This is going to be a more personal blog about how my anxiety and agoraphobia has effected the way I share my work. If you aren’t interested in that or feel you may judge me for either of those things you should check this out instead. I normally write code for computers so if the words I write for humans is rough don’t be surprised.

My anxiety 101

This whole section will be going over the contributing factors to my anxiety disorders and Agoraphobia specifically.

OCD

First, I want to clarify that my OCD isn’t the “clean everything now” type. I was diagnosed with OCD when I was young, but they didn’t have a specific diagnosis for me at the time. Recently, I’ve found I likely have a form of Tourettic OCD. You’ll read later why, but I haven’t been able to see a doctor to get a proper diagnosis. It is the closest description to how I feel I’ve been able to find though, and doesn’t change how I will describe how I feel. It’s not so much about obsessive thoughts; instead, it manifests as physical tics. I have involuntary tics like blinking, tapping, moving my body in strange ways, and sometimes speaking in gibberish. These tics are centered around the physical obsession of keeping my body feelings even. Even while typing this, I’m alternating which thumb hits the spacebar because I’m overly aware of it.

Keep this in mind as I talk about the other anxiety issues I have because whenever my OCD flares up, all my other anxiety problems get worse.

Panic Disorder

On top of OCD, I also have Severe Panic Disorder. Sometimes it’s triggered by my OCD, but mostly it’s social anxiety. If you don’t know, panic attacks are physical, not just mental. When I have a panic attack, I experience extreme vasoconstriction, hyperventilation, and my vision starts to fade. This used to happen almost every day when I was driving to or at work. Not very fun.

A panic attack can be triggered by many things: an OCD episode, social anxiety, or overstimulation. You can imagine that if your body felt like it was trying to choke you out every time you did something, you’d probably start avoiding those situations. This leads to the most important part.

Agoraphobia

I’ve been agoraphobic for the past three years. It’s really embarrassing to explain to people because I often hear things like, “Just come with us, you’ll be fine,” or “It must be nice to be home all day.” Explaining agoraphobia to people who think it’s a choice is difficult and frustrating. For those who don’t know, agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder where I can’t go anywhere I don’t trust without having a panic attack. Even basic tasks like going to the grocery store can leave me hyperventilating and unable to see properly.

I’ve dealt with this since high school, but it has gotten much worse over time. I started going out only at night, tracking when and where people gathered to avoid them, and skipping every party and social gathering. I was lucky to get my first job as a software developer and to have a boss who let me work from home after a while once I explained I was having multiple panic attacks at the office. As you can imagine, panicking in the bathroom isn’t great for productivity. Working from home helped me find places where I could feel safe. But after I was laid off due to the CEO’s shady actions, my baseline anxiety worsened. I couldn’t drive, walk around my apartment complex, or even go to the mailbox without having a panic attack. So if you think agoraphobia means it’s nice to stay home all day, remember this.

This level of anxiety doesn’t just affect me outside my safe areas. It impacts everything I do. It’s hard to talk to friends who don’t understand, and it’s hard to use social media to share my work. And that brings us back to the real topic of this post.

Sharing the work I do is hard

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ve always been a very anxious person. I’m also driven by creativity. I love making art, music, and especially software, but I haven’t shared much of what I’ve created with anyone. I’ve always been afraid to show my work. Not to sound too dramatic, but it feels like even my art is agoraphobic, only safe with me. Putting it out on the internet feels like stepping onto a stage at a packed concert venue.

Creative perfection isn’t achievable

I have a lot of creative energy. I always feel the need to be making something, whether it’s art, music, or software. In college, this was a point of friction with my friends because while they wanted to drink and socialize, I wanted to brainstorm ideas and create things with them. I rarely managed to make anything with them, and when I did start projects, my focus on perfection became the limiting factor. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t much fun to create with. I essentially gave them extra homework to learn what I was learning, on top of their regular college work, with the idea that we’d make perfect music, art, or software. I could never settle for less than perfect which led to a dozen abandoned projects.

A big reason I struggle with releasing my work is that I don’t feel it’s worth publishing unless it’s perfect. I’ve been drawing daily for about six months, but I haven’t even shown my girlfriend most of my drawings because I don’t think they’re perfect. Ironically, the most “imperfect” art and music I’ve made are the pieces people like the most when I do share them. I love imperfection in other people’s art because it shows personality and vulnerability. It allows people to see the creator behind the work. However, with software, imperfection can also mean critical vulnerabilities.

Software is creative, but not always art

Software development requires a level of creative thinking that often goes unnoticed. To create a great product, you need a team of creative individuals to ideate infrastructure, design, and architecture. If you can’t visualize your idea and how it all fits together, things will fall apart. However, this doesn’t mean all software qualifies as “art.”

Some software, like Bruno Simon’s site, is art, but software like Facebook isn’t. Both involve artistry in their creation, but the key difference is whether you can call your work a “product.” Facebook is a product. It needs to be polished to sell ads and capture attention, while Bruno’s site can have quirky bugs without risking user experience.

Building a user-facing app demands a high level of perfectionism. Security vulnerabilities, UX errors, and general bugs are inevitable but fixable. This level of precision isn’t as critical in painting or music. While both can have mistakes, like a mix error in a song or a security flaw in an API, software is much less forgiving.

Conclusion

I’ve been working on sharing my work more with friends and family to finally get over this. I’ve also added some of my music and art to this site. My final hurdle will be publishing the dozens of software projects I’ve made over the past four years. Some will be bad, some will be good, and I need to accept that putting it out there for people to see is positive, no matter what.

Striving for perfection is something everyone struggles with. Wanting their code, art, designs, music, or performances to be perfect can stunt their growth. I’ve felt this way, and it’s taken a long time to come to terms with it. I’ve been thinking about how grateful I am that my distant friend, who passed away, put his music online for people to enjoy. Even when it was just a rough draft, he shared his ideas. That’s been a powerful motivator for me to put my creative energy into the world.