Writing Saved My Life
Life has its struggles for everyone. It can not always be full of happy moments where everything goes how you want it to. Stress, anxiety, depression, brokenness, and confusion are things that I, myself, know all too well in life. However, when those times in life where those feelings and emotions are strongest within us, there are things that help keep us going and pushing through life toward that light at the end of the tunnel.
I have always struggled with my anxiety and my depression throughout my whole life. I played sports, and I had friends to talk to. Of course, those things were great for me and I loved they were part of my life. Not everyone had things like that in their lives. Although on the outside, I smiled and laughed and looked like a pretty cheerful kid; I struggled with depression and anxiety, and self-esteem issues. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio with my parents and I was an only child. I didn't really have any family around. They all lived in another state and it was rare for them to come to visit my family and I where we lived.
Fighting every day to hide my depression and to keep my anxiety a secret from everyone got harder. I did not want anyone to see those things in me. I wanted to just be normal and happy. I wanted to be like everyone else. The thoughts that would run through my mind kept me from letting many people in and getting to know me. I kept everyone at a distance and tried to pretend that there was nothing wrong with me. I got pretty good at “putting a fake face on”, as I like to call it still. I was keeping this wall up I would hide behind. This wall didn't allow anyone around me to get to know very much about me. That left me bottling everything up inside and not talking to anyone at all about anything. It just piled up.
That is where writing became my saviour in life.
I would write poetry and do photography. Hiding, letting no one know I wrote anything at all. I kept it hidden from anyone and everyone. I was no longer letting things bottle up inside of me. I write every day. I love writing. Writing is important to me and my life.
I don't remember what actually made me write as I do, but I grab a notebook every time something happens in life. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be a good thing or a negative thing in life. Either way, I write about it. My anxiety got worse as I got older. As it became worse, I started to have panic attacks that would arise at any moment. Frequently, these panic attacks came during times where I did not know what could have brought them on. Out of nowhere, I could feel myself becoming more and more anxious with no reason known. So, I wrote.
Writing has been a daily habit for me for years. There is never a moment when I do not have a bag of pens (I love pens too, by the way) and my bag with my notebooks in it no matter where I may be going. If I go out to the gas station, to work, to a friend’s house, or anywhere at all, I have my notebooks. Writing keeps me balanced in life. It gives me that friend that I can tell anything and everything. Memories that I want to remember, challenges in life that I have to work through, even those extremely hard moments of grief or hurt are all expressed in words on a piece of paper. Laid out in front of me where I can cherish them or deal with them.
Writing is my way of letting it all out. It is meditation for me. Calming me down and helping me to catch my breath when I feel like I can’t. I write everything down. My thoughts, my feelings, my actions. I keep a notebook specifically for these things for me to put it all down and out of my head. I have never been someone who handles things in life very well. Mental Health is difficult and at many times, the people around those of us who struggle with mental health do not quite understand the illnesses that we deal with every day. Giving up seems like the only option that comes to mind for many of us.
So, I write. My journals are full of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions from my life. Happy times and unhappy times are written out in a book. Life lessons fill these pages. I am not usually one of those people who can express themselves through speaking. I express myself by writing it down. Looking back at times when writing has even played the middleman in my relationships, I laugh, recalling arguments and conversations where I could not get my words to come out of my mouth the way I wanted them to.
Have you ever stopped in the middle of a conversation or an argument with someone just to come back to it, handing them a piece of paper with your thoughts and feelings on the topic written down? The look on their face as they stop to read your side of the argument, just so that the conversation could continue, makes me laugh. It used to upset me and make me feel like there was something wrong with me. I realized that my way of communicating is writing and that is okay.
My life has been full of moments where I did not think that I could go any further. Struggles and events that I went through tried to tear me down many times. Writing saved me and pulled me through it all. I’ve overcome so much because of writing with just a pen and a notebook. I continue to write, expanding wider into different forms of writing instead of only in a journal for only myself. I expand into communities and with topics that I can share with others with information and personal experiences and things that I have learned over the years (or things I am learning or experiencing in life now).
Writing saved my life repeatedly.
For that, I am grateful to have been able to find something that I am passionate about and love doing that also helps me through everything, good or bad, in my life.
