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Writing As A Form Of Therapy

SilenusSenior Contributor12 Apr 2016, 3:14 pm AEST

Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Hi all,

I have found throughout the course of my life that writing has been a constant companion to me. It has provided me with a way to vent my frustrations, to grapple with the eternal verities of life that confound and delight me, to explore ideas and concepts, and to try to put into words the often chaotic moods and thoughts that result from having a mind that's a little bit odd...

I have written lots of poems, especially in the last 3 or 4 years, dealing with depression and bipolar. They help me to process and understand some of the things that are happening in this twisted little noodle of mine. As such, writing has become one of my main forms of therapy.

One of the best things that I find about writing is that it can act as a kind of mood diary. I can read things that I had previously written, and it will quite often map out where I was at during the time of writing. The words I spread across the page act as signposts of my progress, too. As my self knowledge increases and my life journey progresses, I find that it affects how I write and what I write...

Often, we do not see the thousands of tiny little changes to our selves that our life experiences cause over the years. It can be very helpful to re-read old writings, in order to see how far we have come, what we have improved, where we have fallen back into old harmful habits, and the things that we have learned.

The language that we use in our writings and in our thoughts and in our speech is very important. It can reveal a lot about our selves, our states of mind, and our moods...

That language, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe that we attract certain kinds of people around us, and create (or at least influence) life situations based on our choice of language. It helps define who we are as a person.

Negative thinking, self-deprecation, self-hatred, these sorts of dangerous life traps are often revealed in our choice of words. So too are the positive things. It all starts with a glass. How we describe the glass and the quantity and quality of its contents, that's where language comes into it, and it can shape our very lives and the lives of those around us.

Writing... it is my solace and my main tool of self-analysis. It is my favourite form of therapy...

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In response to: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

SilenusSenior Contributor27 Aug 2017, 3:01 pm AEST

Poem - Stoned

This poem looks at how some people just can't help themselves but to drag other people down. Perhaps they should look closer to home and see the glass houses in which they live, before they cast their stones...

Stoned

Let those without sin cast the first stone,
In ignorance and malice, they will stand alone;
What faults of their own will they disown,
Callously throwing stony seeds about, meanly sown?

In response to: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Unknown userMember28 Aug 2017, 8:35 pm AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Darkness
Doesn't frighten me anymore
Isolation
Has become my friend
Pain
Has lost its power
Future
Is not important anymore
My mind
Is lost in confusion
Alive
Is all I'm trying to stay

In response to: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

SilenusSenior Contributor29 Aug 2017, 12:22 am AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Amen to that, @Former-Member

When we lose our fear of darkness, we can use it to compare to the light,
When we stand comfortable in isolation, we don't look to others to fight our fight;
When pain has lost its power, we regain power to learn from it,
When our when is now, not future, there's much less chance we'll quit;
When we're lost in confusion, perhaps that's not so bad,
Alive is such a glorious state, even when at times it drives us mad.

In response to: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

eudemonismSenior Contributor29 Aug 2017, 10:28 am AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Its easier to recognize what may lie within another. When you have realized what lies within yourself. And i dont hold it against them. No more then i hold it against myself. Its just a very. Fear producing procedure. That unfortunately never ends.

To judge a man. Is to judge yourself. And its something. We all naturally do. So better to be full of blunted emotions. And too know that they are like you. Then to get someone to try and like you. For the mask you wear. Because that is where all the pain, hate and anger will come from. In the end.

Although it is very hard. To tell another man. What you truly think. Its better then trying to be his friend. Although he may not care. Because his ways are right in his eyes. It is better then trying to care. For an ignorant and obnoxious man. Who always tries to be a friend. To the mask in your hand.

Why help another? When you can help yourself?

In response to: Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

OwlunarSenior Contributor29 Aug 2017, 11:02 am AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Hi @eudemonism

I don't think I have written to you before - but I really like what you have written here

I will have to think about it but I think you are saying a lot of the things I have been trying to say - but more clearly

That mask that Eleanor Rigby kept in a jar by her door - that mask would have been all she feared and hated and her anger - this was the mask that people saw - not her

And for those who are ignorantly obnoxious - let them see the mask - we do not need the company of vexatious spirits

Well written - good metre - well thought

Dec

In response to: Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

MazaritaSenior Contributor03 Sept 2017, 3:58 am AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Forgotten

In the late night hours,

I am awoken,

already forgotten,

where I fell asleep.

Was it in the chair,

or in the bed?

How could I not remember

something so recent?

In response to: Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

SilenusSenior Contributor04 Sept 2017, 6:09 pm AEST

Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Hugs Maz... @Mazarita

So powerfully written. So evocative of experiences many of us seem to face, especially here in this fine nook and/or cranny of the interwebs...

Sometimes, I would look around, and a decade would have quietly slipped past the 'radar' or 'chronometer' or whatever... personal time-clock and cycles of one's own body and psyche tend to attune to... whatever...

In my own life, I identify (and die-entify, as a playful funny-serious pun) that there are numerous cycles within my moods and energies, and all other surges of highs, lows and everything in-between that this particular noodle of mine regularly serves me up...

Like a natural cycle... my bipolar body responds very strongly to different parts of the year... the seasons have a strong effect on my mood cycles, my energies...

I whacked a list of poetry I had written into an Excel spreadsheet, along with the dates I had written them... I had the benefit of records, on and off, over decades (the long silences are as telling as the creative manic bursts), through the self-publication of my first novel of poetry, which was a collection of everything I had written which I deemed worthy, if nothing else just for how much it described an emotion or certain emotional state... I kept it all, and I edited it hardly at all... it was just each poem, there, a blurt of how I felt and what I was struggling with at the time of my writing...

Time stamped data, for my scientific engineering ordered OCD side to analyse...

The OCD helps to anchor the highs and buoy the lows... hahaha...

Some of our rhythms go on across the years... they can be harder to identify... but they're there... the ebb and flow of our inner tides, drawing us hither and thither... hahaha...

And then a decade had passed, and I hardly noticed it at all...

In response to: Re: Writing As A Form Of Therapy

SilenusSenior Contributor04 Sept 2017, 6:12 pm AEST