Writing and Mental Health

I get wrapped up in my own head sometimes. I twist around my thoughts. Despairing at the world or spinning in moot worries, few things can pull me out of looping thoughts effectively as writing. Writing helps us process our emotions. It is a way to get outside oneself, as it is paradoxically too the time when we are closest to ourselves.

Journal-writing is a tried and trusted aid for good mental health, and I believe that fiction and poetry writing can be too. Today, let’s explore some of the ways writing helps us process emotions, reset our mental machinery, and know ourselves better.

Concentration

When in my first official teaching job I inherited a high school creative writing class to teach, the curriculum included an essay by Ray Bradbury, “Zen and the Art of Writing,” apparently the title essay in a book by the same name. Although I soon abandoned the essay as a teaching tool, I have remembered it as a writer for its focus on the flow that arises when we really sink into our writing. “Don’t think,” Bradbury says again and again. That can be easier said than done.

But the more I write, the more I feel too that the deep concentration of writing opens up a different wave of thought. It takes us out of ourselves, because to authentically inhabit the worlds of our characters, we cannot leave half our minds behind sifting through old worries. Even if that character is really an emergent piece of ourselves, the separation lets us pause, look back at ourselves from the outside. If I’m thinking, it’s not in the same way.

Before I had developed a strong writing habit, writing could for me be hit-or-miss. Sitting at the computer, concentration straining for a foothold, I would often freeze for long blank moments, type those paltry words, judge and blot them out, stop–I just couldn’t write today, I’d say. This inability to write became a kind of coal-mine canary for my wellbeing, alerting me to something deeper that I wasn’t processing. These days, my brain has more practice slipping into that concentration, and writing becomes a way to reset my mind.

Escapism, and not in a bad way

I used to reject as a matter of course any TV show or other entertainment that I labeled “escapist,” whose primary purpose seemed to be a break from reality. I preferred instead shows or books that I thought had some intellectual value, from which I could learn something.

It is true that with so many demands in life, with time so limited, the opportunity cost is always there. But I think I better understand now the value of escaping for a little while to some easier, more carefree world. I’ve been trying to include a bit more lighthearted entertainment in my day. To laugh a little more unfetteredly.

I’ve just finished my first… funny short story. Come on, Jimmy, why do you always write such serious things? And you know, this funny story may not be the best work I have ever written, but I enjoyed it greatly, and I looked forward to escaping into it each day.

Writing is an escape, or perhaps retreat is even more appropriate. Writing separates us from the world around, for at least this little while, this unencumbered time I’ve set aside for myself to simply sit and type and drink a pot of tea. Having cordoned that time off for myself, I can run away for a little while into it, knowing I’ll return refreshed, refocused, rejuvenated.

Feelings in a bottle

Sometimes, I think writing is a kind of exorcism. I lay out the tea, I quiet my mind, I tap out on the keys my offering to some long-buried or denied feeling. The story calls it forth like a spirit, and within the confines of that page and screen, it bounces around, makes scary faces, but it cannot do much more. I’ve got the feeling trapped there, in a way.

Seeing characters live out my worries or my doubts, it freezes them. They become more knowable outside myself, so I can see them more for what they are and not the inflated, overwhelming things they can be when they’re loose inside me. The thing sits there on that page in a form I can control, and it becomes less frightening. This outside perspective takes the feeling’s power down a notch. I can process, make a better peace with it.

Mental health is an ongoing journey, figuring out what works for each of us, incremental growth, and sometimes that is terribly frustrating, but it’s okay. For many, writing is a piece of that long puzzle.

As a teacher, there are few greater privileges than when a young person opens up to share what is on their mind or heart. In Minnesota and here in Norway, I have witnessed many students processing their fears and challenges through writing. It is a beautiful and powerful thing. It reveals for crystal moments the deep humanity in each person. Whether a journal, a poem, a story, or a song, this working out of our own minds is something we should celebrate.

What has your experience been around writing and wellbeing? How has writing helped you put things in perspective, escape, or grow?

Thanks for stopping by, and best wishes for the coming week,
Jimmy