Journaling and why I find it terrifying
I've often read and been told that journaling is good for the brain and the soul. Writing down your thoughts each day is 'something successful people do'. It's also something done by mental health conscious people and those who want to appear intelligent and those who just really enjoy keeping a diary and those who are young and those who are old. Yet despite all this I find it hard. I find it scary. It's never quite fit with me.
Unlike young girls in the media I never really kept a diary for a life ruining moment of television tragedy. No secret crushes were sneaked between book pages nor hidden away with a padlock and key that was as generic as generic could be. I tried a little bit but it never stuck. It's funny to see the very few pages I did write as they are always laughable. Once I wrote about our friend keeping us in a dungeon with a drawing of the school playground chalk snail (yes, a snail) that we had used for boundaries. Another page looks fake because it's so cliche. So and so likes this person who likes this person who thought that this person didn't like them... and so on and so on. One entry I made was in a really fluffy diary I had of a popular cartoon bear brand 'Forever Friends' which coincidentally I had a matching pink and white bike with a doll seat on the back. In said diary I had spoken about the plot of an episode of a murder show I had watched about a prize winning lily - pretty sure it was Midsommer Murders at it's finest.
The point of all this is I never really wrote about what mattered to me. Nor do I now have the memories to look back on and marvel and wonder at how life has changed. I tried to keep a journal recently after a friend said it might help me work through some issues I've been having. So I wrote a page in a book that was uncomfortably too small to write in. I became fixated on whether it was the right book to start such a journey in but never the less I wrote pages and pages on my feelings at the time and all it did was make my head spin and made me feel nauseous. That was months ago. I haven't wrote an entry since. I started with a pessimistic mind set saying I knew I wouldn't keep up with it but that I was going to try. The excuses came the next day. Too tired. Didn't feel like it. Didn't have anything to say. Ultimately the answer was this - addressing my feelings had made me uncomfortable and I didn't like it. Nor did I like writing in that book - that was uncomfortable too.
The book was an issue for other reasons. What if someone found it? How was I supposed to bear my soul and drain my head of the racing thoughts when someone might walk in to my room and innocently pick it up and read it. Maybe the sitcoms got to me. Realistically I could write my thoughts on my computer. But that's not the same. It's not the same as getting a pen and scribbling out all your thoughts and angrily crossing things out and your mind racing so fast your writing becomes sloppy and illegible. So it needs to be in a book. But it can't be in a book.
You would think I had something to hide. The answer is yes and no. There are no ground-breaking confessions in there. Nothing jaw dropping or time stopping yet it's personal and it's for me. So I selfishly want to keep it that way.
I spoke to someone at my University who said I should try focusing on positives not negatives when I write. I'm sorry kind lady with the open heart, I brushed your advice to the side and didn't try again. I need to though.
This post is like a journal entry. I'm splurging out thoughts that maybe are too personal and maybe shouldn't be shared but this is different. I am choosing to share this. I partly wanted to share this to let people know they're not alone in this. Don't think that because you struggle to stick to a journal your failing even if it's been adviced by a professional or repeated at you over and over again. Journals can be hard. They can be easy. They can be about whatever you want them to be. It doesn't have to be heavy but if that's what it's for, to help with the deep deep thoughts, it's okay to start and stop again. I've finally decided that it's okay and I want you to know it's okay if you decide that it's okay as well.
Atleast we've both tried. And if you want, we can try again together.
Sophie x
Unlike young girls in the media I never really kept a diary for a life ruining moment of television tragedy. No secret crushes were sneaked between book pages nor hidden away with a padlock and key that was as generic as generic could be. I tried a little bit but it never stuck. It's funny to see the very few pages I did write as they are always laughable. Once I wrote about our friend keeping us in a dungeon with a drawing of the school playground chalk snail (yes, a snail) that we had used for boundaries. Another page looks fake because it's so cliche. So and so likes this person who likes this person who thought that this person didn't like them... and so on and so on. One entry I made was in a really fluffy diary I had of a popular cartoon bear brand 'Forever Friends' which coincidentally I had a matching pink and white bike with a doll seat on the back. In said diary I had spoken about the plot of an episode of a murder show I had watched about a prize winning lily - pretty sure it was Midsommer Murders at it's finest.
The point of all this is I never really wrote about what mattered to me. Nor do I now have the memories to look back on and marvel and wonder at how life has changed. I tried to keep a journal recently after a friend said it might help me work through some issues I've been having. So I wrote a page in a book that was uncomfortably too small to write in. I became fixated on whether it was the right book to start such a journey in but never the less I wrote pages and pages on my feelings at the time and all it did was make my head spin and made me feel nauseous. That was months ago. I haven't wrote an entry since. I started with a pessimistic mind set saying I knew I wouldn't keep up with it but that I was going to try. The excuses came the next day. Too tired. Didn't feel like it. Didn't have anything to say. Ultimately the answer was this - addressing my feelings had made me uncomfortable and I didn't like it. Nor did I like writing in that book - that was uncomfortable too.
The book was an issue for other reasons. What if someone found it? How was I supposed to bear my soul and drain my head of the racing thoughts when someone might walk in to my room and innocently pick it up and read it. Maybe the sitcoms got to me. Realistically I could write my thoughts on my computer. But that's not the same. It's not the same as getting a pen and scribbling out all your thoughts and angrily crossing things out and your mind racing so fast your writing becomes sloppy and illegible. So it needs to be in a book. But it can't be in a book.
You would think I had something to hide. The answer is yes and no. There are no ground-breaking confessions in there. Nothing jaw dropping or time stopping yet it's personal and it's for me. So I selfishly want to keep it that way.
I spoke to someone at my University who said I should try focusing on positives not negatives when I write. I'm sorry kind lady with the open heart, I brushed your advice to the side and didn't try again. I need to though.
This post is like a journal entry. I'm splurging out thoughts that maybe are too personal and maybe shouldn't be shared but this is different. I am choosing to share this. I partly wanted to share this to let people know they're not alone in this. Don't think that because you struggle to stick to a journal your failing even if it's been adviced by a professional or repeated at you over and over again. Journals can be hard. They can be easy. They can be about whatever you want them to be. It doesn't have to be heavy but if that's what it's for, to help with the deep deep thoughts, it's okay to start and stop again. I've finally decided that it's okay and I want you to know it's okay if you decide that it's okay as well.
Atleast we've both tried. And if you want, we can try again together.
Sophie x
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