Writing For the Health of It
Diana M. Raab -- May 19, 2006
When life takes an unexpected turn, writing can become your best friend. Whether you choose journaling, poetry, fiction or nonfiction, you can reap the benefits of your predicament. Many published authors have used writing as a catalyst for survival during difficult times. Some of them include: Anais Nin, Joan Didion, Reeve Lindbergh, Tobias Wolff, D.H. Lawrence, Isabel Allende, Vivian Gornick, Kathryn Harrison, Sue William Silverman, and May Sarton. For these writers and many others, writing has given a purpose and meaning to their lives. It has given them a reason to wake up in the morning and continue on with their day.
D.H. Lawrence, for example, sat at his mother's bedside and while she was dying, he wrote poems about her. He also began writing an early draft of Sons and Lovers, his novel which explored the complicated, loving, painful and close relationship. Marcel Proust wrote Remembrance of Things Past while sick in bed with asthma. Flannery O'Connor wrote some of her best stories while dying from lupus. I wrote my first book, Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant: A Guide to High-Risk Pregnancies back in 1983 while on bed rest with my eldest daughter. I began the book as a journal typed on my Smith Corona mounted upon a specially-designed bed table my husband built for me. After my daughter was born, I condensed the journal into the prologue, added research and turned the book into a self-help reference book for women having similar experiences. Now, more than twenty years later the book is still in print and has helped many women cope with their problem pregnancies.
May Sarton and Anais Nin also used journaling to pull them through difficult times. In her book, Recovering, May Sarton chronicles her battles with depression and cancer. Anais Nin used her journals to write her deranged father who left the family when she was young.
In Nin's case, her journal entries became a springboard for a four-volume collection of her journals. Mimi Schwartz is another writer who used her journals as a springboard. I've heard Mimi speak at a number of writing conferences and she shares her story of having written an essay for Lear's Magazine about her experience with breast cancer. "Journal writing," she says, "and the process of turning it into a public account--made all the difference for me in recovering quickly, emotionally and physically. It gave me a double set of survival goals: health and telling the story." As a matter of fact, her journal notes inspired her to go from being an English professor to being a narrative writer.
Journals are a good way to vent both small and large issues, such as problems with your boss or the death of a parent. It takes a great deal of energy to be angry at someone; it's much healthier to drop it, as one would a suitcase full of trash. Holding grudges is unhealthy and certainly quite heavy! Once able to forgive, it's easier to gravitate to all the good things and joys in your life.
Journaling is a cathartic way to spill your feelings out on the page rather than on the person. My attitude is: "Direct the rage to the page." I have a writing colleague who says, "If it hurts, write harder," and for years those words were posted above my computer, until they simply became a part of me.
At the most recent AWP conference, which I discussed in my last column, James Pennebaker, the author of Writing to Heal in his seminar, "Writing for the Health of It," said, "Writing dissolves some of the barriers between you and others. If you write, it's easier to communicate with others." He does have one rule that he calls, "the flip out rule," which proclaims that if you get too upset when writing, then simply stop. Pennebaker believes that there's a certain type of writing which erupts when we're faced with loss, death, abuse, depression and trauma.
Learning to open up about issues from your past and present lives doesn't happen over night, but it's all a part of the healing process. Author Louise DeSalvo, who is an advocate of writing for healing, began writing her own memoir, Vertigo and Breathless as a result of coming to grips with her own pain.
Whether you're affected by change, loss or pain, finding the time to write is critical to your healing process. Some people prefer to journal about their experience, where others may prefer the fiction or poetic modalities to help them escape their own realities. Whatever your choice, once you try it, you'll see that writing, in any form, can be empowering!