Thirty-six years and one hundred thirty-five spiral notebooks ago, my daily journal was born of an innate desire to set down the thoughts, feelings, and events that shaped me. Written with a watery blue fountain pen, the initial yellow, seventy-sheet notebook was jammed with the antics of a thirteen-year-old girl. Since then, my transformation from silly, egotistical teenager to seasoned adult has been fully documented, including the development of my mental illness.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic depression) when I was nineteen, and it has affected me in profound ways. Years of swinging through the revolving door of mania, depression, and psychosis have left me with a trail of mental health hospitalizations and treatments.
To deal with my illness, I turned to writing as a therapeutic measure, as it soothes me and serves as a crucial coping mechanism. I feel a sense of catharsis as I try to capture the flood of ideas and overwhelming emotions. Conversing with another person never allows the same coherence I can reach when I read over written sentences. I am talking to myself on paper, able to follow the threads more effectively because they are registered in ink. I’ve come to appreciate these states a little more, and journaling has enabled me to articulate what I’ve learned, and given me the ability to convey them in my more public fiction and poetry. Needless to say, I’ve gathered plenty of material.
At an early age, I cultivated a close friendship with pen and paper that has long been central to my life. I’ve always considered myself a writer, mainly because I make a habit of scribbling things down. I gain a sensual pleasure from the loops and curls of the cursive hand flowing from my mind to an open page and how the complexities of language surface from the curve and tangle of lines.
For me, the words these images form are forever sacred, the most powerful tools created.
When I learned to write at age five, the main audience for my nascent creations was my parents. Long before I could spell, my stories about our family were written phonetically, as my father taught me, each word sounded out with exquisite care. I recently stumbled upon one of those carefully bound “chapbooks,” giving directions for making “feeshing powalls” out of a stick and a “peass of streang.” Rough illustrations of fishing poles clarify the process to aid the reader in deciphering the clumsy letters and abominable spelling.
I kept sporadic notes in first grade, mostly reporting the weather. I’d already developed a compulsion to record things, and my first attempts at journaling were superficial, having to do with daily routines and the occasional sentence about some less-than-usual activity. My father gave me a five-year diary with a lock and key, and I wrote diligently every day on the three little lines allotted. After a while, I became impatient with the cramped spaces and began to fill the entire page, defying the whole tradition and tossing the five-year format to the wind.
These days, I keep four notebooks. The first is my continuing daily account of emotions and thoughts, events, and insights. Another holds my first drafts of prose and poetry. A third is a pocket-sized notepad for ideas, lines, and titles that come to me at stray moments. The fourth contains an experimental venture—a form which I call musements.
Musements are similar to prose poems, in that they look like a block of prose, but taste like poetry. Every day I spend five minutes writing continuously, and the results (completely unrevised) serve as a jump-start for my morning writing routine. I think of them as a sort of literary mandala, meditatively capturing the whimsies of my subconscious. They begin with a title, and what follows is completely unpredictable. Here’s an example from January 9, 2007:
Placebo Panacea
The pill I swallow, distilled by light, haloes my brain with happiness and the distant refrain of a song I love but cannot remember. Each morning, the bell twines its tones through my ears and clears my head with a small buzz of delight. Everyone should take such medicine—the dose that pulls you close to death, then sets you free, vision catapulted to wild image, your mind living the dance on the offhand chance a miracle will happen today. Gratitude is the tune I like—a slight jingle, like magic flashing in a hand, like coins in the pocket of a man whose life is blissfully easy.
The musements and their carefree nature loosen up my mind and hand, and occasionally they have stimulated more focused poems and fiction. Some have appeared in small literary magazines. At the very least, they are fun to compose—my basic requirement for any creative endeavor.
As a teenager, I was relieved to discover the verbal freedom of a more-or-less private notebook. Through the business of setting down the daily minutiae, I understood the value in telling the truth. Because I had to be painfully sincere about what I thought and felt, I developed a better rapport with the writer and primary reader—myself. I gained a clearer sense of my own voice by practicing on paper and hearing myself speak as I wrote down each word. But I could also speak on others’ behalf, and I thought it a refreshing exercise to tell about my day from the viewpoint of my brother or a friend. This helped my later attempts at dialogue and stories inspired by other perspectives.
