My journaling habit started in elementary school but was really just to share my secret crushes, in which I knew the secret wouldn't get out. I was a very elementary writer and usually, my entries included to-do lists and gossip about boys of the month. It was until my sister moved out of our house during middle school that my entries became more of my own personal therapist.
My sister and I are two years apart but she had a much different experience in middle school than I. Her peers would bully her to the point where she needed to leave the school and live with my aunt. She lived about 3 hours away from our home, which was an immense change for our whole family. We all knew it was best for her and for that reason we stayed strong while she was away. Unfortunately, everyone deals with loss differently and for me, I turned to anorexia, bulimia, and self-harm.
At the time, I was limiting myself to 300 calories a day and working out every time after I would eat something. It was a horrible experience and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. After me and my family really started to understand what was going on, we tried many different options to fix the issue.
I got a therapist and we started planning family meals but it was a struggle during the experience. From here, I would go to friends and talk about weight and what was going on in but, of course, that's such a hard burden to bear and I began to feel almost like a chore to my friends. I picked up my journal once again and just started writing.
Beginning to journal is not a save-all for the issues that people deal with, but I do think it is a great way to organize your thoughts and maybe solve some confusion that you might be going through. When I started, it was just a mess of negative thoughts scribbled on paper and I thought that it actually made me realize how sad I was. It wasn't until I kept writing that I realized several reasons for feeling sad and food restriction issues.
As my sister was gone, I was technically like an only child and this put a lot of pressure on me. Also, I felt alone and Anna, which is slang for anorexia, became my best friend. It was not until I started journaling did I realize this.
Although it was a long path to recovery, journaling helped me catalog my feelings and thoughts and it was almost like having a personal therapist at your fingertips who was there to just listen. Journaling helped me through an extremely hard time in my life, now I use journaling now to organize my thoughts and pour my feelings out on to a page.
Even if you are going through something small, journaling is a sure way to release some tension and at least give you an idea of how you are actually feeling.
