Journaling and Fiction Writing as Self-Help Methods of Therapy

Papabear,

I am someone who has been dealing with mental health for years. Something I have discovered since last year is I'm still hurting from trauma, narcissistic parents, and unresolved feelings from thing I thought I resolved. Yes, I am currently seeking help in those areas for therapy, but I have to wait till I can see doctors. Writing has been my escape when I just want to be alone and deal with these feelings. I have been working on stories as of recent to tackle some of these things, as well as a VRChat shorts series being scripted.

I set all this exposition up to ask this one major question: How do I just open the flood gates completely, face the demons, and battle them in writing and prose? Something in me is afraid to confront these demons, even when I truly think I am doing so. I know this is such a weird question, but it baffles me that I am ready to go to battle yet one foot is still on the porch telling me to stay where I am.... So, I guess, in my own way, I do while the demons sit there drinking lemonade with me like this is usual. I guess, too, I know the only way to battle these demons is to be able to talk freely and bluntly. Hence, my writing. I think part is the fear of others judging me.

Again, I know this seems like a strange letter, but I deal with things by talking or writing, and I need to stop being so hesitant to confront things. Any advice helps.

Thank you.

Otto Otsky

* * *

Dear Otto,

Writing is an outstanding way of dealing with one's emotions, so kudos to you that you are doing so to help cope with your struggles.

There are two types of writing that are great for this: 1) journaling, and 2) fiction writing. Journaling should not be confused with writing a diary, although they do have some commonalities. Diary writing is basically keeping a record of your day-to-day experiences. Typically, you record events that happen to you, describe scenery perhaps, and you may also not your reactions and feelings about events. Diary writing is fairly structured, therefore. Journal writing includes traditional journaling, bullet journaling, and expressive writing, and it is much more free-form, stream-of-consciousness writing.

Traditional journaling is the type we are most familiar with in which you discuss what has happened to you and talk about your reactions to these events. This serves as a terrific emotional outlet. Bullet journaling is, as you might imagine, more clipped. You put down things in short lists, abbreviated sentences, even incomplete thoughts. Just bam bam bam, a bunch of bullet points or even symbols and drawings expressing yourself in a kind of shorthand way. Expressive writing, however, is rather the opposite of bullet journaling. You write down events and feelings in much more detail and with much more self-reflection.

Dr. James Pennebaker researched expressive writing in the 1980s, discovering that his patients who used this practice required fewer therapy sessions to achieve the same results as patients who did not journal. There are three types of expressive writing:
 

1. Standard Expressive Writing: Writing about your personal experiences
2. Exposure Writing: Writing down your thoughts and feelings
3. Cognitive Processing: Reasoning out the consequences of your experiences and feelings to derive insights about them.

A mix of all three is probably the best strategy. It is rather like having a therapy session in which you also take on the role of therapist. Granted, it's not a complete substitution for having a therapist, but as Pennebaker found out, it helps tremendously.

Fiction writing is also useful. Unlike journaling, which is more of a reaction to real-life events, with fiction writing you are in control of what happens and what the reactions to events are. Many great authors have confessed that their novels and short stories were their way of dealing with emotions of all sorts. Some of these notable names include Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Franz Kafka, C. S. Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Sinclair Lewis, Anne Sexton, Leo Tolstoy, and many more.

These authors and others would take their own emotional and mental struggles and transfer them onto a fictional character, then write about how they would cope (or not cope) with their problems. By putting a protective mask between you, the author, and the fictional character, it makes the pain easier to deal with because the author feels less exposed to outside criticism (i.e., e.g., "It's not me dealing with schizophrenia or the death of my wife or the pain of extreme poverty or unrequited love, it's my character doing it). In a way, there are parallels here between what authors do and what furries do. Furries can become more themselves and more open about their emotions through their fursonas just as authors can do so through fictional characters. 

In addition to forming this protective barrier of judgment that allows you to more honestly express your feelings, story writing has the advantage of being able to control situations that, in real life, you cannot command. You get to create the situations to be overcome; you get to add helpers (minor characters) to aid in the main protagonist's quest; and you get to write a conclusion and have closure to the story. So, you see, you can take the material from real life that feels chaotic and beyond your control and impose an order upon it in order to make it manageable and more comprehensible. Pennebaker also wrote about this, saying that writing brings coherence to your emotional crisis as well as perspective. You write the plot, and, as narrator outside the story, you gain a new perspective upon it.

(Quick dig at AI: Here is a great argument against AI writing stories. You don't benefit from writing something from the heart if a machine is doing all the work.)

Your question does not strike me as weird at all. In fact, I congratulate you on discovering for yourself a great way of managing your mental distress. As for others judging you, well, first of all, just because you write a story doesn't mean you have to publish it. Second of all, this isn't about having an audience; this is about you. You know, if everyone worried about people judging them for every action they performed, nobody would do anything in this world and life would be a waste.

Therefore, write your heart out. Write for yourself. And continue talking to other people. Bottling things up never helped anyone. And, once you let yourself go, you'll see that you are not different from anyone else. You'll see that many people have had experiences comparable to your own and have the same feelings you do. Sharing that with others is immensely therapeutic.

Good job!

Hugs,
Papabear