How Writing Helped Me Become Happier
And how it brought me to Medium
As a young girl, I had this strange habit of collecting notebooks. Empty notebooks that I only wanted for their pretty covers, yet, I had absolutely no intention of doing anything special with them. But as they started piling and lying around my room, I thought: why not keep a diary? Or at least try.
So I did. I wrote about my days, what had happened in school that day and what I wanted for my birthday. This was so much fun for me. It was a time for myself, with my own thoughts and they seemed so much clearer after writing them down. Of course, at the time I didn't really reflect or understand why I enjoyed it so much. I just did. So it became a habit.
I didn't journal very consistently throughout my adolescence, but it was a habit I still somewhat maintained. It became a major part of my life again after I moved to England in 2016 for university and found myself on my own for the very first time. I was 18, quite lost at the time, and I felt like my life suddenly lacked structure. I was being far less productive and motivated than I had been in the past, which started affecting my mental health.
All these ‘adult’ responsibilities, such as cooking, doing laundry, and going food shopping seemed so hard to do. During that time, journaling really helped me express how I felt. I realised there were many areas of my life I wanted to improve, I just didn’t know how to. I eventually started writing daily gratitude lists and making notes of all tasks I absolutely had to get done. Which I did. Most of the time at least. I noticed my mood improve and my life find more structure. I felt happier and much more productive. So I got into the habit of expressing gratitude and planning my days every morning with my morning coffee.
During the course of my second year at university, my writing habits started shifting from journaling to writing essays, lab reports, and scientific articles. I kind of left journaling behind me for a while and really got into scientific writing. Unlike many students, I loved writing essays. Formulating and arguing my own scientific opinion felt so rewarding that I actually selected many modules based on whether or not they included writing essays.
After graduating, I moved to Finland where I did my master’s degree. More and more essays, higher expectations, and more frequent deadlines. I still enjoyed the writing process each time, even when it was overwhelming.
Last summer, shortly after finishing my degree, I found out a close relative of mine had tragically passed away. I was grieving and in the middle of moving to Paris to join my fiancé when this happened. It was devastating. As difficult as it was, I managed to get to France, settle down and start a new chapter in my life. I got married shortly after moving and found out I was pregnant a few months later. All these big changes, grief, and having moved countries again for the third time in such a short period of time, were emotionally really hard.
This is when I realized I hadn’t written anything in a long time. Writing had always helped me feel better in the past. So I journaled a few times, but I felt like something was missing this time. I absolutely wanted to write but I also wanted to get something more out of it. I missed scientific writing, the process, the research that goes into it, and the boost I got when the work was finally done. But I wanted to do it on my own terms. Not for a professor, a university, or anyone else other than me. Selfish, I know. I also wanted no topic restrictions, word limits, or time pressure.
So I looked at online writing platforms which were when Medium came up. To be completely honest, I hadn’t heard of Medium before. But it seemed so appealing, so I looked more into it. The immensity of the platform, the variety of topics, cool content, and opportunities were so intriguing. So I joined. At first, I thought I would limit my topics to those relevant to my educational background only, but for some reason, I woke up today really wanting to share this one.
That is the beauty of online writing platforms: unique people writing and sharing whatever they want without limiting themselves. That was initially why I joined, right? I wanted to write on my own terms without being restricted by anything or anyone, but I started off by doing that myself. Ironic.
Thoughts, daily goals, stories, achievements, scientific articles, or whatever: writing is a practical way to organise thoughts. There’s something extremely therapeutic about it.
