Thought Paper

Last semester, I didn’t recognize myself.

My family – especially my mother – didn’t recognize me. Only a few friends noticed the difference in my behavior, the unusual person emerging within and taking control over me. To everyone else, I must have seemed okay. I must have given off the impression that I was the same as I had always been: the optimistic, enthusiastic, generally happy person.

But I wasn’t.

What my family and close friends saw and what I felt underneath was a girl who was defeated, dreading schoolwork and even the activities she once held dear. I didn’t want to pick my guitar and sing anymore, I just wanted to stay bundled up in my bed. I was depressed, stressed over the future and upcoming deadlines, and my thoughts were so irrational because of intense anxiety that I’d have to call or text my mother daily just to make sure it was all in my head.

My friend, Nicole, was always there to listen, just as I was for her. She was going through her own problems with depression and anxiety, which was not a new territory for her. One day, she confided in me and showed me a word document on her computer, hundreds of pages filled with diary entries chronicling her good days and her bad days, her relationships with boys – including the ones that failed – and anything else that came to her mind. She let me read a few, and I was amazed at how raw, powerful, and emotional these were. This wasn’t writing meant to be revised or writing meant to be seen by others. It was pure expression, for her and only her, I was just one of the lucky few to peer into her private thoughts and feelings. And it helped remind me why I love writing. Shortly after, I signed up for the Writing and Healing senior seminar.

 It is from this wonderful class – the profound discussions and interesting readings to which we blog on – that I’ve been able to place a word to what Nicole did and what I strive to do when I write. Emotional literacy. Letting go of the presence of a possible audience and digging into the depths of your mind, unlocking the feelings that are hidden beneath and exploring them through writing. Not trying to create something to be revised, something that needs to be perfect. Just expressing yourself and how you’re feeling as freely and purely as you can.

This class has healed wounds I didn’t even know existed. When we wrote our first personal essay, I chose to write mine about my own voice, how I had been negatively sanctioned in elementary school to quiet it and how that has affected my lack of speaking in class now. But upon writing it and searching my mind for that one moment, I came to a realization of where it stemmed from and made my own understanding of why. I explored the feelings I had felt then, the feelings that were being brought up while writing, and it helped me to be more aware of those voices, specifically in quieting them. After that, I’ve been more encouraged to speak up in class discussions (and not just for this class), like my opinion is wanted and valid.

It makes me wonder why this type of writing isn’t emphasized earlier in schools, especially since it’s been significant in helping people to heal. Is it because we see emotion as immature and inappropriate? As a form of weakness? As something completely disconnected from what writing should be? I would argue that it’s a combination of all of these factors, placed together under the umbrella of a stigma against emotion in general. Just like Bump says in his essay, we need more teachers to educate students about emotional literacy, and even I would argue that it should begin earlier. Getting into the process of freewriting and expressing how you feel to certain things, events, or experiences. After all, emotion is something found in all of us, and it shouldn’t feel like it needs to be hidden. Maybe it just needs to be expressed.