Just write!

So how to write...it seems fairly obvious but sitting in front of a blank page and not really knowing how to write your feelings down can be daunting so the trick is..just start! Write the date at the top, as you will want to read it back one day and its important to know at what point in your life it was. After that start with what you've done that day, just the facts at first. You might do this for a few weeks until you begin to get the hang of diary writing and you will naturally slip into writing how you felt about the events of the day, even if all you put is 'that made me cross' or 'that made me laugh'. Pretty soon you will be overflowing with words, it doesn't matter if they make sense, often thoughts are coming so quickly you just have to get them down and not worry about spelling or grammar. I often wish I could write short hand as the thoughts in my head go quicker than my pen!
Also write things in there that you've seen or read that are helpful to your emotional life, to your recovery, then you can then refer back to it when necessary. Some people write as a letter with Dear... at the top, as though they are talking to a friend. I would imagine this works very well to get you going, although I wonder if you might be restricted as the idea of a diary is that you get out thoughts that sometimes you'd be utterly horrified if anyone else knew you had. My counsellor is wonderful but there are still some things I wouldn't admit to her!

I used to have a dilemma over whether diary writing is self indulgence but whats wrong with a little self indulgent time for yourself. I wondered if it was narcissism and unhealthy to be obsessed with ones feeling quite so much but current thought is that if you bury feelings its damaging and comes out eventually as stress related illness. I suffered with my stomach terribly for years, horrible cramps and pain and reading back over my diarys I can certainly see why! I was leading a life that wasn't right for 'the me inside' and the inside me was complaining. Now that I have inner peace its amazing the difference it has made. I now have constant back pain though so I need to get to the bottom of that but I suspect wallpapering and painting ceilings has more to do with it than buried emotional turmoil.

Its really good when your trying to deal with something new to be able to look back at other times in your life when you faced something similar and see how you felt and how you coped, or didn't cope as the case may be. I had kept diaries over the last 10 years and once the dust had settled it was good to be able to read extracts that have really helped me to stay strong and on track when I was having wobbly moments. A diary is your perspective of events, it may not be right in someone else's eyes, they may have a very different version of events but a diary is your reaction, how you felt. A diary won't tell you to shut up and stop being pathetic, or shout at you, a diary will listen and in time give you an answer that will really help. If you do read back and think 'hmm I over reacted a bit that time' then it's a lesson to tweek your reaction a little next time or if in my case you read back and think 'you stupid little cow what the hell did you live like that for so long for' then you know not to do that next time either.

You don't need to write every day, it shouldn't be a chore, just as and when you need to. Try to write on days that you feel really good too, put down what has made you happy, those inserts will be a real pick me up for you on dark days when you can read back and think yes there are good bits in this nightmare and you will know that the good bits will come again. I started to put a smiley face or a sad face at the top right corner of the page after I had finished each post, to make referring back easier. It goes opposite my date and because I'm a doodler they now have morphed into little faces with tears or cross faces, theres even one with its tongue out.
It's your book so you can do what you like in it. You are gaining a much greater understanding of what makes you tick and what you need for a happy life.

My diary, my greatest friend

What struck me last night was just how much it helped just to write it down. How I was feeling. Its not a suprise to me really because that's what I do, write, pages and pages and pages in my diary. But just how powerful it was at dispercing a fear was quite amazing. They say you should face your fears and doing that makes them much less powerful and in this case it did, by writing. I'm a big believer in getting it all out in my diary. Sometimes I write for hours, round and round in circles getting nowhere and sometimes I write short bits, clear as day and I do it because I know just how much it helps. It helps too to read it back, sometimes you just have to get the words out there, rambling writing that makes no sense but when you read it back, days or even weeks later, it makes perfect sense. Sometimes just bringing the feelings to the surface and giving them words allows your brain to churn it around over time and spit it out into perfectly logical sentances. You get your answer.I think I've spoken about my diary writing before but I never really thought to include the 'how of it' on here.
Its only fitting that it should have instructions just the same as sanding down a cupboard does because if this blog is an acurate account of healing with helpfullness and sharing in how to do it, then I firmly believe that diary writing is a huge part of that. It neednt take long or it can take a whole day, its really up to you.
I take the time to choose a nice book to write in, its important to have a specially allocated book and a pen thats kept with it at all times, your diary pen, so theres no excuse to not write. During this last year, I have bought four new books, all the same, with little clocks on them which I choose initially because my saying of the day was 'give the time some time' I love that saying as it seems to say just let the time drift by, don't rush it and all will heal, in time. I don't know why I bought the same book again when I went back for a new one, normally each book is different but as this story isn't over perhaps it needed to be told in the same books. It will be interesting to see when I feel ready to choose a new design.

