STARTING A JOURNAL

Not that theres anything wrong with that.

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farmerman

I've kept a journal on and off, for my eyes only.

I've found it to be a tremendous help, as I'm really bad at remembering when something important happened.

Also, when I was working on some problems in my life, I started writing down the stories of things in my life, and it was a wonderful release.

I actually have thought of writing a book, I have no idea if what I've written is any good.

Anyway, it feels good to get it down in writing, whether is feelings or facts.

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ACtually I want to purge some of these memories that haunt me. If I could get them stowed away somewhere that I wouldnt have to be reminded of some of them, I could get on with healing. Maybe thats what I need to focus on, the purgative effects of journal keeping. I still wake up witnndreams , and today I read that some people delayed stress reactions have poorer prognoses in cardiac events. Im phucked 3 ways.

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I've done writing for that reason too, very useful. I've destroyed sheafs of (written-on) paper in many ways. Fire is common, I think I did some sort of drowning thing once. It's always helped.

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farmerman wrote:

ACtually I want to purge some of these memories that haunt me. If I could get them stowed away somewhere that I wouldnt have to be reminded of some of them, I could get on with healing. Maybe thats what I need to focus on, the purgative effects of journal keeping. I still wake up witnndreams , and today I read that some people delayed stress reactions have poorer prognoses in cardiac events. Im phucked 3 ways.

Oh yeah, it will really help with healing.

There's one really bad memory I had, and as I wrote it down, the tears where just pouring down my face. Had to do with an animal we had, its life and how it died.

If I thought anyone else was going to read it, I never could have written it as raw as I did, and as true.

It's still an awful memory, but, it sort of validated it happened, and was as bad as it was, and that I was a good enough person to feel so bad about it all.

I've done that with other things too, but that's the first one that springs to mind.

Go for it.

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fm wrote-

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Im phucked 3 ways.

Well fm- If you are you are. You go from there. What's the sense in bothering how you got that way. Don't look back. It's where you're going next that matters not where you've been.

And there's billions phucked in many more ways than just 3. And history is the story of very little else. You are one of the luckiest people who ever walked the earth.

The vet's hospitals are full of young men who had hardly got started.

Count your blessings.

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I dont wish these memories on anyone. Nor my own problems. "Comparative kvetching" doesnt help the healing process, BUT, Ive been keeping the journal and I must say that it has some , albeit minor, purgative effect. Maybe my "little friends" will leave me if I keep at it.

My father was in the Burma Campaigns in WWII where some of his company and a few Brits were lucky enough to survive. For years , he didnt want to talk about it, but near the end of his life, sorta shortly after a few histories of the campaign were written,you couldnt shut him up!!.

I was never close to my Dad, and , as he began reciting the atrocities hed witnessed, I can understand that he was merely protecting us from the awful knowledge that he kept locked up.

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I'm with Soz. During the difficult years with my challenging stepsons, I kept detailed diaries and celebrated the ends of small epochs with ceremonially destroying installments.

This was much more respectable than child-beating.

Farmerman--

Knowing the name gives you the power. Once you have the natural history of your demons on the record, you can banish the demons.

Of course, some of your demons may have full books of round-trip commuter tickets, but eventually....

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He should have kept on protecting you fm.

One thing might help. If you make literary style the main thing in your journal. Everything anybody writes is a sort of journal. A confession even. Style is the thing. I can't describe it mind you but I know it when I see it. It might be something to do with what one admires. Veblen has style. Matthew Arnold. Plenty others. By observing it you catch some for yourself. If you only observe yourself you catch what you've already got.

Spengler has something about the negative effects of the decline of the confessional.

How's this for style in a journal.

"As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vine
I was passing by yon cool crystal fountain ..."

That Dylan's start to Ain't Talkin'. You can Google the words, print them out and then the crackerjack performed live on You Tube can be conjured up and watched about 50 times. It's a shorthand journal. With fantastic backing. Mozart would have loved Dylan.

That first line beams in Boccacio. I'd have been tempted to have a 'magic, mystic garden' despite the tautology. Is it a "wasted word"?

You have to take any potential reader into your confidence and talk to him man to man. Otherwise you're talking to yourself.

Plenty of rest is a pretty good thing.

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I do keep a journal. This way when I am old I can quickly look up the things I did when I was young and say, "damn, what a stupid jerk I was then".

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farmerman wrote:

ACtually I want to purge some of these memories that haunt me. If I could get them stowed away somewhere that I wouldnt have to be reminded of some of them, I could get on with healing. Maybe thats what I need to focus on, the purgative effects of journal keeping. I still wake up witnndreams , and today I read that some people delayed stress reactions have poorer prognoses in cardiac events. Im phucked 3 ways.

FM, if you do not mind me inserting a bit of clinical information here?

Journals can apparently help with post traumatic memories, as a form of exposure therapy.

I haven't used them much with people, but the trick would be to write them out again and again until they cease to cause you distress.

Doing this with someone skilled in treating PTSD would likely help a lot more.

(Partly because we tend to avoid or skip over the most difficult parts, and we need not to....)

Sorry to intrude!

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dwolan wrote-

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I haven't used them much with people, but the trick would be to write them out again and again until they cease to cause you distress.

That might work sometimes but not all the time. In certain moods it might make matters worse I should think.

What about writing them in the third person. Do you think that might be some use. Your past self is a third person really. It might be easier to distance yourself from your self that way. What do you think?

