I have kept journals all of my adult life and had done so through almost all of my teens. I never thought of "keeping a diary" as a way to expunge my secrets, but there is some credence to the argument that people who get out their guilt on paper tend to be healthier. The human brain is pretty fascinating. It makes it possible for us to compartmentalize things that we are not yet able to handle. It is like those thoughts and experiences go into cold storage. When we're ready to deal with them, we know where they are. The problem is avoidance and denial. It's not that we can't deal with certain things, it's that we simply are not willing to. We procrastinate on things that we think will be too painful, not realizing that bottling it all up is hurting us far more.
For many of us, writing resolves that problem. It is a hell of a lot harder to admit your guilt over something out loud to another person than when you write it to yourself, for yourself, and have power over what happens to that piece of writing next. There have been times when writing about a particularly painful incident helped me to understand that the only thing I could do was let it go and move on. And those pieces of writing can get tossed, shredded or burnt to cinders immediately. I never have to look at them again.
We all get hurt by the people we love and we don't always know what issues they have that contribute to their behavior towards us. Writing about these things has helped me to understand something simple - that I don't understand why some people are the way they are. That I may never understand that. That I have no power over that. Sometimes the only choices you have are to accept it, and love them unconditionally, or just walk away. They aren't pretty options. When you're dealing with relationships of any kind, things get complicated. Being able to unravel some of that mystery on paper has helped me keep my sanity.
My point with all this is that being able to handle some of life's more interesting moments on my own has helped me to be not only a happier person, but a better friend. I am far more capable of being a shoulder to cry on when I have dealt with my own crap. And when I do lean on a friend, they no longer feel like that's all I ever do. I suppose I've found balance.
All even-keel would be a boring way to lead a life and I am certainly made for rougher seas. I think of writing every day in a journal as the best way to maintain my sea legs.
