Why I Write

Tuesday, April 23, 2024 

I have not been writing lately. Life exploded and some seriously unhealthy patterns have re-emerged that I have no idea how to cope with. I haven’t wanted to write even to process the crap of my life, which is what I usually do in these situations.

There was a time when I would go to my “thotful spot” to stare at the water and mountains and try to clear my mind and just breathe. It occurred to me this morning while I was having what I call “the morning twisties” that I haven’t done this in a very long time. I have been actively avoiding noticing things and there has been a battle raging between my brain and my heart. I have shut down and there are two things I know of that help to open me up. One is walking in nature and sitting at my “thotful spot” and the other is writing. 

In an attempt to force myself to post today (not that I think anyone needs to hear what I have to say but because selfishly I know it will make me feel better) I went to my drafts folder and found a piece I started writing a few years back. It is a response to an essay I read by Joan Didion that really shook me. I needed to see this today. I needed to think about this and add some recent discoveries I have made about myself. I am thankful that I saved this piece, as it very nearly went in the trash some time ago. 

I need to remember to do the things that keep me whole. I need to get through the shit storm that is currently engulfing me. I refuse to participate in things that hurt me any longer, which is a promise I made to myself years ago but have recently broken. I’m feeling pretty lost right now; it’s time to do the things that help me to find some peace. I hope that this will help me to forgive myself for being human. 

Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:20 AM

In her essay “Why I Write” Joan Didion says  “In many ways, writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions—with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating—but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.” Whoa. Interrobang.

What of us writers who need to express but want to remain unseen?! Who can’t bear to share bits of ourselves with others but need to release it in order to maintain sanity or balance or whatever mental or psychological function the act of writing might serve? Didion spoke of images “shimmering around the edges”, what of those of us who see no pictures? Who do not process the world in images and float in an ether of darkness and ineffable emotion that can only be expressed in the sharing of a story, the telling of an experience and its meanings which may have been processed wordlessly until the desire to record an experience outweighs the ability to carry it any further? 

I do not want to be seen. I write under a pen name. I often, but not always, write as a means of processing emotion, which is extremely difficult for me. I started this blog to share some of the meaning I have made from my life experiences, both as a means of understanding and discharging the tension that remains in my body and my mind, and to explore the ongoing uncertainty that any of my experiences have actually carried the meaning that I previously ascribed to them. 

My uncertainty about my sanity and about my right to a life of my own keeps me most comfortable in shadows and darkness. I love the darkness of my mind; when I close my eyes I do not have the distraction of images and moving pictures. I need the solitude of darkness and the quiet of a blank screen to help quiet the brain that races incessantly. It races, yet I couldn’t tell you at any given moment all of the things it is racing about. Reliving situations wherein I questioned my own perceptions and sanity because such ridiculous events do not happen in real life. Trying to quell the strong feelings that arise without evident cause. Rehearsing actions I will take should terrible things befall me. Nursing guilt for things done, not done, words spoken and unspoken. Berating myself for feelings I would rather not feel and judging myself for every action taken and not taken. Judging myself unworthy of life, and wondering how nobody else can see my darkest secret: that I am not like other people, I somehow poison everything I touch, and that nobody must see me for who and what I am. Writing may release the shame, the secret inability to connect or be like other people, but this writer is terrorized by the thought of being seen. 

I can’t remember the first time I knew I needed to write – that the way for me to participate in the world was to put my thoughts and feelings into narrative prose or poetry. I have always done so in my mind. The thought of actually telling a story on paper or committing to the act of recording thoughts and events and feelings for the purpose of an audience left me with such panic, nausea, and physical discomfort that I would carry it around in my mind, locked away in my gut and heart to the point that physical tension threatened to overtake me constantly. 

Humans make meaning of their world by creating stories, narratives to explain events and attempt to find a reason or purpose. A purpose for existence, a purpose for suffering or pleasure. Part of my need for invisibility is that participation in the world is confusing and painful and terrifying. I have spent much of my life actually floating just above and behind the right side of my body. Observing myself in an attempt to detach from the intensity of emotions, both positive and negative, in an attempt to numb and observe and problem solve, in order to make the right choices and avoid a misstep that would certainly lead to my destruction and ruin of anyone I dare to love. 

Numb, darkness, anonymity, and invisibility. Safety. Sanity. Maybe. 

I have been questioning my own sanity for as long as I can remember, thinking that there must be something wrong with me because I was not like other people. Sitting in the classroom watching the red second hand circle the clock, thinking that if I could only focus hard and deeply enough I would see the minute hand move slowly, imperceptibly, and that if I managed to achieve that level of seeing then a different world would open up to me, one in which I belonged. This deep sense of unbelonging was not exactly rational; on the surface there was no physical difference or overt reason that I should have felt so isolated in a class of my peers or desperate to escape into a world where time moves differently, yet it is the strongest feeling I remember having as a child. The sensation that I was not visible to others, that I was not really there, and that nothing could last so I had to protect myself from ever feeling any emotion in an attempt to maintain the sanity that I would surely lose when the inevitable happened. 

What this inevitable thing was, I could never have told you, but this hypervigilance has been one of the constants of my life. Do not feel. If you do, understand it at all costs in order to take away its power. The only way to be safe is to be invisible. It jarred me when I read Didion’s thoughts on writers needing to be seen. Writing is a deeply personal act for me and sharing it is very uncomfortable, even with the shield of a pen name and anonymous blog. I’m taking small steps toward connecting with people when I share my writing, which is something that has never come easily to me. I am happy to be invisible, yet seen.