Write it down

I was a teenage cliche; I wore a lot of black, including heavy black eyeliner, I slumped around the house in an apathetic torpor and I wrote reams of poetry.

To talk about it a little less flippantly, years ago I suffered from a dreadful, terrifying bout of anxiety and depression. It’s not a secret; I’ve written about it here:

http://msmuddles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-missing-piece.html

I didn’t feel that I had anyone I could talk to about this - and this is one of the worst things about mental illness/depression; that horrible sense of isolation*, but this was when I started writing poetry. Terribly earnest, revealing stuff - more of an outpouring of uncontrollable thoughts and emotions than a structured bit of verse. But perhaps, at a time when there was none to talk to, it helped.

*This is something that needs to be addressed; particularly when you consider that suicide is one of the biggest killers of young men in the U.K.

I’m constantly reading of the cathartic power of writing things down, these days. An article in Stylist magazine about managing anger, suggests writing about your angry feelings to identify what’s bothering you. The artcile suggests that this might be more helpful than giving vent to your rage:

http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/how-to-be-less-angry-the-seven-proven-ways-to-control-and-defuse-rage-temper-tips-anger-management

The NSPCC recommends encouraging children to write things down, among other things, to help them deal with stress. To try and write down or draw what's bothering them:

https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/your-feelings/anxiety-stress-panic/coping-with-stress/?utm_source=facebook_mainnspcc&utm_medium=nspccsocialmedia&utm_campaign=ownfacebook_post

There is a regular piece in the Guardian entitled ‘The letter you always wanted to write’, which is self-explanatory really.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/13/a-letter-to-my-parents-whose-favouritism-ripped-our-family-apart

I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I see a counsellor. Sometimes, between sessions, if I’m feeling troubled, I email my therapist. She always said that I could ring her if I needed to, but I hate talking to people on the phone, so I email instead. These emails can sometimes be a huge, splurgy outpouring of emotion. More often than not, I don’t actually send them - finding that the simple act of writing it down will have helped. (Sometimes I will send it for the sensation of making a connection or being ‘heard’. The adolescent poetry didn’t have an ‘audience’.) I rarely do this nowadays, finding that the longer I’m in therapy, the less I need to do contact her between sessions.

Getting back to the poetry, do you know what's great about writing about your feelings as poems? The verse form seems to lend itself better to expressing your feelings, than simple prose. Perhaps because it's it's more fluid and free from constraints, you feel like you can give vent. The repetition can give emphasis to certain points, perhaps highlighting areas you need to work on. If you tell yourself that no one will ever see it, it will give you the freedom to write whatever you want; be as self-indulgent as you need to be.
I'm not suggesting that it will solve all mental health issues; simply that it might be one thing to do to help.

Why not give it a go?  You don't have to show it to anyone but who knows, it might be the start of a glittering new career...