Why should I write?
Will it help?
Ian and Portland have found from their personal experiences that writing can help tremendously to fight your way back to well-being. It's not only the actual writing, getting your words on paper, it's also the time for reflection, to share with others if you wish, to hear other people's stories. Meeting with other people, other writers, is a social event to look forward to, people to speak to who understand what you are going through. But don't just take our word for it - let's look at what people who know more have to say about it.
In his foreword to Words for Wellbeing, Jim Eldridge says that after physical or mental illness ‘often the hardest part can be the healing process that follows the illness’. He adds that it is well-known that the healing process can be aided hugely if some of that time is spent writing, a catharsis to examine and hopefully help conquer the inner demons. Writing for wellbeing is rebuilding the harm and the hurt, and helping life to be grasped again.
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‘Creative writing for mental health boosts self-esteem. It can make you feel better about yourself as it allows people to see what's going on within your thoughts. Writing about yourself and the events in your life provides an artistic outlet to express your thoughts without fear of criticism from others. Writing about yourself allows you to ponder on who you are as a person and how much importance each human being has.’ Bolton University blog
James Ryan, in his book Recovery Writing, says that ‘recovery writing is meant to be transformative. It reveals hard truths about us so that we can let go of old thinking and old behaviour and live new lives. Writing can change you not just as an individual but as a social being.’
Fiona Hamilton, writing in Heart Matters magazine from the British Heart Foundation, explains that ‘writing is an opportunity to find ways of narrating the experience, to ourselves and others. When your life has been changed by an illness, when you can’t do things you used to, writing can help. Illness and challenge often involve feelings of changed identity. Writing can be helpful if it doesn’t feel easy to talk to friends and family.’
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acknowledgements
Words for Wellbeing, edited by Carol Ross, Foreword by Jim Eldridge 2012
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Recovery Writing James Ryan 2023
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