We Can Try Writing

Writing is therapeutic, they say. I taught that principle to my students. You know, for 20 years and such.  Except that I likely taught that it can be therapeutic, not that it is. Truly, I do not know if it is for sure. But I have recently read that same idea in a newish book.

I suppose there really are no new ideas.

It's in Brené Brown's Daring Greatly. Her specific use of writing for therapy involves shame. She says to spend at least 15 minutes a day writing your shame--what you're ashamed of about yourself or your life--and in three days you'll be rid of it. Sounds too easy.

But still, I say it's a good plan, worth a try. Especially if one's sense of shame is inhibitive or prohibitive, keeping the person from accomplishment or from being whole, from being the person he or she can be, ought to be.  

But here's my question. If one's shame is too hard to speak, can it be written? I wonder.

I had students who could write about their drug addictions and the shameful things they allowed themselves to do during that period. Those periods, I should say, because addiction is hardly ever overcome in one try. But these were the students who had become clean, as they say, and they wrote without a specific assignment to do so. Goodness, I hope they still are clean. The three I'm thinking of were good kids. I loved them.

The 32-year-old  guy in Philadelphia, who jumped down onto the tracks a couple of weeks ago and saved the man who had fallen, had been a drug addict for most of his life--since middle school. He had tried many times to overcome it, so he knows the ups and downs of rehab. Happily, he has been clean for two years now. His recent actions are known worldwide, and he is called a hero. 

What he said was, "I just reacted." Meaning he took no thought for his own safety and, possibly, he thinks anyone else would do the same. Then he said, "It means I'm good. I'm a good person."

His statements touch my heart, because I think most of us want to feel we are good. I want to feel that way. I wonder how many times he gave up hope that he would ever be okay or see himself as good. I wonder if has ever written, hoping the act of writing would have some therapeutic value for him. And I wonder if it worked.