Question: Has anyone tried journaling

Question: Has anyone tried journaling
L

LostnHell

Registrant
While I am in therapy , I'm wondering if I should try some journaling to perhaps get some insights or speed up the process. Perhaps it's not necessary, maybe it would be helpful.

My questions are:
1) can it be useful as an adjunct to therapy ?
2) How do I even get started ?

Thank you,
LNH
 
LNH - pick up the pen and write whatever you feel. Nobody else has to see what you write. Just let your thoughts transfer onto paper. Read it back to yourself...it worked for me!

Best wishes ..Rik
 
LNH,

I guess one thing to do would be to ask your therapist about this. He/she may have some specific ideas.

I have kept two diaries. One I started when I was 12 and considering suicide. The other I began just recently, the idea behind that one being that I sometimes feel very confused and hopelessly lost about everything. Writing down how I feel helps me I think. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it gives me some sense that I am not absolutely adrift and am still in control of my life, or some bits of it at least.

I started the new one by asking myself what I hoped to achieve by keeping this journal and what I thought should go into it. One thing I say there is I hope I won't use my journal just as a vehicle for venting; I want to include positive things as well: little victories, special events that went well, little things that made me happy, photos, whatever.

I would say try it and see how it goes. It may take awhile to get into it, depending on how easy you find it to write about things you feel, but giving it a chance might be a good idea.

Take care,
Larry
 
I've journaled for the last 17 years. I nostly write out whatever is on the inside - thoughts, feelings! I am as honest and open as I could ever be...no holding back. As I re-read what I've written over the years, when I've been most honest, forthright and blunt, I recognize how my past has afffected me, ways I need to change, ideas that are obviously incorrect and counterproductive, etc. It helps me grow and heal. I've used it at times in my therapy sessions sharing with my therapist. I hope if you choose to journal, make it a habit to write something everyday and that it helps you as much as it has healed me!

Howard
 
journaling helped me more tha anything else I think, I found it so good for sorting out my mixed up thoughts and then returning to them to see what I had actually done about them - if anything !!

When I write my journal, which I still do, I find that the act of writing slows down my thinking as I choose exactly the right word or phrase to describe what I'm feeling or experiencing, so I think more and concentrate harder as I actually do it.

I also journal on my computer and burn discs of each separate piece I write,I tend to write a series of essays rather than a diary.
On disc it's easy to return to them later and see the progress, sometimes years later as I started in 1998.
As I read the old journals I often have new thoughts and ideas, so I put them in using a different font or italics. But I never lose the original, I then save the new additions as version 2 version 3 and so on and date each version.
I've found this a very helpful way of working, and some of my early stuff is now up to version 10 or 12 and many thousands of words. But my progress is something I can look back on accurately, it's something I can't argue with or deny to myself, what I wrote was what I felt at that time.

There's some scary stuff in there for sure, and some stuff that nobody will ever see other than me if I have my way, so if you journal and share your secrets with the 'page' don't leave it lying around for others to read.

Dave
 
Journaling is very effective. I have found that journaling is 100 times more effective than therapy.

I use a couple of variations:

1) I do a self therapy by answering the following questions a) how do I feel b) why do I feel this way c) what do I ideally want to happen d) realistically what do I need to do

2) I speak to my emotionaly self in terms of a freind. Sometimes I argue back and forth, but its healthy

3) I write letters to family, friends current and past. Never mail them just helps me clear up dynamics with people

4) I write to myself before I was abused and then to myself after the abuse. These are the hardest for me right now.

5) Sometimes its just best if I just type without thinking, now worries to spelling, grammar. Just what ever comes to mind. Usually in the middle of a page of madness there is the clear thought.

Keep trying different variations to see what works for you. And from time to time try different journaling techniques. You'll find that different things work at different times.
 
