Lived Experience Forum

[GLORY]

Hi everyone I am a newbie, to SANE forums. I am BPD with Bi-Polar and have found strength in writing my journal.

It has helped me look back and see where I have been. I never see things as a failure, only a new beginning.

[TideisTurning]

Hi & welcome to the Forums @GLORY! 👋 It sounds like you have a great outlook & strategy with writing in your journal to track your progress. You'll find a thread here where you can share pieces of your writing if you'd like to. All the Best, 

TideisTurning 😊 

[GLORY]

Thank you for replying to my post. I am blessed with writing as an outlet. For me documenting whats been going on on

and affecting me, is only acheived through writing. Soemtimes it's the only thing on board when no one else can offer support.

[Former-Member]

I don't journal, but I have heard extensively about its benefits.

I will add that It depends on how you use it, because there are different ways to approach it. I'd like to recommend a couple of them.

I really like the idea of feelings collages. If you've never heard of them, feelings collages take a feeling word, put it in the middle, and follow it up with quotes/colours/pictures/whatever you associate with that emotion. It helps you process and recognise your emotions a bit better, and the act of putting them together may be cathartic.

Journaling also helps you break down an issue. I find it really comforting, when I'm overwhelmed, to watch videos that are really methodically put-together or well structured. That sounds so weird, but when you are going through a gooey mess of problems, it's nice to see someone identify steps or look at the big picture of an issue. Write it out like you would write a textbook. How would you suggest someone cope with how they're feeling?

Thank you so much for writing in, and I'm really glad journaling has already helped you so much.

DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out that sometimes journaling can make things worse, because you tend to think about it more, and you could get caught in thought cycles. By all means, try it out, but stop as soon as it starts to hurt.

[Judi9877]

Hi @GLORY . Welcome to the forums. It's nice to meet you. I'm a Community Guide here and I'm here to guide you around the forums if you have any questions. I'm glad you've started this thread as I also find writing healing although I've only recently got back into it after a long period of not doing any. I used to write in a journal when I was at uni about 15 years ago when my mental illness really started to take hold and I found it to be really helpful.

Like you, I have BPD so I have found that writing helps me deal with my issues and that's been really helpful to me. What things do you write about in your journal? There is a discussion thread on BPD called Raising Awareness of BPD - Flipping the Script  that you may be interested in looking at. I know @BPDSurvivor a fellow forum member and Community Guide has some great knowledge on BPD and I think she also mentions writing as well. @MDT is also a write.  I know there is a thread here on the forums called Re: writing as a form of therapy that you might like to look at. Just type in words you're interested in at the search bar and topics should come up. Also, using the @ key will bring down forum members names as well as topics which is how people here communicate on the forums. It's just a friendly little tip I thought I'd pass on.

Anyway, welcome again to the forums. I look forward to seeing you around and reading more about writing as a healing guide with your wonderful ideas.

Take care!

Judi9877☺️🍀