Social Anxiety and Comics

A lifelong affliction that I'm slowly battling my way through.

If you follow me on social media in any form, you might have noticed I don’t post all that often, and it’s never especially personal. This isn’t how I would like to be, but I’ve suffered from almost crippling social anxiety most of my life that I’m slowly, slowly trying to chip away at. Yes, it even comes into play online when I don’t even have to actually speak!

I’ve made progress at different points in my life, when Brant and I first launched Last Ember Press and we were out doing comic conventions I think that was the best I’ve ever been. When we were unable to continue to do those shows for various reasons and then when the pandemic hit things just slowly got worse.

I feel like I’m at a level right now that I haven’t been in quite some time, where the anxiety about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing is at its height. I have this problem where I overthink during and after any type of social interaction with anyone I’m not terribly familiar with. Then I of course beat myself up over it for literally weeks to come.

So why am I posting about this now?

Well, I know that this is not a terribly unique problem and it is extremely common in creative fields. I just want to get out there and say that even if you suffer from this or anxiety in any form, you can still put your creative work out there and succeed.

Bloom Pretty blew past all of my hopes and expectations for the first issue even though I’ve been suffering from some really down moments because of this affliction. It was late last year when the book was starting to come together that I realized how bad things had managed to get again. However, despite the demons eating away at me the book still came together and the Kickstarter succeeded.

Brant and I went on two podcasts for the campaign, it helped that we were already friendly with the hosts, but it was still very difficult and I’m positive I sounded like I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about more than once. If you ever wondered why Brant usually comes on things like that with me, this is why. He’s a major support system and has been trying to help in any way he can for years.

So even though I still feel like I don’t come across the way I would like to when I do those sorts of things, I’m still proud that I was able to do it.

So I’m posting this to say, we are all works in progress, that never changes. So don’t hold back on a dream you have, or a creative project that you want to see happen. Work through it and do the best you can with who you are now. Don’t wait for a moment when you’ve conquered the beast, because that day may never come. You may never be able to slay the monster, but perhaps you can tame him into submission and just get on with things!

I’m obviously still working on this myself, but if this helps anyone know they are not alone then I’m glad to put it out there… so if you are reading this then I’ve taken one more step in the right direction because my brain is always telling me not to do things… and I won this time.

-Lisa
bloomprettycomic.com