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‘Anxiety Is Not Unmasculine’: How Blake Auden Helps Others Cope Through Poetry

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During the pandemic, poetry has become a method of communicating feelings. When you don’t have the words to say what you are experiencing, it always seems like you can find someone who knows how to say it, and much better than you ever could. If you are feeling anxious or brokenhearted, look no further than the work of Blake Auden. For the past 2 years, he has shared his work daily on Instagram with his 142,000 followers. He also has written two collections of poetry, his most recent, Beekeeper, focuses on love, friendship, loss, and mental health. The title, he explains, describes him well. 

He says, “Someone once said to me my head was a colony of bees…[and I thought] I guess that makes me a beekeeper, then, trying to deal with all these anxious thoughts.”

But, dealing with anxiety out loud was not always something he was able to do. Like many men, especially those raised in military households, Blake grew up prescribing to the attitude that you have to “tough it out” and things like crying or worrying are not things that a man does. He also felt he needed to hide his emotions to protect others, especially his parents, from worry and self-blame. He speaks to this in one poem and writes, “I have learnt to break softly/to catch the pieces of me before they hit the ground/so the people I love believe me when I smile and say I’m okay.” In other words, he felt that even if he was falling apart, he needed to catch the pieces so that nobody would hear them break and nobody would notice. He often coped alone and in silence.

However, he learned that it was not possible to avoid or ignore anxiety and it worsened to the point of it taking over his life. He gave up playing music, stopped seeing friends, and reached a point where if anything might make him anxious, he stopped doing it for fear of having a panic attack or being anxious about it. About 2.5 years ago, he almost never left the house, which looking back now, he says, actually made it worse.

One day, he reached his tipping point. He had a panic attack and missed being able to visit with his best friend since he was three years old and he had previously missed his wedding for the same reason. After that, he decided that he was never going to not be anxious so he needed to face it. He reframed his anxiety as a wolf, which it is now characterized as in any of his poetry. He explains the metaphor as the following, “Anxiety is always there, even when you’re not anxious…It’s there...just in the trees, just behind the treeline where it's dark. And, I always thought of it as something that stalks and hides and stalks and picks its opportunity to attack you when you’re vulnerable and that all felt like a wolf to me.” Instead of running from the wolf, he made the decision to accept it (anxiety) as a part of him and learn to cope with it. He even got a tattoo of a wolf on his hand to remind him not to run away from hard situations. He feels that since he has adapted this attitude, even though he still gets panic and anxiety, he has overall been a lot better. He has also been much more comfortable talking about his mental health openly with others without shame. 

He attributes some of that comfort to initially talking about his anxiety in the safe space of therapy. He thinks therapy, where he went for 18 months, was where he learned it was OK to talk about his mental health, and that he wouldn’t be judged for it, or have people make character assumptions based on it. He notes, “It made me feel that actually, maybe this isn't as unusual a thing as I thought it was and maybe, I'm not the only one feeling it. And, I think that started me on the road to being more comfortable talking about it.” 

Now, through his poetry, Blake openly talks about his experiences and his pain with anyone who reads it. This is particularly poignant given that it is November, and mental health and suicide prevention is highlighted as one of the three men’s health causes in the Movember movement. Blake adds, “I don't think it affects my masculinity to say, you know what? I burst into tears in the supermarket before. I'd rather not do that, but it happens and I've got no problem admitting that. I suffer from anxiety, I suffer from panic attacks, and these are things that we all have to go through and there's nothing anti-masculine about talking about it.” 

Though in some ways it could seem like writing could feel cathartic or help with processing his emotions, Blake says the writing process is actually quite emotionally challenging and even upsetting. He notes, “You're engaging with emotions that traditionally I would have probably buried for many years. I'm now forcing myself to look at [them] again and address them, which, you know, may be beneficial in the long run...It is hard to do while I am doing it, but I am glad I’ve done it afterwards.” 

Blake acknowledges, however, that the benefit from poetry for him comes in large part from sharing it and knowing that he helps others with his words. He describes enjoying seeing how people on Instagram engage with his poetry and interpret it. Many tell him it helps them feel like they're not alone or helps vocalize how they are feeling. The feedback from readers has even helped Blake to normalize his own experiences and make them feel more acceptable.

As someone who explains their biggest fear is being forgotten or living a life without impact, purpose, or meaning, it helps Blake to know his words might be his purpose. It helps him to think that his suffering, pain, and hardest experiences might actually have meaning. It also helps him feel that maybe he is going through all of it, or has gone through all of it, for a reason.

And, that reason is to help others cope. To give them hope or validation of their feelings, and to let them know they are not alone, especially right now when we all need it so much. He adds, “Now when I have a bad day, I think well maybe what I'm going through will turn into a poem next week that will really help someone who's suffering way more than I am. In which case, it's worth it.”

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