Combating an Inner Critic: Creative Anorexia

I don’t want to write today. I feel disgusted with myself.
Is there such a thing as a writer’s high? Like a runner’s high? If so, I’m hungover.
Yesterday I posted an entry in r/stopdrinking that got a lot of attention—compliments, validation. I shared it with my husband, who offered some critical (and helpful) feedback, but the old voices in my head took that as ammo. They used it to shoot down any confidence I’d built.
“The tense jumps back and forth a lot—like we’re in the present, then suddenly in the past. It’s jarring.”
Needing reassurance—because my husband isn’t a writer or reader—I asked ChatGPT, and it agreed. So here we are. It’s not a big deal. All writers have editors. All writers get feedback. So why does it feel like poison to me? Why does it feel like it’s killing whatever plant I’m trying to foster here?
He also said I undermine myself. That I should write with more confidence. Trust myself more.
I’m working on that. That’s the whole point of this.
Art is messy. This is an art project, after all.
And what kind of psycho posts their rough drafts online for anyone to read?
The kind who needs to get over her fear of rejection.
The kind who no longer hides in bottles.
The kind who’s learning to eat her words—let them digest, let the nutrients nourish her.
It’s poetic, I guess—having an eating disorder in real life and in my creative life.

In real life, I’ve tried to control the shape of my body through over-exercising, under-eating, or numbing myself with bingeing—on food, on alcohol. Creatively, I’m doing the same thing. I’m not letting nature take its course.
I’ve tried to control the way I’m perceived. Sharing anything and getting feedback feels like letting go of control—the same way eating in symphony with my hunger cues feels wildly terrifying. I have to trust my body is telling me what it needs. I have to trust the person who loves me is telling me what I need to hear. More than that, I have to trust the universe is telling me what I need to hear.
Who am I to say if something is perfect or rotten? This whole project has just been me screaming how unsure of myself I am, so why am I so sure that I am garbage?
What if I’m hungry because I’m moving around a lot, and my muscles need fuel to keep going?
What if I’m getting feedback because someone thinks I’m a good writer who could be better?
It’s so easy to think in absolutes when those absolutes all point to: “I am absolute trash.”
The much harder-to-accept reality is I’m somewhere in between trash and terrific—not terrific trash.

I’m in a 12-Step program. They always say: even if there’s only one person in the room who benefitted from your share, it was worth it.
So here I am, screaming into the void.
I don’t know if this will reach anyone, if it will matter.

Also, I don’t think I’m nothing. My inner critic is extremely dramatic.
I know I’m valuable. I know I’m smart. And I know I’m a good writer.
Writing is a skill, a craft. It takes practice. It means failing.
The road to success is lined with a million failures. I’m working on increasing my tolerance, thickening my skin.

Three pages every day—that’s the assignment.
Not three works of genius. Not three NYT best-selling pages.
That’s not the point.
I’m not writing for the accolades. I’m writing because I have to.
I’m writing because in all the places I’ve traveled, all the versions of myself I’ve been, writing has been constant.

When I was in college, I had an engagement that fell through. I coped with the heartbreak through poetry, sharing at spoken word events—I even wound up getting published in a local indie zine.

When I was living in Manhattan after college, I wrote about the misery and the violence of being new to that city—through my alcoholism, addiction, through another abusive relationship.

Now, today, I’ve written all the way through achieving my dreams of getting married, buying a house, and having a child.

I have written my way through all of it. This is my lifeline.

I’m not a great writer. Sometimes I’m a good writer. But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is: I am a writer.