The Double-Edged Pen

Writing, Medication, and the Search for What Holds Us Steady

Lately I’ve been thinking about the different ways we care for ourselves, and how those strategies sometimes hold and sometimes fall short. This reflection is about writing, medication, and the harder work of knowing when to reach for more.

I have been keyed up lately. Between sending my book proposal to agents, working with my clients, and taking on an extra household load while my husband recovers from an injury, my body has spent the last few days on high alert. Like so many people juggling responsibility and uncertainty, the proof shows up in my sleep, or rather, the lack of it.

Before I started writing regularly, I had a reliable nighttime routine. My days were filled with other people’s heaviest moments, and while I wouldn’t have it any other way, by nightfall I was depleted. What I craved was not more substance but escape. So after putting my youngest to bed, I would collapse on the couch and watch the dumbest television I could find. The dumber, the better: Real Housewives, The Bachelor, The Kardashians (gasp). Pair it with a bowl of candy corn (yes, I know it is disgusting) and I had my evening anesthetic, a perfect blend of mindless drama and high-fructose corn syrup.

Most of us have something like this: the show we stream, the snack we reach for, the small ritual that helps us shut down after long days of work or caregiving or whatever else might fill our hours. My routine worked for a long while.

Then I started writing. What began as a page a day turned into a memoir. When I finished, I began posting reflections on Substack. Writing has givine me a voice, a way to map what is inside me and send it out into the world. It feels essential to my healing and growth. But essential is not the same as calming. Writing is not Housewives and candy corn. Writing stirs things up.

So instead of numbing out before bed now, often I wind myself up. I crawl into bed still buzzing with words and feelings. Of course, there are plenty of reasons to lose sleep these days. The world feels like it is on fire: climate change, political chaos, war, school shootings, and more. It is hard to imagine being a human right now and not carrying some background hum of dread. But for me, the question is not only about the state of the world. It is about how I care for myself in the midst of it.

Three years ago, in the middle of an anorexia relapse, I started Zoloft. It was not my first time on an antidepressant, but it had been years. The fact that I willingly took a drug with “weight gain” listed as a side effect says everything about how much I wanted to get better.

I cannot tell you if Zoloft helped me. It was no miracle cure, but while I was on it, I slowly wound my way towards health. Out of fear of what might happen if I stepped away, I stayed on it for years. Five months ago, with my doctor’s guidance, I weaned off. I didn’t notice any changes. My mood was stable, and my relationship with food was unchanged. In fact, life was rich with relationships, writing, and meaning.

But writing, my great lifeline, has been a double-edged sword. It has given me connection, honesty, and purpose, but it has also opened me up to a new kind of vulnerability. Because it is one thing to write words for me; it is another to send those words into the world, where they can be judged, ignored, or rejected.

Last week, I started sending my book proposal to agents. Full disclosure: I did this even though I am in meaningful conversation with an agent who might already be the right fit. She actually encouraged me to keep querying. She wanted me to find the best match, not just a good-enough one. It was a generous move that made me trust her more, but it also meant that every day for the past couple of weeks, I have been putting myself out there in a new and terrifying way.

About twelve hours after I sent my first query, the first rejection landed in my inbox. I had braced for it. The agent’s website made clear he does not consider memoirs from writers without a platform. I do not have the platform he meant, so I expected the no. Still, it stung.

Then came rejection number two. This one was kind and hopeful, but still a rejection. I texted one of my closest friends: “Rejection number two. A very nice one, but a rejection all the same. I have to remind myself I only need to find one yes, and I have already found one. Just trying to take deep breaths.” I added, “It feels personal because the material is so personal.”

She wrote back, “I get that. But it is not so personal. It is a business. It is not a referendum on you, your being, or your writing. As you are learning with Substack, there are so many ways for your story to be told.” And then she added: “FYI, if you keep feeling super on edge and not sleeping, I am going to gently check in on your eating and on whether it is time to revisit the SSRI. Consider this your several-weeks-out warning.”

This is not just any friend. She is the one who picked up the phone the night of the plane crash, when my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and their three young sons were killed. She stayed on the line while I sobbed, saying nothing, just breathing with me. She is the one who texted my husband every single day for a year afterward to make sure he survived. She is the one I laughed and cried my way through graduate school with, who has walked beside me through all three of my adult relapses, even when I pretended otherwise. She knows every inch of my brain and heart, even the parts I tried to keep hidden until recently. So when she gives me a gentle check-in, I listen. She knows my tells. She knows that when I am vulnerable, old parts of me can surface.

That vulnerability is part of why I find myself asking again: how do I know when what I am doing to care for myself is enough, and when I need more? Do I need the buffer of medication, or can I trust the scaffolding I have built through therapy, relationships, and writing? This is a question about medication, but it is also about how we know when we can hold steady and when it is time to change course.

Maybe that is the bigger question for all of us: how do we recognize when it is time to adjust the way we care for ourselves? Life is heavy right now. Some days small rituals are enough. Other days we need sturdier support. And what steadies us now may not be enough later. Perhaps the work is not choosing the “right” form of help, but learning to notice when it is time to reach for something more.