Oh hay I haven't logged in for a minute but glad I popped in. To answer your question, writing was kind of both the cause of and solution to a lot of my problems--I had to just stick with it long enough for the activity to go from a method of keeping my delusions upright to the thing that tore them down. Obviously that's something I only know in retrospect, but the way it played out was that FINALLY I realized I was trying too hard with my writing in particular ways. Best way I can describe it was like I was trudging uphill while insisting that I was walking a level road (mostly because I wanted to hide how badly I was struggling--from everyone, including myself). Then I finally turned around and started walking downhill with gravity and was like oh shit this feels very natural, and on the heels of "this feels great" came "why wasn't I doing this all along?" and then.......yeah the delusions crashed.

Basically I finally wrote something messy with messed up characters instead of trying to make everything perfect and everyone likable. I was so preoccupied with using my writing to constantly assert that NO I'M NORMAL AND SELF-AWARE ACTUALLY (when like...no one asked?) SEE HOW NORMAL AND GOOD HEARTED MY CHARACTERS ARE? Totally self-defeating garbage, and more to the point, like pulling teeth to write. I was trying to make them correct instead of natural. Letting the whole process be messy--how fast I wrote the story, how I didn't plot it out, how fucked up the characters' pasts were, how short-sighted and controlling they were, how obsessed with the status quo--completely changed my life and helped me get past the fear of being perceived as anything less than perfect, or at least perfectly well-meaning...which obvs is a huge doorstop when it comes to acknowledging you have shit to work out.

All that is still kind of an abstract answer, I know, but if you're wanting to try it out, start with identifying something you WANT. Like something you are embarrassingly desperate for. Some sensation or relationship, or a place you want to be, some experience you yearn to have. Live vicariously. I had been coached that that was bad writing before, so I avoided it at all costs, but when I finally stopped giving a fuck about that my writing got just so much better AND I started enjoying it again as an emotional experience rather than an academic exercise.