Writing to me has always been therapeutic. I have an old folder of poems and thoughts that I wrote when I was a teenager full of angst and what I thought at the time was true suffering. I guess they were about love, but I can’t remember who I loved so much that could cause me so much agony. I wrote a blog once called “I have Issues.” It listed all the things that I never would have told my real-life friends and family. I hope that at the time, I was able to get some relief by writing things out. To me, getting it on paper, even virtual paper, is to get it out of my head, out of my body, out of me. If I can articulate a thought enough to put it into actual words and sentences, maybe I have put all the energy I need to into it, filed it away in a mental drawer, and I can move past it and move on with my life. I used to keep every single thing I ever wrote or received. Later, I found myself going back to them and reliving the feelings they evoked in me. I found that was painful, so I trashed a ton of it and was never able to look back. THAT was therapeutic.
