as much (which is a problem in its own right).

I often do an exercise with my first year college students called "exploratory writing." While the method is used to help them with essays, the same principles can be applied to creative writing. Essentially, I tell them to stop nitpicking. Don't worry about spelling. Don't worry about flow. Just get all their thoughts down on the page. It's kind of like a free-for-all brainstorming session (though I usually offer some guided questions to help them get started).

The reason why I like the exercise is that it helps to get a lot of writing done. The caveat, however, is that they have to go back and revise their work so it's coherent. So while not caring about the specifics of writing may seem like an issue, if you have every intention of revising and then do so, you're channeling your creative energy into something productive. If you're worried about not being able to write much while you're in a more depressive episode, perhaps that's when you could go back and revise what you previously wrote?

I'm the same way. When I'm very depressed and try to write, I can't get anything out. I just feel like everything I write is awful, that I'm a shitty writer and can't do anything :(

I actually created a website with the intention of helping myself with the writing problem by generating writing prompts. It's at https://www.ajumbleofwords.com/ if you're curious. Hope the self promo is okay, it's really not a very active site, I just mention it because it might help you.

Occasionally I am able to write something if I use my website, but it's usually not that long or good.

Oh huh, I have anxiety and depression too and they give me totally different problems. I've won nanowrimo twice so I've had a lot of practice at turning off my inner critic and just cranking out content, so I could still write during a depressive episode if I really try. The problem is that depression makes me completely lose interest in my ideas (even if I know on an intellectual level they're really important projects that I've been planning for years) and it seems pointless to put that much effort into it :I

Anxiety on the other hand really intensifies my executive dysfunction and fills up my things-to-do queue with "panic about nothing", so I can't write at all when it's bad.

I don't think I have depression, so I can't really chime in from that angle, but my anxiety can get pretty bad (though significantly less so these days). When my anxiety was at it's worst I really struggled to write anything except short drabbles, and even then it was kind of like forcing myself to do it. I don't really post my writing or anything so I don't really worry about people criticizing it or whatever, but even writing it for just me was a challenge.

However, I recently started medication to help me manage it, and since then I've been able to write a ton, like more than I have in a really long time.

I have both depression and anxiety issues, and I'm the other way around completely. I generally choose to write whenever I'm feeling low, as my creativity is sort of enhanced by the pain. It's like it drives me to write so I can "fix" myself or something, if that makes any sense? But conversely, when I'm feeling too anxious? My perfectionist streak rears its ugly head even worse than usual, and I suddenly feel frozen in place. I can't get a single thing done.

Strangely, when I was medicated back in the day? It killed my ability to create entirely. I guess I need my mood swings to become inspired, haha.

I have anxiety and depression as well. I keep it under control most of the time by occupying myself with work.

But yes, when it's at its worst, I write. And if I end up having a drink or ten, it seems to fuel it even more, along with the depression.

I wake up in the morning with oodles and oodles or writing that I don't recognize writing but am very proud of :)

I love to write, but I have to feel some sort of inspiration to do anything, which I have been lacking lately Dx.

I have a related story. Back in 2015 I became very inspired to write a novel-length fanfiction for the video game Dishonored centered around the character Delilah from the DLC. (If you want to read it, it's on AO3, called The Rose Queen and my username there is Shard). I have depression and anxiety but I absolutely did not want to take meds at the time because I was afraid that they would mess me up and turn me into someone I didn't want to be and that it would be weak of me to give in to meds anyway. The opinions of others are so cruel when it comes to mental illness as such. Every day I disciplined myself into writing 1,000 to 2,000 words on it believing that somehow it would save me from myself as I am rather a romanticist and believe in the healing power of art. Sometimes it worked, but one day I woke up in such an irreversibly horrible mood. There was no trigger, and nothing could reverse it. Art wasn't enough. Not for my major depressive disorder. That's when I decided it was time to try medication. I feared that doing so would mean giving up my ability to be creative, but it didn't. I'm on Lexapro, and while the first week left me somewhat dizzy it soon cleared up and I was the same person as ever just not quite as oppressed by this darkness. My writing abilities remained unchanged. I think it's significant that I latched on to the character of Delilah. I see a lot of myself in her, and I'm quite certain she has depression too. I can be just as impersonal and hateful. The way everything around how tends to fall to pieces and she fails to clean it up is not so far off from how my own surroundings look. And of course the wish for a better life that can easily become its own destructive force. Unfortunately for her, I don't think there's any saving her by the time she appears in the games. She's been far too consumed for that.