The Healing Values of Writing

Expressing yourself on paper can be powerful, a relief, and easier than therapy-based discussion. Being able to write down what you cannot say out loud feels validating, and once you finish you are left with a choice: you can either choose to share your thoughts, or you can let your secrets stay between you and the paper.

I am currently using writing to describe my journey with sudden partner loss. Although there is nothing I can do to change the outcome of my situation, I help myself comprehend this reality by writing down my thoughts and experiences. I have made it a task for myself to journal for one year about events in my life that seem significant—whether I am heavily grieving or reminiscing about pleasant memories. 

A writing study* was conducted with college students, where half of the students were asked to write about traumatic events they have endured, while the other half wrote about general topics, such as how they decorated their rooms. Over a span of four months, all students were monitored pertaining to their class attendance and visitations to their campus health center. After collecting data from these students, it was shown that the group that wrote about their trauma were more present in class and had less frequent encounters with the health center. The conclusion of the study declared that “writing about earlier traumatic experiences was associated with both short-term increases in physiological arousal and long-term decreases in health problems.”

In the study, participants found themselves feeling negative after writing about their trauma, but I think writing about these experiences should be upsetting. It does not matter if these events happened ten years ago or yesterday—rehashing can be triggering, especially if one does not deal with the emotions that initially came with the traumatic event. In the long term, the benefits outweighed the risks; students who participated in long-term writing benefited from reduced absenteeism from work, higher grade point averages, fewer stress-related visits to the doctors, and more. Things that are good for you rarely feel good when you first begin— working out, getting vaccinations, being vulnerable, etc., but long term benefits come with each.

Grief taxes everything in my life, from my emotional capacity to my memory. I am five months into the loss of my partner, and I can say that in this short amount of time, writing has helped me understand the depth of what has happened. I notice that my writing was once an outlet for the emotions I could not articulate, and has now begun to blossom into a place where I cherish the memories that time has allowed me. With my pen and paper, I am creating a time capsule of my love.

*Baikie, Karen A., and Kay Wilhelm. “Emotional and Physical Health Benefits of Expressive Writing.” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 11.5 (2005): 338–346. Web.