When My Brain Wants to Create but My Body Says No

Some days I wake up with a thousand ideas rushing through my head. I can see them so clearly — zine layouts, journal spreads, blog posts, color palettes — all waiting for me to bring them to life. But then I sit down… and nothing happens. It’s like my brain is on fire with inspiration, but my body refuses to move.

Anxiety and depression have this weird way of coexisting inside me. One pushes me to do everything all at once, while the other whispers that I can’t do anything at all. It’s exhausting.

When I’m anxious, I get bursts of energy that almost feel like hope. I’ll start a dozen projects, open five tabs, make lists of what I want to create. But I never finish. My heart races, my thoughts won’t slow down, and suddenly the excitement turns into panic. I convince myself it’s not good enough before it’s even started.

When I’m depressed, it’s the opposite. Everything slows down to a crawl. I’ll sit there, staring at my pens or my iPad, knowing I want to make something — needing to — but feeling like my limbs are made of cement. I think about all the things I could be doing, all the ideas I should be working on, and it makes me feel worse. The guilt piles on until I can’t tell what hurts more, the sadness or the frustration.

It’s heartbreaking, honestly. To have so much inside you and no way to get it out. I hate when people call it “a creative block” because it’s not that simple. It’s more like being locked out of your own mind. You can see the art, the words, the stories through the glass, but you just can’t reach them.

And yet, even in the middle of that fog, I know the creativity never really disappears. It just hides for a while. Sometimes the only thing I can manage is jotting down an idea in my phone or doodling something tiny in the corner of a notebook. But that still counts. It’s still me showing up in the smallest way possible.

I’m learning that it’s okay to create slowly. That resting isn’t failure. That maybe part of being an artist or a writer, or a maker is learning to live with the ebb and flow of it all. My creativity might be quiet right now, but it’s still here.

If you’ve ever felt that ache, the one where you want to make something so bad it hurts, but your brain and body just won’t cooperate, I get it. You’re not lazy. You’re not broken. You’re just human.

And someday, when the fog lifts, all those ideas will still be waiting for you.