But my mother often snooped through my bedroom and read my notebook if it were left out. I could tell, because she dislodged the items I’d carefully placed on it to signal unlawful entry. The pencil I’d put on top was now off to the side, or I’d lined up the cover with the edge of the desk and now it had moved over by an inch. I never accused her, and she said nothing to me either, probably not wanting to confess she’d been invading my privacy.
I was horrified that my own mother could not be trusted to respect my personal space. At first I was angry, until I realized it was a marvelous opportunity to practice my skill at lying. I began keeping another log for her perusal, regaling my fictional experiences with sex and illicit drugs. Some days she approached me with caution and deep concern, and I secretly gloated, knowing she’d peeked at the fake journal. For a few months I kept two diaries—the true one for myself (which I hid in the back of my closet) and the false one for my mother. Every evening, I continued the duplicity, first entering the day’s less interesting events, and then exercising my imagination for my mother’s benefit. Maintaining my conversational style for her entertainment was a unique challenge—how could I tell about my twenty-three-year-old boyfriend without revealing I’d made him up? Although I thoroughly enjoyed myself for a while, all this writing took up precious time, and when my grades began to suffer, I abandoned the project.
At first, I addressed the “real” wire-bound tablets to “Dear Friend.” I had no concrete idea who this friend was, but it seemed helpful to imagine an interested audience. I realized that I was not writing for myself, as the act of registering anything guarantees the chance that another’s eyes will see it. Hopefully those eyes will appreciate its content and quality, a wish that I initially harbored, but as the years have passed I’ve grown far less concerned about this vague audience’s approval. An almost brutal honesty has arisen, uncomplicated by the apprehension that some future reader will dislike whatever is revealed. Now, I just don’t care, preferring to concentrate on integrity and on understanding my place in the psychiatric system.
As I try to help myself recover from my symptoms, I pay particular attention to my experience at the time. At points when my mental health is shaky, journaling serves as a means for overcoming the onslaught of suffering. In October of 2006, I struggled through a tumultuous episode of mania and psychosis, during which I was confined in a “crisis house” for more than two weeks. The two journal entries below are examples of my state of mind.
October 2, 2006
Man, I wish this would go away and I could get better. Shaking, zinging, repeating, echoing, lips moving constantly to the dance of the thoughts and voices in my head.
Gotta Normalize NOW! Starting now, starting now, starting now … SHIT!
I cannot imagine my normal life right now—just working, writing, checking email, going to the health club—cannot imagine it.
The next day’s entry continues to describe my episode.
October 3, 2006
I’ve been telling myself this will be an okay day, but I’ve been unable to convince myself.
Zipping, zinging, nervous, shaking, my voice and others in my head repeating, repeating, repeating.
I don’t know what to do about this. After over a week and a half, I’m no better than I was when this started.
But I AM better—I must be. The staff here has noticed improvement, even though I can’t see it myself. I’m talking softer to myself. I pace and rock less. But still I get shivers of fear.
From my first psychiatric hospitalization in 1980 onward, my notetaking was often remarked upon by the nurses and physicians who treated me. In my medical chart, they called it hypergraphia, a term defining my relentless push to get everything down. I had to write. I wanted only to put some semblance of order to the chaos, stave off my fears of disintegration. The writing helped me focus and communicate.
But the hospital staff discouraged my “writing behavior” because, as they said, it interfered with my “process of socialization.” I was not permitted to have my usual spiral notebook, as it posed a security threat—patients could decapitate themselves with the wire binding—so I had to make do with pieces of scrap paper and a stubby pencil. I wrote furiously, nearly oblivious to my surroundings, but desperately needing the oblivion. Unfortunately, my efforts to calm myself and concentrate more on the realities of my situation were dismissed as symptoms of my illness.
Even more distressing were the medications I was required to take. Most of them deadened my mind and spirit, and I wrote little, ignoring my journal for weeks at a time. Simply, I had nothing to say—nothing sparked my interest enough to bother describing it. The poverty of the few entries during these periods says it all. In addition, side effects such as restlessness, drooling, heavy sedation, and weight gain persuaded me to abandon the drugs again and again, which only seemed to exacerbate my symptoms. At times, the “cure” was worse than the illness.
