How Writing Saved Me

where the blood used to run

words drip, drip, drip, from a poisonous tongue

where pain used to rest

characters dance, dance, dance, in an excited mind

where screams used to blurt

laughs crash, crash, crash, from a dry eye

where the blood used to run

words drip, drip, drip, from a poisonous tongue

There are a lot of things from my life that I have pushed out of my consciousness. Mostly terrifying memories of the deep depression that I would fall into during my teen years. I had a multitude of problems dealing with my emotions in a healthy way. The outlets I would find were bottling up my feelings, cutting (or burning) myself, or writing. Thinking back on those dark moments in my past, I find it difficult to remember how bad it really was. I feel like this was just another coping mechanism that my mind has developed. Instead of allowing the pain I was feeling to become physical, I would write poetry or journal entries. These outlets allowed me to push out all of the negative energy from my body so I would not have to feel these horrible emotions.

Shortly after leaving for college, a serious writer's block settled in for years of my life. I am really not sure why, but I stopped writing for about six years. Once I moved out and into my first college dorm writing was not part of my life. I did not even think about picking up a pen until a few months ago. This past Christmas, I feel like I fell in love with the written words all over again. I have since, nonstop, been writing and reading like a fiend. And I have found myself the happiest that I have in years. I am not attributing all of this new found happiness to my writing, a lot of other things are falling into place wonderfully for me recently, but I am sure it has been helping.

A little while ago I started a wordpress blog to track my progression of my writing journeys, my various poetry and my latest news on the progress I am making on my first novel. After starting this virtual journal, I thought back to my high school days of writing, remembering my online journals that I used to keep back then and got curious. Since I stopped writing in them, I stopped looking at them. Getting brave, I decided to log on again and rummage through my memories. I was completely shocked at what I found, it was a basic cry for help from a lonely, confused teen with hardly any self-esteem.

Thinking back on my high school years now I remember being generally happy, a little bored but nothing out of the ordinary. I had a boyfriend throughout all four years (the same man I share my life with now), a good job, and pretty wonderful friends, nothing out of the ordinary that should through up red flags. Lying in bed the other night, while I was stumbling through my teenage heart ache, I looked over at Mike and he confirmed my suspicions: I was a really troubled young woman back then. After discussing it more in depth with Mike and my mom, I realized that my mind had pushed all of it out somehow, thankfully.

Reading through various entries, I could feel the emotion and could bring up broken recollections of birthdays, fun dates, fights with my parents and classes in school, but nothing too much deeper. It wasn't until I started to read through all of the poetry that used to stream from my consciousness, that I really was startled. The angst, anger, sadness, longing, misunderstand were so tangible, it burned in my chest. All of it started to come back to me, lonely sleepless nights crying in my room wanting to disappear and not understanding why my heart ached for something so terrible. It seemed like every night I was oozing out word after word and page after page, frantically trying to escape. Thankfully, it worked completely. All of that horrible depression bleed out of my through my pen and rested on the paper, no longer festering into self-hatred.

As I thought about my teenage writing more, I tried to analyze my need for it. A lot of teens have sports and other extracurricular activities to help stimulate self-worth in a positive way, others are in band, and some do really well in art class, my medium was the written word. Today I use my writing as the same sort of outlet, but it is more conscious than back then. I write the same type of poetry whenever the mood strikes me, I write hubs about things that interest me, and I am working on bringing characters to life that move me. I am so thankful for my ability to express myself in something so meaningful to me.

Luckily, depression is not something that challenges my life today. I am a very happy and fulfilled person in my life now and have really grown into my own these last few years. I guess this is one of those examples of the mind and body finding wonderful ways of channeling energy. Some teenagers are not so fortunate as I was though. Teenage depression is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in the lives a many children. I seemed happy to most people, smart, well-loved and well adjusted. Inwardly, I did not feel that most of the time, I had low self-esteem and self-worth; I was confused about my life's purpose and thought I was ugly. Now in my heart I know I am a bright, capable young lady that has the world at my fingertips and the love and support to back me up. Do not let your child become another statistic or just hope that this is a phase that they are going to grow out of. It's not worth the gamble.

If you are a teen dealing with depression and need to talk to a real person RIGHT NOW, try contacting one of these agencies.

Crashing Back Down by Author Kristen Hope Mazzola, her debut novel, is now LIVE!! Don't miss out on this awesome read!

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