WP1: Writing As A Way to Heal
Growing up, I’ve always been able to turn to art as a mode of expression, reflection, and escape from reality. When I was 8, and my parents split up, I turned to lyrics and singing to feel understood and verbalize my emotions. When I was 15, and the pressures of “fitting in” in high school became overwhelming, I turned to theater and acting to create characters far from myself. Just last year, when I was battling depression and my father was in the hospital, I turned to poetry and storytelling when it became too difficult to keep it all in. Even now, as I pursue a career in social justice and law, I use my minor in comedy to cope with life’s ups and downs. When individuals are struggling to cope with traumatic situations, they are often recommended therapy, talking to loved ones, or in extreme cases, medication. While these approaches can certainly be effective for trauma recovery, one often underappreciated avenue is the healing power of the written word¹.
May Sarton, a well-known author, stated “… the only way through pain … is to go through it, to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means …”, and writing often serves as an approachable way to manage to do so (Cangialosi; Jimenez). I became aware of writing’s potential to heal, in 2022, when I took a class called Theatre in the Community, and it ended up being a class on Theatre of the Oppressed. Within this class, we collaborated with 3 formerly incarcerated individuals/victims of violence and wrote a play on restorative justice using their stories. We listened to them, included them in the process, and the play starred them. On the very last day, one of the stars, his name was Josh, came up to me and said “I see you listening to our stories, I see the tears in your eyes, thank you for the respect you give us. It’s not too often people like me get respect.” This random class connected the dots that writing and theater were not just my silly way of making myself feel better but had the potential to help others heal by allowing them to safely explore their emotions.
The Center for Addiction and Mental Health defines trauma as “ …the challenging emotional consequences that living through a distressing event can have for an individual’’ (Mental Illness and Addiction Index). “Trauma”, or rather what is “traumatic” is difficult to define because people can perceive the same event completely differently from one another. In extreme cases of trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may occur, which happens when a person has difficulty recovering from a traumatic event (Mental Health and Addiction Index). When I was 20, I was diagnosed with PTSD. Since then, I’ve tried and failed to find a single solution that addresses all the issues associated with my PTSD. Although therapy helps, it quickly got expensive and therapists weren’t there every time I needed someone to listen. Medication helped with the chemical imbalances but did nothing for the emotional and mental anguish that caused my PTSD. When I felt like nothing was helping, I turned to an old friend, writing, who had never failed me before. So, I sat down and wrote. I wrote short stories, sketches, songs, and poetry. I used comedy to create scenes and characters that helped me escape for a while. Writing became my vector for expression and reflection, and the best part, it was everywhere and anytime.
During this time, I created a collection of pieces titled “Bridging the Gap Between Reality and Self-Image”, which includes some of the most personal pieces I’ve created. In a poem titled Self Portrait Wearing Both Faces, I wrote “Inside, I’m painted blue; distressed, anxious, empty/But on the outside, I’m yellow; pleasant, liked, mild”, expressing the loneliness I felt having to maintain a facade of normalcy while struggling with mental illness directly caused by my past trauma. Putting my emotions into a poem allowed me to express myself beyond everyday language, and poetry therapy allows people to intentionally use “…the written word and spoken word to facilitate healing, growth, and transformation (Jimenez; The National Association for Poetry Therapy). Writing it down helped me express myself completely in a space that felt safe to me, allowing me to discover feelings I didn’t even know were there. A less personal story in “Bridging the Gap Between Reality and Self-Image” titled Through the Looking Glass follows a woman, Lilith, who becomes consumed by a mirror that shows her the reality of her dreams. I’ve shared this particular story with many people, and on the surface it’s a horror short story, and that’s what most people read it as. Even a story that felt so fictional and distant was a metaphor for my own struggles with self-image and feelings of not being good enough. Readers understood what I was going through because they understood what Lilith was going through, and in a sense, it reassured me that I wasn’t so alone. From sharing with an audience, people can get the confidence to begin understanding their issues and thus assist the healing process (Jimenez).
In Tig Notaro’s Live album, she uses the audience similarly by working through her own tragic events aloud and processing them with others, which has been proven to maximize the healing effect of the written word (Jimenez; Notaro). Throughout the album, Notaro discusses a series of unfortunate circumstances that occurred in the past 4 months, including a bacterial infection, her mother’s passing, a breakup, and her cancer diagnosis (Notaro). Her choice to make this the topic of her set allowed her to reclaim some control over the events because she was the first to give people a chance to understand her story (Jimenez). In the segment “God is Crazy”, she says that God doesn’t give more than you can handle and that she feels that God is definitely testing her limits (Notaro 0:52). At one point, Notaro yells out “Why God? Why God?” and Notaro is chuckling, and the audience is laughing, but there is something very real about this (1:13). Notaro used her stand-up set to have someone to talk to and work through her thoughts and feelings, which is a form of therapy. Notaro further discusses how no one will even have a conversation with her because they see her as fragile. That is a common occurrence for people coping with trauma, which further isolates them from others. Through writing, they can stay connected because they have a bridge between them and others.
Writing can be the key to healing for those struggling with overcoming trauma due to its accessibility, its versatility, and its ability to be shared. Writing for me looks like poetry and storytelling. For Tig Notaro, it looks like a stand-up. For you, it may look like journaling, letters, song lyrics, or something else. That is not to say that writing should be your one-size-fits-all solution to all of life’s tough moments but rather can be used supplementary to promote healing in a safe way. Writing is yours, and that is why it is so effective in healing because it’s what you need it to be. Writing has the ability to transcend barriers and connect with people, but it also has the ability to connect you with yourself.
¹Written Word is used as a blanket term for both written word and performing arts, treating performing arts as an performed written word.
Works Cited
Cangialosi K. Healing Through the Written Word. Perm J. 2002 Summer;6(3):68–70. PMCID: PMC6220635.
Jimenez, Antonio Jimenez. “The Therapeutic Power of Writing: How to Heal through the Written Word.” Hope4Cancer, 8 Dec. 2022, hope4cancer.com/blog/the-therapeutic-power-of-writing-how-to-heal-through-the-written-word/.
“Mental Illness and Addiction Index.” CAMH, www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/trauma. Accessed 17 Sept. 2023.
Obaid, Kyra. Bridging the Gap Between Reality and Self — Image.
“Promoting Growth and Healing through Language, Symbol, and Story.” National Association for Poetry Therapy — Home, poetrytherapy.org/. Accessed 17 Sept. 2023.
Tig Notaro. “Live Album.” Spotify.Com.
