Some days, writing feels like breathing. Other days, it feels like climbing out of a pillow fort lined with existential dread.

I used to be a prolific writer… songs, fanfiction, original fiction, half thought out plot bunnies scribbled in one of the multitude of pretty notebooks I couldn’t (and still can’t) resist buying. If I had an idea, I followed it. If I didn’t, I still wrote. It was how I moved through the world. Until it wasn’t.

One day, my brain decided I wasn’t good enough.

Not in a dramatic, thunder crack epiphany sort of way. More like a slow fade. I still had ideas, but I couldn’t write them. I couldn’t even talk about them. They hurt. Because I didn’t think I deserved them. Because I didn’t think I could do them justice. Because everything in me whispered, “Why bother? You’ll mess it up.”

That was depression talking. That was anxiety wrapping itself in creative block and hurling it like a weighted blanket over everything I loved.

So I stopped. And I stayed stopped for longer than I want to admit.

Eventually, I got therapy. I started learning how to untangle the mental noise. Techniques to quiet the inner critic. To write a sentence without needing it to be perfect. To remind myself that ideas don’t have expiration dates.

I started writing again.

Not like before. Not all at once. But in soft, small ways. A line here. A scene there. A journal entry that accidentally turned into a short story. I came back.

But I still have bad days.

I still have days when the world is too much and the stories feel far away. I still crawl back into my pillow fort, surrounded by fuzzy blankets, stuffed animals, and a very patient cat who purrs like she knows I’m trying. I don’t feel guilty about those days anymore.

Because now I know: rest is part of the process.

Self care is writing adjacent.

Ideas don’t vanish just because you need a break and bad words are still better than no words because editing exists and perfection is a myth anyway.

If you’re in the pillow fort right now, I see you.

You’re not broken. You’re just resting.

And when you’re ready, your stories will still be there, waiting.

If this post spoke to you, share it with another writer who might need a little reminder: the stories will still be there. And so will you.