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deb. Ive found that the events in which Ive felt most helpless but guilty are those that keep coming back , even though Ive done all I could ( I think) with counseling and , Ive even tried regression therapy. Does this make sense?

Ive been doing this journal thing since I read about it as a therapy . One thing that has been good about it, Ive been able to piece small bits of repressed memories back into a focus and thus be able to "give it a name". Each journal section, by writing it down as a "Nightmaers and Dreamscapes" type of narrative, seems to be able help me to dis associate myself freom the events that bring all this on. Im one of those who feels fully responsible for everything that surrounds me, a Type A with a need for full control, so I get to feel even more guilty when things turn badly .
I know its a bit cryptic but, well, its kind of my little nest of demons, and I gotta water and feed em. My journal does help, It turns out that my style is a bit like Lovecraft and that was a surprise. Had I felt that he was similarly "blessed"?.
Spendi, I know one person who refers to herself in the third person and shes a very troubled person. Ive avoided even considering such a path. To me its like my mother's admonitions about fooling around with a ouija board, lest I summon satan.

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farmerman wrote:

deb. Ive found that the events in which Ive felt most helpless but guilty are those that keep coming back , even though Ive done all I could ( I think) with counseling and , Ive even tried regression therapy. Does this make sense?

Ive been doing this journal thing since I read about it as a therapy . One thing that has been good about it, Ive been able to piece small bits of repressed memories back into a focus and thus be able to "give it a name". Each journal section, by writing it down as a "Nightmaers and Dreamscapes" type of narrative, seems to be able help me to dis associate myself freom the events that bring all this on. Im one of those who feels fully responsible for everything that surrounds me, a Type A with a need for full control, so I get to feel even more guilty when things turn badly .
I know its a bit cryptic but, well, its kind of my little nest of demons, and I gotta water and feed em. My journal does help, It turns out that my style is a bit like Lovecraft and that was a surprise. Had I felt that he was similarly "blessed"?.
Spendi, I know one person who refers to herself in the third person and shes a very troubled person. Ive avoided even considering such a path. To me its like my mother's admonitions about fooling around with a ouija board, lest I summon satan.

Whatever works possum!!!

(You do know that "counselling" is often a very different thing from specific well researched ways of working with PTSD, though, don't you? I just had to add this, but now I will shut up.)

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Actually I didnt know that.

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fm wrote-

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Im one of those who feels fully responsible for everything that surrounds me, a Type A with a need for full control, so I get to feel even more guilty when things turn badly .

The nub of the matter in my humble opinion. I had it figured from the other place more or less. I associate scientific methodology with control freakery and equipment fetish.

I have known quite a few. The thought of losing control scares them and I think it scares them because deep down they know others don't like it and they could end up alone.

I've nothing against scientific methodology, a wonderful thing, or expertise with equipment but it's only a means to an end and not the end itself which is happiness. And, much to my sorrow, you don't seem that happy.

Too much Oliver Hardy and not enough Stan Laurel say.

The trouble is, it seems to me, that there comes a need to invent more and more things to be responsible for rather than saving those energies for the things that matter. Like boozing and watching the telly and stuff.

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Hi farmerman

Just want to say, regarding the journal - keep writing and good luck with it.

And if you're interested in some research I've done on 'creativity as a cathartic healer of trauma' - let me know and I'll post up some stuff. (I'm no expert, but you might find something of interest in it).

Also, dealing with the symptoms of PTSD

I use alternative medicines - so let me know if you're interested.
e.g.: I got a heads up on liquorice (I'm not kidding!) from an old hand at this, about a month ago (for helping muscle pain due to high surges of adrenaline). For a couple of years I'd been doing what the doctors recommended - exercise and meditation etc - but nothing seemed to help other than cannabis (and you can only take so much of that). Since I started drinking liquorice tea and eating sticks of the stuff brought from the health food shop, I swear I've noticed a massive difference.

Dealing with both emotional/mental symptoms and physical ones at the same time is exhausting - looking after your body (I've found) helps my mind a lot. (Just gotta quit the booze now)

Give me a shout if you want to talk more about the creativity thing. It certainly helped me to look back at other people's experiences in the past.

Maybe we need another thread - a creative support group for PTSD sufferers (now that the demand is growing).

Good luck with the writing
Peace
Endy

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I've been eating liquorice forever. We used to suck the twigs or roots or whatever they were when I was a kid. I didn't know it might be good for me. I have a box of Bassets right here. Two a day obviously keeps something away.

It's tasty.

Do people have varying susceptibility to trauma. I've seen some pretty wild things which never affected me and yet I know similar things do affect others. Why is that?

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I have a well read book, written by Glen R. Schiraldi Ph.D, simply titled - The PTSD Sourcebook (ISBN 0-7373-0265-8//)

You can probably borrow it at the library if you're interested.

Schiraldi served on the stress management facilities at the Pentagon - but don't let that put you off. His stuff is basic and I can't say as I agree with all his thinking - but it's a good place to start. Especially if you (or anyone you kow) are looking for ways of coping with the more common symptoms of PTSD - such as depression, guilt, social isolation, etc

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With all due respect Endy I reckon nothing much is worth reading that I haven't already heard about. And I haven't heard of your man. That's not to say he may not have something useful to say to me or anybody else.

If you read enough it all starts settling down and one ceases to bother with the latest buzz stuff which exploits various niches in the population.

What about my previous question?

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