Write’s Blockade

My brain has been particularly mushy lately. I likened it before to a still pond awaiting a handful of stones, but my mind is now like a barrage of pebbles with no ripples. There are many inputs–blogs, newsletters, fiction, poetry, podcasts, conversations, and more–but no output. I stare at my journal for an hour before moving on to something else.

The mold exposure caused quantifiable damage to my brain. Per a 2021 brain MRI, I’m below the 1st percentile for white matter, meaning there’s been damage to neurons or axons with the resultant breakdown of myelin. Labs collected in 2021 also showed that I’m below the 1st percentile for plasmalogens, where 70% of myelin sheath ethanolamine glycerophospholipids are plasmalogens. Again, significant demyelination. Meaning an impaired ability to conduit messages to and from the brain. One of the primary symptoms associated with white matter disease is loss of memory. I suspect loss of creativity is a sister symptom.

The seemingly insurmountable blockade is painfully irritating and frustrating. I want to write. Yet, I sit down and my brain keeps doing a Maypole dance around itraconazole. Itty bitty spheres within a translucent pink and blue capsule. Six months. Crossing the blood-brain barrier. Pulls out the mycotoxins. Don’t take if your pregnant or intend to become pregnant. I hope that it help. Please, please, please let this work. I can think of nothing else.

I’ve been supplementing with plasmalogens for about eighteen months now, trying to rebuild the brain. Lubricating each wrinkle in the squishy fabric until ideas glide right on through and out the chute at the end of my pen. I hope, desperately, that my creativity returns.

In search of inspiration, I’ve been reading my old blog posts. In 2018, when my health was at it’s absolutely worst, it’s clear now that my brain was still squeaking along. The insight and eloquence as I tried to make sense of my mysterious ailments makes me smile, yet simultaneously make me want to cry.

I hope that I can rebuild those neural connections. I hope to regain the attention span to read a lengthy article without forgetting its premise. I hope that I can develop new ideas, stitch together seemingly unrelated observation about the world, and be able to think up puns on the fly. I want to unearth that part of myself that has been buried and strewn over with cobwebs.

I hope that this writer’s blockage I’ve spend years trying to climb over with soon sink back to wherever it came from, and be replaced by the swift, sweetly-scented breeze of effortless creativity.