Writing! What a “novel” idea!

Dear Annie: After reading the letter from “Unable to Open Up,” the gentleman who was unable to articulate his thoughts to his therapist, I wonder if writing down his thoughts would help. Sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to speak up for fear of being chastised, laughed at or embarrassed. I always encouraged my daughters to write down anything that was bothering them just to get it out of their mind, and sometimes it didn’t look as bad once they got it out. He could take the paper(s) to his therapist or just tear them up and throw them away. Either way, I wish him well and much success as he tries to heal himself. — Mom of Two Girls

Dear Mom of Two Girls: writing things down is very powerful. Either through journaling and keeping your journey to yourself or writing a personalized letter to the person. (c) Annie Lane @ Creators.com [Edited to correct some of Annie Lane’s typos]

Wow. This amazingly insightful advice reminds me of when I was last in the mental hospital, back in 2006. I wrote about it in my fictionalized account of my life, so I’ll copy/paste it below. Travel with me, dear reader, to the most boring place I’ve ever been…

Being trapped in the hospital was dull, but I was eager to attend an upcoming journaling class. Maybe I could learn some tips for how to write in a diary without opening Pandora’s boxes. That was where things had gone wrong for me several years back. I’d always regretted writing out my memories in ink because it had breathed life into them, and then I’d reached a point in which I’d felt compelled to feed every page to the shredder. Ugh.

Journaling class was held in a small classroom. It was taught by a man who might have looked up the word journal as part of his prep work for teaching the class, although this theory assumes that he did any prep work. “You can write in a journal,” he said slowly. “You can write a feeling or a thought. You can write with a pen… or… with a pencil.”

Good to know, thanks. I shuddered and glanced at the wall clock. Class had started a minute ago and was going nowhere fast.

“You can write a story.” He spoke with methodical slowness. “You can write a memory. You can write… a poem.” He grinned, thrilled to have thought of poems.

Poems. Fabulous. I sighed. The journaling teacher paused and tried to make eye contact with us, I suppose so he could develop some rapport, but half of my fellow patients were asleep. I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him. He was unmoved. In a flash of inspired whimsy, I wanted to throw a wadded-up sheet of paper at him as though I were a badass, rebellious high-school student who wanted to ditch class. I settled for a classic eyeroll.

“You can write in a journal, because a journal is…” He tried to stifle a belch. “Excuse me. Ahem. A book that can be… journaled in.”

Oh, dear God. I was this close to seeking out the nearest psychiatrist and vowing never to attempt suicide again if I could just be delivered from this ludicrous torment. What kind of demented place was this?! My life was a divine comedy. Dante Alighieri would’ve surely dubbed this mental hospital the tenth circle of Hell.

“Journaling… can… be… a… private… experience.” It took him thirty seconds to speak that one sentence. “Journaling can help improve your… journaling skills, if you practice with your journal.” He raised his journal overhead to show how a journal could be experienced manually.

My facepalm went hard and hurt my forehead. At some point in my life, or perhaps in past lives, I must’ve amassed some bad karma. There was no other explanation for why I was made to experience this level of absurdity. No one noticed my forceful facepalm. The few patients who were still sitting upright appeared to be suspiciously comatose. If given a gentle push, I suspected they’d faceplant their desks and then start snoring.

Maybe the nurses ran out of sedatives and needed an inept journaling teacher to knock us out. I’m not sure. If I hadn’t been so daggone polite, I would’ve taken his journal from him before he could hurt himself with it.

Attending the class was optional, but there weren’t many options. I could learn (or not learn, as it were) about journaling, or I could stay in my bedroom, staring at the wall while praying for a quick and painless death which would never happen with all this heightened security. Or I could hang out on the unit, where nothing interesting was happening. My fellow patients were too lethargic to play boardgames or work jigsaw puzzles with me.

That said, the camaraderie I’d always felt in mental hospitals was still present. We intuitively got along well and spoke the same language. In quiet moments between activities, we whispered of things only we could understand: traces of abuse, agonizing inner pain, being judged by arbitrary standards, not being heard, wanting to rush headlong onto a highway, and wondering why normal people acted so superior to the rest of us when we were the ones who understood suffering.

There was no judgment. In group therapy, we were all wholly supportive of each other, so when I told the group that I’d shredded my diary, they understood.

(c) MEK All Rights Reserved

Well, this has been fun. I’m glad Annie Lane is still giving stellar advice that no one else would ever think of!