Journaling as a way to relax?

I used to write in a journal quite a bit, but lately I've found that doing so actually stresses me out. My mind wanders to topics that are uncomfortable / stressful for me to relive and parse out into sentences. Kind of weird, I used to find journaling quite relaxing.

Do any of you keep a regular journal? I've been (on and off) maintaining one for about a year now. If nothing else, it's interesting to read back through and see the fluctuations in mood and types of subject matter covered during various periods.

I keep a journal about what I talk about in therapy and the things my therapist has said that resonate with me. It is both interesting and scary to see the trajectory of my thoughts when I am depressed. I also keep a mood log which I look at periodically to remind myself that even when I am depressed, I do eventually get better.

I try to keep a journal, but it has been pretty hard. I saw someone on here post that their New Year's Resolution was to write in their journal every day this year. I thought that was pretty cool so I figured I'd do that too. I've maybe written a total of four or five days. I'm going to keep trying though, because it is nice to go back and look at where my head was during that time.

I have been journaling for YEARS!!! I think they go back at least ten years. But it's not a daily or regular thing with me, at least not as often as I used to. My entries tend to be on the depressive/irritable side because I just need to get those feelings out. If I find myself ruminating over something, I'll write it out in my journal. Yesterday I was pissed off about something and those thoughts would not leave my mind, so I wrote it all out, curse words and all, and I was able to calm down. Journaling may not be for everyone, especially if you have trouble verbalizing your feelings, but it's one of many stress relievers for me.
Oh and they're not all completely depressing. There are a handful of happy entries too.

I keep a journal that has evolved from paragraphs style story telling of events and feelings to more of a data grid type of daily charting. It is expanded upon if I need add extra information.

I use a notebook turned sideways, each page a month. The graphs are horizontal with the dates on top, the symptom on the left, with an x or - if I experienced symptom or not. I have a column for 'more on back' if I had something occur that needed additional info.

There are times I needed to chart more on back that took up a whole notebook page, but since so many days are normal weird instead of extraordinary weird, I find charting symptoms enough, and helpful.

I do believe self expression is not a generalized thing. All people must find their own 'voice'. My rigid style would not work for many. But the free flowing ramblings of my random and varied thoughts of the past did not help me. This format not only helps me to see the pattern in the chaos, but I volunteer copies of it to my therapist who says it helps her as well.

I don't do it on a regular basis but occasionally I feel like I have the same snippets of thoughts bothering me and it feels therapeutic to put them somewhere outside of myself - temporarily at least. It's dodgy because there are usually people around who you don't want to be exposed to the truth of things so it's a guilty secret and everything gets destroyed later anyway.

It helps me at times. Relaxes the mind. Helps me acknowledge and make sense of feelings.

back in 2010/ 2011, i kept a journal all the time- and wrote in it once (possibly twice a day)

then i stopped for a few years, because like the original poster says, it stresses me out

i've said since that i'll restart it, and i do keep it around for the odd rant or peace of news, but it's not relaxing.. i don't find it relaxing at all

especially when you're me and life just does not get better

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and point out one needs to be vigilant.

It is really easy - as we pour our thoughts onto the pages - to begin to ruminate over events and situations and begin to concentrate on the negative. I think this risks one's mental health.

I think then, we need to make the effort to ALSO find positives to note and write about in our journals; that we AVOID only using them as a sounding board for life's difficulties and negative thoughts.

I've journaled for years but often take breaks. I'm on break now. It's been weeks. It's just stressed me out thinking about it.

I keep a daily journal. It's pretty boring but keeps track of my moods.

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I journal. I don't do it with any regularity but writing is a major release for me. Several years ago, when I was hyper religious, I kept a daily prayer journal. I had notebook after notebook filled with prayer, Scriptures, all of my praises and all of my anguish.

When I was better, I had to throw them all out. The pages were filled with conspiracy theories and paranoia that was disguised as prayer. I spent the first hour of my day with the Lord both when I was well and when I discovered that my thoughts were delusional. When I believed those delusional thoughts were normal, I believed that every prayer I prayed was going to come true because I was chosen and because everything I spoke came directly from the Holy Spirit. That was stressful in it's self.

When I journal now, it helps both my pdoc and my t know what is going on in my head and if I have anything concerning going on.

@Cashart I have a tendency to throw away my old writings too. Some of the stuff written during manic phases is so delusional and stressful to go back over that I don't want to have to think about it. I also have this paranoid feeling that someone (a friend or family member) may happen across the private writings and freak out over the contents :-/

I have been journaling for years and find the records very useful for later review, particularly when putting history together for a new pdoc or T.
Sometimes I have so much to write down, but more often my memory lets me down and I can't piece the thoughts together.
Sometimes I find writing and thinking about issues very stressful, and I keep the content to a minimum.
Then there is the mood diary that I keep, where I log the meds I use, how much sleep I had, manic-depression scale, etc. The mood diary is easier to keep going every day because I don't have to go into some of the stressful thoughts again.

I used to journal. But then I came out of an episode and burned my notebooks. I tend to find out later that I really don't want to remember certain things. Now I don't bother with writing it down. Maybe I need to change the whole way I journal. Instead of writing when I'm unwell, I should write when I'm well.

Sometimes I write things that I need to get out of my head here. It's sort of like journaling.

I used to keep a more traditional journal, and I did find it helpful, but it was a gift from my husband. One day, curiosity got the better of him, I guess, and he freaked out reading it. He apologized for snooping in it; he thought it was going to be stuff that I did, or happy thoughts, or I don't know what. He told me right away, though, because what he read concerned him so much, especially some of the things I wrote about him when I was on the low end of my cycle. That was really the first time we talked about depression (before I realized I had BP), and that it makes my brain haywire - depressed, angry & irrational.

Even though we got past that and it was probably a good thing ultimately that we talked, I felt really violated by it. After that I haven't really put pen to paper again. Fast forward 8 years, and I found this place - it's really the only place I write my truth. And I always do it in a private browser. And I never leave it open/up. Which means that I often will post and then not come back for a few weeks, sometimes longer, if I don't have anything really pressing that I need to get out.

I wish I felt safe enough to journal in a book again. I think it would be helpful for me on a more regular basis.

A couple of months ago my therapist suggested I start journaling to keep track of my moods and my spending because I have a shopping addiction. For a while it was very therapeutic and I looked forward to getting all of my thoughts down on paper at the end of the night. But after a while it started to feel like a chore and wasn't something I enjoyed doing anymore. Or if something pissed me off or made me sad at some point during the day when I would think about it again to get it onto paper made me relive it all over again, which put me back in a crappy mood. I'm going to take a break from it, aside from keeping track of my spending, and see where it goes from there

crescent moon- I felt that way with paragraph journeling. Please read my response in this thread for another option. Keep a graph that covers all of my various symptoms daily takes only a moment, and I keep the notebook with my meds - quick, easy, done. On average I add 5 days of extra information per month.