With the first one I bought a pen to match, with the same little clocks on, long since used up. I like pens, patterned ones, sparkly ones, ones with dangly bits hanging off the top, I've always been a bit of a stationary junkie so theres been lots of different pens. I keep my local stationers in business, oh and don't get me started on how many pencil cases and rubbers I have! Seriously though to take a little care over your book and pen makes diary writing an even more 'just for you' special experience.
After a while it becomes a little routine, you might find you slip into doing it at the same time everyday. It's something that you do just for yourself and it's for no-one elses eyes, ever, so you can write in it whatever you like, you can draw in it, stick things in if you want to. Always keep your diarys in a safe, secret place if you don't live alone, the whole idea is that you get your innermost thoughts into it, even if they're bad ones, especially if they're bad ones and you need to feel totally confident that your feelings are just for your eyes.

tears on my pillow

Today has been a very productive day! I have hemmed two sets of curtains in the kitchen which have been hanging there with raggedy bottoms for months glaring at me to finish them, so I'm very pleased that's done.

Also I made a new front door curtain out of bits of fabric that I cut off the bottom of some too long curtains years ago and have kept for a useful purpose, which today they were given. All very positive but there was a little unexpected moment. I'm very strong right now, feelings wise, it took a long time of wobbly moments, resolve and relapse but slowly and gradually the all consuming pain of break-up has faded away, so it was quite a shock today to have a 'moment'. Ever since I moved into this house and into my new bed almost a year ago, I have only had one pillow, well two actually, one on top of the other but still just a place for my head to lie. Theres always something else to buy so I've never really got around to buying more pillows to make my double bed look like a double bed. Theres been no point as its not been a double bed, its been a great big single one just for me. But I finally got around to buying some lovely squishy 'bounce back into shape' ones today so that I can make myself go to bed earlier and pile up lots of pillows and read or type. I brought them home without a care in the world, dug out more pillow cases, moved my pillows from their middle spot and put the new ones on......the right, where he slept. Suddenly my bed looked like 'our bed' and I was frozen to the spot. It felt surreal. I haven't been near a two person bed since ours and there it was my side and his side, I could almost see his sleepy little head lying there. It sent shivers down my spine. I don't regret leaving, it was the right decision, I would never ever ever go back, not that we discussed it, I don't miss him, I feel nothing when I see him, i have weaned myself off him well. But there it was all over again, our bed, like nothing ever happened and I missed us in it. Weird!
I loved going to sleep together, in ten years we never went to bed separately when we were both home. We had the same routine every night, lay facing each other in the dark, mumbled tired words, cuddling right up close, then just as he was falling to sleep I'd turn over and he'd pull me right up to him, arms wrapped around me, I'd hold his hand and he'd kiss my shoulder. I'd stuff my feet between his to warm them and we drift off to sleep. At some point during the night we'd separate without waking but we started every nights sleep wrapped up in each other like that and I loved it. Perhaps that's what it is, I've spent more years that way than alone and it was just very familiar or perhaps it was that he had been the only man I had ever been able to sleep that way with. I could barely stand to be in the same bed with my husband (when it came to the sleeping part of course) and I would sleep wrong ways up, on the floor and in the end in a different room but with him I didn't ever want to leave his side. I'm slightly anxious to go to bed as the time draws nearer, I don't want to feel 'it'...the pain. I haven't felt it in a while and I really don't want to lie there on my side and remember. I often wonder if I will be able to share a bed with another man, if I will ever have again that feeling of 'just us in our bed' that I valued so much, drifting off to sleep in his arms, listening to his breathing, loving him so much. Right now that still feels so wrong, bedtime was ours, against the world.