Is Writing a Process to Help Us Remember or Forget?

[Guest]

Good question.

I have found that putting stressful events down in a journal fashion has helped me cope during those situations. Those were not stories, of course, but thoughts and feelings and the happenings of real life issues.

Journal writing enables me to step back from the event, view it from the outside looking in. Eventually I'll go back. It took years after one such event, though.

But as to naughty fiction? Fuck tales?

Nahhh. Completely different situation, that.

Those I'll sometimes even reread because they are enjoyable.



(And Liar? If your brain isn't paper trained you can't come over and play anymore.)

 

[Liar]

(And Liar? If your brain isn't paper trained you can't come over and play anymore.)

My brain chews boots and howls at the dishwasher.

 

[Guest]

My brain chews boots and howls at the dishwasher.

Be still my heart.

 

[Freefall_mc]

My brain chews boots and howls at the dishwasher.

 

[Xelebes]

Therapeutic writing doesn't help me forget, it helps me figure out all the emotions of events and allows me to put to rest certain things.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

Sometimes we have to remember, in order to forget.

 

[Guest]

Therapeutic writing doesn't help me forget, it helps me figure out all the emotions of events and allows me to put to rest certain things.

Sometimes we have to remember, in order to forget.

Yes.

Well put, both of you.

 

[SirLicksAalot]

Therapeutic writing doesn't help me forget, it helps me figure out all the emotions of events and allows me to put to rest certain things.

I feel the same way too; often enough, feelings -- to me at least - are too murky to figure out until they are forced into words. In this way it clarifies what otherwise would have been a smorgasbord of garbled nonsense, and allows me to see myself outside myself.

Also, when I go to trips, I refrain from taking pictures and would rather opt to write about my impressions and feelings about the trip. I find it more beneficial, given that I have a permanent record of how it was, as oppose to what it looked liked. Scent, attitude, ambiance are never given enough justice in pictures.

It's funny . . . when coworkers ask if I took pictures of a recent trip, and I say, "Sorry, I didn't, but I kept a journal about it" and watch how their expressions turn into confused smiles . . . I shake my head not being able to shake the feeling how weird must I looked to them. But then again, I do it for myself and not for anybody else.

All in all, I lie content that I can always go back and relive those moments, secure that it's always going to to be there, just waiting to be revisited.