Thoughts on Paper

This is the first time I’m revisiting a previously done trial, a daily journal, and it’s for a pretty specific reason. Prior to starting to journal again, I was dealing with quite a lot of stress, anxiety, and depression. Having a daily outlet of my thoughts helps to better sort and understand them.

Emotional Release

For most of my life, I’ve often held emotions at bay until I could no longer do so. The result was often a scene, a meltdown. As I’ve grown older, I may know how to avoid creating a scene, but I still struggle with emotional expression. On a given day, I can bounce from one end of the emotional spectrum to another in my mind, while on the surface trying to appear disconnected from any given feeling. I don’t believe this is a good thing.

Prior to starting to journal again, I would get lost in thoughts. The negative ones somehow have a way of clouding out everything else. Sitting down for a few minutes each night has helped me to get things under control. Writing down whatever comes to mind has cleared the fog. Negative thoughts don’t have the same hold, and the good aspects of a situation come to mind easier.

Getting Serious

I feel compelled to preface the following story. If you feel that you experience thoughts of harming yourself, please contact the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Regardless of your thoughts in that moment, any act against yourself can have a destructive blow to the people around you.

Drafting up my thoughts on this, I can’t help but remember a time a few years ago that I wrote a suicide note. By the time this idea crossed my mind, the event that sparked the deep depression and self-loathing I was feeling was well behind me. For some reason, I was committed to writing. What I found was the event that triggered those feelings, was really just the surface-level. Deep rooted emotions I had carried with me for years were dug up. Seeing the words on the paper, I was able to see a physical representation of those feelings and work through them.

I kept the note with me for a while. It was a reminder that things on the surface were usually not what they seemed. Eventually, I tossed it, putting that experience behind me. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had that type of emotion lurking in my mind, but the lesson of that day has stuck with me.

This post took me a lot of re-writes due to the difficulty of this subject matter. It’s a scary thing that these thoughts can impact anyone. I once again urge anyone who finds themselves drawing close to hurting themselves to call the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255 and, if able, seek out help from a professional. I am definitely not qualified to offer advice or solutions, but the above is just one experience I thought was relevant.