: Re: Can I be a writer, with a mental illness? I want to be a writer, but I have struggled with Schizoaffective Disorder for quite some time. Some of the symptoms of the disorder are amotivation

@Ravi5107385

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Reading your question made me smile at times. First, I'm happy that you are moving in a positive and for you worthwhile direction. As far as I remember, so-called mood-conditions, like bipolar and schizo-affective seem to be linked to creativity and expression of creativity, and writing seems to be a good way to put this ability into action.

Second, procrastinating seems quite common among creative minds, regardless of diagnosis, if any.

Try the following:
Prepare your workspace, bring your tools.
Set an alarm clock to 20 minutes, and make sure you can see the time passing.
Whatever you are up to, be it brainstorming, be it planning the course of a story, be it sketching a character of your story, be it researching on a book or on the net, you start immediately and stop with the alarm ringing.

When the alarm is ringing, if you are in the flow, you may work another 20 minutes, set your timer. After that, if you are in the flow, do it again. Do this 3 times maximum (60 minutes), then take a pause, leave the writing-space, move, interact, etc.
If you are still motivated and able, continue as described.

If you were doing other things unrelated to your writing and didn't return to your writing within these 20 minutes, that's it for the day.
Start over again tomorrow with the same procedure.

Whenever you are progressing well, you may increase from 20 to 30 minutes. If this is increasing distraction or procrastination, reduce to 20 minutes; if you experience 20 minutes as too long, so you lose focus, put off etc., start with 15 or even 10 minutes, increase only if progressing.

The principle behind is called time-restriction, it is a psychological approach to overcoming procrastination.

Edit:
I have been thinking about your question again and came up with another point I didn't address:

The role of writing as part of the healing process.

It has been thoroughly researched [e.g. Pennebaker, University of Austin, and many others].
Probably, writing could be part of a psychotherapy as well, and make its effects profounder. In case that you do. or plan to attend psychotherapy, writing might be a useful part of that.

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