In the hospital, the staff snooped through my notes, like my prying mother. Often they discarded them without my permission, ignoring them as “ravings” instead of an essential component of my treatment. My insistence on their necessity was merely further indication of my ill state.
The negative response from my caregivers escalated my frustration. At the least, we had conflicting perceptions of what was helpful and what was not. As a psychiatric patient, I had no credibility whatsoever; everything I said and did was suspect. When I claimed that writing helped me, I was confronted with rolling eyes and scoffs of disbelief. However, there were a few nurses who listened to my protests. They supported my need for written expression and even went so far as to give me some quiet time each day for my literary pursuits. With gratitude, I still remember those nurses.
Occasionally I’ll spend some time randomly reading older journal entries. I’m always surprised by what I’ve forgotten and what I’ve repressed and even shocked by parallels and chagrined by blatant foolishness. Often I get downright bored and skip over large portions. It’s Reality TV without the relief of commercial breaks and editors.
I believe that if I spent more time rereading, I would discover some refreshing insights. I do not reread often, and I don’t quite understand my reluctance. I must be currently blind to patterns and histories that I am afraid to explore. Maybe too much honesty is presently unbearable, and I do not wish to see my mistakes and pettiness exposed.
Yet, I see myself clearly with every line, with my faults and strengths, guilt and regrets. Perhaps I still need a way to define myself and my world as a narcissistic defense against mortality and meaninglessness. I used to crave being “special,” which required asserting my originality in whatever way I could. The act of recounting my life seemed to instill it with purpose, giving me a sense that I could live forever, or as long as my journal escaped decay. The fact that I still write daily may only mean that I continue to delude myself that I am important, my existence worthy of print.
But rereading can have another purpose: The sheer wealth of material never fails to produce stories and ideas. Descriptions of landscapes and settings evoke a sense of place—I have written of the mountains outside my kitchen window here in Missoula, Montana; the majesty of thunderstorms in Omaha, Nebraska, where I was raised; and the people in the street below my room at the Boston YMCA.
Story plots arise from half-remembered incidents. A babysitting job turns into a nightmare when the parents come home early. A woman steals a police car. A runaway teenager sells her grandmother’s diamond ring.
Composites of characters emerge—my mother’s lilting voice, with her preference for aphorisms, speaks from an eighty-year-old woman’s mouth (the lips ringed with small wrinkles) about a dead son who had my brother’s tendency to laugh in his sleep and my first boyfriend’s habit of answering a question with a question. I see no end to the possibilities presented by a thorough journal, or by the regular composition of the mindliberating musements.
I’ve prescribed the art of creating musements for a fellow poet who lacks self-confidence, resulting in an extended hiatus in her literary work. But the daily habit of forcing her hand to write has, over time, helped her capture the undertones of despair that have hindered her creativity. The musements gave rise to a freer and less self-conscious expression, and now she produces poetry at a level she was previously unable to attain.
I’ve also encouraged a few friends to keep journals. My brother, who suffers from depression, has remarked that reading back over his daily accounts has enabled him to see patterns of which he was once unaware. He’s gained insights and ideas for keeping himself healthy, and now has the company of a receptive self when he finds himself sliding back down.
A good friend who recently lost her husband has turned to writing when her grief was most acute. In the form of letters to him, she relives the best moments they had together and the things she misses about him. She’s found the writing therapeutic, and as a tribute she is collecting a scrapbook of memories.
I am pleased that these other writers have found comfort in the same medium that has engaged me for so many years. My journal remains my closest and most consistent companion, an endless source of information and inspiration and a detailed account of my journey. It has seen me through tumultuous times, enhanced my honesty with myself and my understanding of pain. Basically, I survive to write because I write to survive.
When I was thirteen, I had no way of knowing that the first spiral notebook would beget one hundred and thirty-four more. Or that I’d enjoy such a loving relationship with that blue fountain pen and lined paper. Or that the original “Dear Friend” would evolve into the woman I know today.
Life has a lovely way of being capricious and unpredictable—somewhat like a musement—and for me, journaling has restored meaning to the journey. I believe that, in a sense, my writing justifies my existence, even if my eyes are the only ones to appreciate it. At the base of it all remains my love of words—their comfort, their power, their sanctity.