Writing is What Gave Me Hope When I Was About to Lose All Hope

 

Photo Credit: fotografierende via Pixabay

 

The year was 2020 and it was not only a bad year for the entire world that was dealing with a pandemic, but it was also a bad year for me. After months of dealing with constantly changing protocols at a job that required I wear a mask for several hours, I resigned. I didn’t want to quit this job, but because I had been written up too many times, I was faced with the choice to either quit or lose a substantial amount of money earned through PTO. So I quit that job in order to at least walk away with some money in my pocket to help tide us over until something else came along.

 

Still, I was very depressed, as I had created an entire identity around that job. I loved the work, so it was hard to walk away from it after almost three years. But it was time for a change.

 

And that change was writing.

 

I did manage to get another job shortly after I resigned from being a Direct Support Professional (DSP), but I was let go from it three months later.

 

The thing that was still a constant in my life even after I lost the other job? Writing.

 

Up until I started writing again in late 2020, I had been dealing with a dry spell. This occurred during my recovery from alcoholism-induced pancreatitis, which happened in 2017. For some reason, I was unable to write! As worrying and alarming as this was for me, I didn’t realize at the time that my body was going through a transformation. After years of being a heavy drinker, I was no longer drinking. I was no longer an alcoholic. And this shift took my body by surprise. This shift meant that I needed to go through a reset and allow my body, as well as my brain, to heal from those years of addiction.

 

I had to wait until I was able to write again in order to resume writing again. Writing did come back into my life, in its own time. At the right time. At a time that I needed it the most.

 

While I was going through that dry spell, though, I focused my energy on finding satisfaction through other means. I read books, threw myself into my job, and got out there to explore. These things brought me satisfaction. They brought me joy.

 

But once the BIGGEST thing that brought me joy was gone, I hit rock bottom. I was extremely depressed. And because I kept hearing about more people dying from Covid as well as more people losing their jobs and more people struggling through the pandemic, I started to lose hope.

 

Then writing came back into my life. It brought me the joy that I lost. Even better, it brought back hope. Being able to write again was something of a miracle for me, and it brought some hope back into my life.

 

And nearly six years later, I am still writing. (I am also still sober!)

 

Having witnessed how writing can change a person’s life and boost their mental health is what inspired me to write the book Write for Your Life!: The Health Benefits of Writing. While doing research for this book, I learned about how writing can improve our mental health. As someone who has chronic depression, anxiety, and panic disorder, I have also personally experienced how writing has indeed helped my mental health. Writing provides me with a strong sense of satisfaction, release, empowerment, and therapy. I keep a daily journal, and I gotta say that being able to rant and whine on the pages has been immensely helpful. (Sometimes I’ll rant to my husband, but only after he insists that I share what is bothering me. I really don’t like dumping things on people.)  

 

While I understand that not everyone can benefit from writing, it still remains a powerful tool in coping with the downsides of life, as well as offering healing when mental health issues get out of hand.

 

Writing is the one thing we have control over.

 

Writing is the one thing we can choose to do in our own time.

 

Writing is the one thing that we can rely on as a constant in our lives.

 

The best part about writing? Anyone can do it. You don’t need to write for publication. You don’t need any special tools to write with (you can write with pen and paper or even on your phone). You don’t need to have any special training in order to write. You can write, in your own way and in your own time.

 

So, write. It will offer you the joy you might be missing. It can bring some hope back into your life. I know that it did for me, and it still does.

A Journey Towards Healing: New Poetry Book, A Tiny Light, Sheds Light on a Difficult Path

 

I don’t dwell on the past, but sometimes it seeps into my writing. Then there are other times I can look back at my past, see the difficult experiences I had to go through to find my way, and realize that they all tell a story.

 

In some ways, poetry can tell stories, too – in the poems written during difficult times that eventually came to an end.

 

I have been through a lot of difficult situations in life (who hasn’t, right??) and, sadly, a lot of them contributed to my addiction to alcohol. I did eventually get sober, but it was in getting sober that I found my inner strength. The “tiny light” within myself that has kept me strong for over five years since I stopped drinking.

 

But I had to go through a lot of hard stuff first to get there!

 

The poems in this little book share those difficult moments – the rejection I felt in society, among people and even with family because of some reason or another; the VERY uncomfortable awkwardness I experienced after reconciling with my husband and trying to regain his trust and acceptance; the heartbreak and anger over lost love; the discomfort I endured with a former job as a burn survivor with burn scars on my face; experiencing rejection and loneliness in my marriage; and coming to terms with certain lingering issues in my life until, finally, recognizing the importance of letting go of everything that caused pain and weighed me down and finding my inner strength to stand alone on my own two feet.

 

Instead of looking back on these painful events of my past, I now see them as stepping stones to finding my own strength and learning to love myself no matter what happens. Kicking the drinking habit helped, yes, but I knew I had to go deeper than deal with my drinking problem. I had to resolve and make peace with these painful past experiences. So now I can look at this small collection of poems as a victory in overcoming my battle with drinking and shedding the baggage that weighed me down.

 

The poems in this book may be personal poems (confessional poems may be the better term), but hopefully they may resonate with readers and empower them at the end.

 

Here is the book’s blurb:

 

There are hardships in life that can drive people over the edge -- and, in the author's case, it drove her to alcoholism.

The poems in this book capture just some of the things that kept the author trapped in her addiction. She eventually broke free of addiction, made peace with her past and present, and found a tiny light within herself that gave her the strength to carry on as a stronger person free of the chains of alcoholism.

 

 

A Tiny Light is available as a free download on Smashwords