Is Graphophobia for Real?

She knew she had to start writing someday. Her fear of writing started showing its symptoms probably when she was in the eighth grade, where she saw herself in a position where she couldn’t complete a three hundred word essay in the English Language examination. A painful feeling in her gut made her question her writing skills. It made her feel that her writing wasn’t good enough. Since that day, that feeling only augmented. She would feel the same every time she was to write anything.

With each essay, it seemed as if it had become a motor response. It took her almost four years to understand that this inability to write was serious. But ultimately when she did, it did not take long for her to realize that this feeling was gradually turning into some sort of fear. It was becoming difficult for her to contemplate where it stemmed from.

There came a time when she started to avoid indulging in any situations that would lead her to write. She vividly remembers, her friends would be least bothered about language examinations as it did not require tiresome reading and learning, whereas she would pace around clutching her head thinking about what she wanted to write in her essay. She would vigorously flip through pages of her sample essay book. She would pull herself back from writing her own journal.

She failed to understand what led her to her fear. It was in twelfth grade when she decided to dig into the crux. She slowly started to realize that there existed various reasons. It was the fear of not being up to the mark, of not being able to come up with ideas, of not being able to express herself on paper as immaculately as she wanted to. These thoughts kept piling up, and she couldn’t figure a way out. It began to make her feel empty-headed. She thought reading various articles, blogs and write-ups would help. Sure she did that. She was overcome with emotion after reading a lot of well-written content out there. Was this overwhelming feeling because it helped her gain knowledge and know opinions or was it because she couldn’t write just as good? Perhaps, both.

A time came when she discovered that this feeling actually had a name. She happened to discover that this is an actual phobia. It’s called Graphophobia, also known as Scriptophobia. Yes, it’s the fear of writing. Her eyes, wide open staring at her laptop screen that showed big chunks of information on Scriptophobia. She had never read anything so relatable before. It was a mixed bag of feelings. She sighed in relief because she wasn’t the only one facing this problem.

In the midst of this entire pandemic situation, everyone has indulged in discovering various facets of their personalities. She thought she could do it this time. She had plenty of time to write. Or, it should be said nothing but time to write. She still didn’t. Long story short, she forced herself to pick up her laptop and place it on her ever cluttered study table. It took her quite some time to figure out where to begin but she managed to do it. She did it.

I did it.