Compulsive Comma Disorder

I have a few problems when I write.  First, comes the problem of a blank screen or a blank sheet of paper.  No matter what form it takes, this intimidating expanse of nothingness invariably stimulates my urge to head toward the kitchen and graze the refrigerator.  While I am not aware of how pervasive the grazing effect is among writers around the globe, I do know that there is yet to be seen a diet, a drug, or other remedy to divert one's attention from the refrigerator when the only other alternative is to stare at that mocking, maddening, blankness.  What can take the place of the refrigerator when the words, much less the sentences, won't or don't come?   Dr. Oz has not yet produced a solution to this very serious problem afflicting the American writing population. 

Then, there is the issue of writing very long sentences, that reflect the joy of finally staying away from the refrigerator, typing more than a few characters without indulging in the delete key, then leading to fingers flying across the keyboard, attempting to get a thought or idea out onto paper before it willfully flies out of my short term memory, leaving me once again to turn to the refrigerator in my writing despondence, hoping that some piece of chocolate, fruit, or other snack will stimulate the neurons in my brain to behave, and cough up something that looks a wee bit like, at least a good representation of, WRITING in english, with a purpose that can be understood by more than me, by others that may also find my writing useful, which, by the way, is the reason I am writing in the first place.

For some reason, typing a period has this odd effect of stifling, even asphyxiating any further words. There is something far too final to a period, a deafening, deadening punch to a stream of thought that the comma simply cannot (thankfully) deliver with the the same stalling force.  Thus, the very act of continuing to extend the sentence, one annoying comma at a time, keeps the stream going.  When given the choice between a run-on sentence that would send my high school english teacher to the nearest psych word or a more properly punctuated first draft, I will choose the comma frenzy, every single time.

I have immense sympathy for those who are kind enough to review my first (or often, second or third) drafts.  Those who tolerate my compulsive comma disorder (CCD) and can actually extract meaning or intent from my comma storms are to be commended.  These people are among the saints of the writing world and I could go nowhere without them, because if left to my own motivation and ability, I could never delete enough commas and shorten enough sentences to produce something that is ultimately coherent and readable to any audience.

As the commas get yanked, plucked, and waxed out of sentences, and periods are inserted to make for tolerable prose, I am often stricken by the polar opposite offense.  As I notice the abhorrent grammar produced by one, two, three, four, or simply way too many commas, I may stray to the other extreme.  There.  I succumb to what other writers may first face when they write.  I find a place where no commas exist at all. I write. I use periods. I avoid commas.  I cannot write a long sentence.   I curtail my sentences into choppy bits. Transitions disappear.   Coherence and connection fall by the wayside. 

Comma Collapse Disorder befalls me. Same acronym.  Entirely different dilemma.