[festidump]

I´ve only just recently (in the last week or so) consciously realised that I have been suffering from depression for over 10 years and that my anger as a result of my depression has hurt my family sooooooooooooooo much. I can´t dwell on that yet but at least I´m starting to get help. I´m seeing a therapist Monday and am trying to write down how I feel, especially when I´m not suffering from total brain fog and can think.

I love to write and have often used it to vent my anger instead of venting it on my family and have books hidden everywhere full of hate and bile that I´m not sure what to do with.

However, I want to write in a positive way. I´ve never once re-read anything I´ve written before, I just vent and close the book. This time I want it to be different. It´s like I´m writing my view when I´m low and my view when I´m ok so I can read both points of view but not sure if this will actually help?

Does anyone else write their thoughts down like me? I just wrote solidly for an hour and it seemed like five minutes. Any tips / hints / ideas?

Thanks in advance :-)

[meganb22]

Hi! I'm a fellow writer as well I've tried writing in a journal many times over the years. They never lasted longer than a few days or weeks. But a year or so ago I started a journal to help track my moods and just to get my feelings out. I kept with it for several months (I stopped a while ago and started a blog- which is a little different but it is an outlet for me). What I write really depends on what I was feeling that day. I tried to stay away from just writing something like "my sister is a ****and I hate her" and attempted to explain my feelings and what happened to make me feel that way. It's kinda therapeutic. LOL. If you like to write-and if you wrote for a solid hour, I think you do. That's hard to do, at least for me -- then I definitely think you should go for it and write constructively. Write when you're happy or sad or angry. Don't feel pressure to write a lot or even write everyday. That's what killed it for me in the past.

Good luck! I hope this helped

[waterknob1234]

I have read and heard other people suggest that journaling helps with depression. I am kind of trying it. I am not sure yet if it helps. I had a depression trigger today. Rather than think about it too much I decided to run from my pain. That may not be the right thing to do but it seems to temporarily help me.

[gayleggg]

I've been journalling now for about a year. Trying to make some sense in these mood swings. I try to include my feelings for the day and if anything triggered them positively or negatively. My therapist think I should be able to use it as a guide in the future to track any seasonal mood swings. He has more faith in this than I do because to me my mood swings seem to be random, but I'm trying anyway.

[doyoutrustme]

I don't think forcing yourself to write happy if that's not how you feel. You can add a section call it Silver Linings where you look for the positives.