Write Two Pages and Call Me in the Morning

When my youngest foster daughter was in a residential treatment center for her eating disorder, part of her therapy was to write a “trauma narrative” describing all the challenges she had overcome in her young teenage life. In her sessions with her therapist, she read her narrative over and over. The goal of the assignment was multi-faceted. Sheer repetition, it was thought, would lessen the negative impact of the initial suffering. Writing about trauma can also afford the writer a new understanding of the emotional event. Problems that feel overwhelming can often seem more manageable when confined to the page. In a best-case scenario, writing can be a powerful tool in understanding past traumas and their impact on our lives.

What my foster daughter found true for her, I discovered, was also true for myself some years ago when my youngest son was hit by a drunk driver in a crash that left him with a traumatic brain injury and killed his girlfriend. I struggled to adapt to the changes that were wrought upon our family by this event. For years, it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other, initially sitting by Neil’s side in the ICU waiting for him to come through each surgery, later getting him to various appointments with orthopedists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, physical therapists, and mental health providers.

Through it all, I journaled. But it wasn’t until I started putting together a cohesive narrative in the form of a memoir that my own healing really began. I used the page to work through my disenfranchised grief (do I get to mourn the changes in Neil’s life when his girlfriend no longer has hers?). Making literary decisions—where to begin and end my story, what details to include or leave out—felt empowering. I couldn’t erase Neil’s brain injury or bring his girlfriend back to life, but I could control the narrative. For example, in all 215 pages of my book, I never name the drunk driver. I felt to do so would give him humanity I did not feel he deserved at that point. Writing gave me sovereignty over the situation I would not have had were I not an author.

Years later, I edited an anthology of stories written by other TBI survivors. Sharing their accounts, they told me, was potently healing. “With words, I saw who I was,” one told me. Readers of these stories also responded positively. “You have said what I was unable to say,” one said. We gain strength in the sharing of stories.

My experience with the transformative power of words is not unique and, I have since learned, has important scientific evidence to back it up. Writing has been found to have such disparate positive effects on the body as the improvement of lung function in asthmatics, reduced disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and increased blood markers of immune function in healthy research subjects.

In a study of recent college graduates, half were asked to write about a time in their lives when they felt powerful. Compared with graduates not assigned to write, these writers performed better on job interviews and were more likely to be hired. Simply writing about power made them powerful.

Even writing about negative experiences has an upside. Studies in cancer patients and prisoners have both demonstrated improvements in self-reported quality of life after being assigned to write about their circumstances.

So, what does a daily writing practice look like? Experts suggest writing for about 15 minutes a day on most days of the week. Write continuously without paying attention to spelling or grammar. Write only for you. No one else need see your musings. This lets you avoid the fear of judgment and be completely honest with your feelings. What should you write about? Whatever is on your mind. It might be a work relationship you are struggling with, a physical ailment you are coming to terms with, or something you would like to say to someone but haven’t figured out the best way to say it. A good rule of thumb is that if you are spending a lot of your time thinking about something, writing about it might bring new insights. Explore both what happened and also how you feel about it in words on the page.

Of course, writing isn’t a panacea. You likely will not feel instantly better after writing, especially if you are going through significant trauma. But hopefully, with the perspective that your writing can bring, you will ultimately come through with a better understanding of your own thoughts and emotions.