Journaling and writing poetry has litterly saved my life. There is no right of wrong way to do it. Just write what you feel. What you are thinking. Let the pen flow. Even if all you write is something like I don't know what to write. If you start putting down on paper what you feeling then you will find as I did that the pen will begin to flow and your innervoice will begin to speak. I encourage everyone to write I think it is very healing and helpful in becoming better for the tomorrow that we all want to achieve.
 
The first journal 'assignment' my old therapist give to me is to write about three things. 'I was', 'I am' and 'I will be'. She say it is to put in perspective, what was then, now, and possible in future. Just I put those words at top of the page, and start writing 'I was small', 'I was scared', simple things first. But then it just keep going from there, and I wrote pages on each of them. I think it did help me some, to remember it is then, not now, and that I am safe. Also, to look at my future, what I want of it, and how I can make it happen.

Andrei
 
Journaling brough me to the point of acceptance of my abuse much different to admiting it. I have been keeping a journal now for over five years and when I look back at it I can see the progress I have made, this is especially useful when having off days or weeks. Its there in black and white how far I have come.

Kirk
 
I can't thank you enough guys for all the great responses. They are all extremely helpful. I did speak to me therapist about it and she was very much for it.
 
I found it best to use a spiral bound artist's skecth pad. The absence of lines was a challenge to my tightly controlled, logical oderly mind.

It also encouraged sketching and drawing which can be even more revealing of my inner state.
 
Journalling is good -

though sometimes - honestly as inappropriate -whatever - i find i needed to speak stuff out loud -

i had been so muted -

just today someone on this site said in a pm -

thanks for sharing your life -

part of me has a hard time thinking that

people think i should just be seen

not heard

journalling is good - also talk

to me -

mark
 
Bumping this to ask another question.

How do those of you that do journal organize how you write? Do you just touch the nib to paper and let the words flow out, or do you look for specific issues or things to work on and write about (other than T assignments)?

I think something like this could really help me quiet the voices that are constantly babbling in my head, but I want to make the most out of the experience.

Or am I doomed to flail about for a while, trying to find a method that works for me?
 
timsutt

Originally I wrote what was in my head usually brought about by a flashabck or trigger. Today I write about specifics once again usually brought about by a flashback, a forgotten memory or a trigger usually by a particular peice of music I am listening too but more so today I write about survivor issues which includes my opinions on how abuse is portaryed in the press which in turn leads on to politics of which I am just getting involved.

regards
Kirk
"Lets grab this bull by the horns and swing it about a bit"
 
Tim,

I would just start out and see how it goes. In your first entry, perhaps try writing down what you hope to get from journaling. You will soon find your own direction and style and decide what you do and don't want to include.

Much love,
Larry
 
I have an online diary. It helps, and I think I need other people to read my thoughts. It is very interesting to be honest with unknown people. However, I don't speak about my past in the diary.

Alexey
 
Writing letters to the ones who hurt me and the ones I hurt was very therapeutic, I also journaled my feelings, something that would not go away, a thought or event journaled out is a good way to deal with the issue in my opinion. My wifes affair, I wrote letters to her, some she read and some she will never see but in large I learned from them. Looking back through my journals I realized my life, parents, the abuse/molestation had shaped my personality and it helped me realize that my childhood was not all that I thought it was cracked up to be. I had stored the memories as a child and by journaling them out and reading them as an adult I was able to see the devastation, that led to further pain but in time healing.
 
I have been journaling on and off for 35 years. Mostly talking about what is going on in my life. I do talk about my feeling also but I find it easey to get started to just talk about the event of my life. I alse make a point of talking about the issues that are on my mind.

I also,
I found it best to use a spiral bound artist's skecth pad.

Without lines my writting changes in size through out the entery. Some paragraghs are super big type and some small but without lines I feel free to write any size I like.

My thoughts can't be confinded between lines.

Don't think I can ever journal on lined paper again. One thing be sure to go back and read your writing weeks and months afterward so you have an idea of where your mind was back then.
Tom
 
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