Writing as Freedom and Healing

Last night, I did something in my journal that made me feel like a million bucks. I made a list of everyone who has hurt me, and I just tore them to shreds in my journal. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before! Is this healthy? Maybe, maybe not. I’m all for positivity and moving on, but sometimes it just feels so good to indulge in your negative side every once in a while. And I think that by doing something like insulting someone in your private journal, may make it easier to move on. So go ahead! Be mean to someone in the privacy of your own journal. Now, don’t misconstrue this advice and become a bully, just saying mean things to people for the sake of being mean. This advice involves being intentional with your words. Say what you need to say to them, all within the safety and privacy of your personal writings. You deserve to do what you need to do (in a legal and safe way) to heal and move on.

There is something I think you should do to glean the most benefit possible from this practice. This advice is that you should only write things that you have absolutely zero problems with saying to the person’s face. Be as authentic as possible with the things you say in your personal writings. It will be much more satisfying if you actually mean what you say. Not to mention that this is a good practice, anyway. Being able to say “yeah, I said what I said and I meant it” is incredibly powerful. Again, this is not to say that you should be mean to people under the veil of being self-assured and powerful. This practice shows people that you are genuine! When you are genuine, this shows that your words have power. So in the event that things do get nasty with someone face-to-face, they will know that you mean what you say when you stand up for yourself. But this also means that when you compliment someone, or show someone kindness and love, they will know you mean it.

In your private writings, you can say whatever you want! This is your safe space to heal. Unless it’s the police with a search warrant, no one can look at your writings without your permission. This means that you can say whatever you need to say, without judgement or consequence. And I will say from experience, it is so freeing. Why do you think I have a blog? Why do you think I’ve been keeping a personal diary since high school? Writing, for me, is a safe space of healing and comfort, and I recommend it to everyone as a way to cope with life’s happenings. In my personal writings, I’ve said a lot of very nice things about people I love, and a lot of not very nice things about those who’ve hurt me. 

Documenting my life has helped me heal from trauma, and helped me celebrate all of the love in my life. Because of writing, I will be able to look back at my feelings on the day I graduated from college. I can look back at the days I adopted Piper, Timon, and Pixie. I can look back on the day I was assaulted in college and acknowledge that trauma, and celebrate how much I’ve healed and grown since then. I can see the day I was accepted into grad school, as well as the day the principal of my high school approved my early graduation, all the way back in 2015. I wrote about the day I met my best friend, and moved in with my first roommate at the University of Oregon in Spiller Hall in room 201. I wrote about the day one of my dear friends took her own life in her dorm room later that year. I wrote about how empowered, yet terrified I was when I broke off my engagement after a whirlwind romance that proved to be toxic and unhealthy. 

The American education system molds students into adults that hate writing. Granted, I’ve been out of the public education system for a very long time, but around the time that I graduated high school in 2016, I started seeing parents and teachers posting opinion pieces about how they feel that school districts and state education boards encourage teachers, especially elementary school teachers, to assign obscene amounts of homework. Especially in elementary school, kids should be spending their free time playing outside, not writing research papers after sitting in school all day. I remember coming home from high school before we moved to Eugene, and at times, my mom, who was a teacher, was shocked at how much work I had to do. Before starting high school in Eugene, I would be up past midnight every night doing homework. As an aside, my high school in New York began the day at 7:25am every day, whereas in Eugene, we started at 8:40am. I think that making children sit in a classroom before 8am every day is borderline, if not completely inhumane, unreasonable, and fucking stupid. Anyway, forcing young students to do so much busywork can only result in one outcome: a hatred of reading and writing as adults.

I cannot express to you all enough just how freeing and healing writing can be. Writing, while not being a replacement for therapy, can be similarly helpful, and I must stress again, healing. In America, we are guaranteed the freedom of speech. Why not take advantage of it, especially in private, where no one can judge you?