The Healing Power of Writing

            Recently, I was scrolling social media. A quote on Sandra Marinella’s (author of The Story You Need to Tell) struck me.  I paused and took the quote in, reflected on it.  “Writing was there to listen when no one would seem to understand what you were going through.” The quote is from Frederick Espiritu.  I instantly related to the quote.  Writing has been there for me for as long as I can remember.  It has been a healing salve for me since I was in my early teens. 

            What is it about writing that is so healing?  I am not sure I can give an explanation that does justice to the healing power of writing in my life.  I started writing poetry when depression emerged in my life.  I wrote constantly, filling red spiral notebooks with the darkness that resided in my mind.  The poems expressed the depression that was unnamed at the time.  I wouldn’t understand until decades later, but my writing was serving as a sort of therapy for me.  It was allowing me to express the darkness depression caused me to feel.  In those early years I was not diagnosed and the effects of my mood on my life were ignored by people, such as teachers and school counselors who should have addressed it.  Lacking intervention, I turned to my writing.  My notebooks listened.  They took in every word.  

            I continued writing into adulthood.  I have never stopped writing.  It has been the most constant coping strategy in my life.  About ten years ago, after years and years of writing, I shared some of my poems with my psychologist, Dr. Klein.  He understood.  He recognized that the writing was serving as a quasi-therapy for me.  Writing allowed me to express so much of what was stuck in my head because of my depression.  Dr. Klein read my poems.  We talked about them.  My writing provided more insight into what I was going through than I could express in discussion.  We often used my poems to start discussions.  It made talking easier for me.  Dr. Klein encouraged me to keep writing.  That advice has carried me over the years.  

            My journals are always by my side.  They give me a sense of security and a place to express the torment of the depression and anxiety that so often rule my life.  I don’t know the science behind how writing works, although I am interested in learning about it.  I just know writing works for me.  I believe it can work for others.  I have given a few talks on the healing power of writing.  They have been successful.  When a person is given a conduit to healing there is a release.  The conduit for me is writing. I believe in its power, but there are other conduits.  Art, music, and exercise are examples.

            Writing allows me to let the thoughts and emotions that fill my head flow out of me.  These thoughts often become trapped in my head.  They drag me down.  At times when my depression is in control, the thoughts that fill my head need an escape route.  Writing provides that route for me.  In the early years my writing took the form of poetry.  I have evolved.  I still write poems, but I also journal.  I write this blog.  I have dabbled with fiction writing.  Poetry and journaling seem to be the most effective for me. The thoughts that I struggled to process when they are stuck in my head become concrete on the page once written.  I can read those words and better understand them.  I can share my written word with my mental health team.  This allows them to gain a different understanding of what I am going through.  With depression it is often hard to verbalize out loud what I am feeling or thinking.  When I write, those feelings and thoughts flow differently.  They take on life and make more sense. 

            I believe writing has been a gift in my life.  I honestly believe that I would not have made it to this point in my life without writing.  At the times when I can speak to someone on my mental health team, writing is there.  My journal takes in my pain.  It holds it when I am unable to carry the pain.

            When I was diagnosed with cancer last summer, I turned to writing.  It seemed like an obvious thing to do. Writing helped me through depression. I had to trust that it would help me through cancer.  Since my diagnosis, I have written more pages than I can count.  Journal entries, poems, and blog posts have been abundant.  They have carried me in my weakest moments.  I wrote as chemo drugs were dripping into my body.  I wrote as nausea roiled through me.  Fatigued, but unable to sleep, I wrote.  Just as with the depression, writing helped me cope with the cancer.  I have written some of my best poems hooked up to IVs.  Writing gave me the hope I need to fight cancer.  

            Writing is always there for me.  It is my most faithful companion.  It is an elixir that has always brought me healing.  By no means am I suggesting that writing is a cure for depression or cancer.  Medical treatment is necessary.  Writing helps, though.  It makes the road easier to travel.  It takes on the darkness of my mood and the pain and fear of cancer.  Writing gives depression and cancer a holding place.  This allows me to face them head on.  I don’t have experience with other illnesses, but my guess is that writing can ease the suffering of other illnesses.  I have found that writing understands.  It knows my pain and is willing to hold it for me.  Writing listens when no one else understands.  I can’t ask for anymore.