HOW I GOT OVER DEPRESSION.

Yes, I wrote while depressed — nearly every day. But I wrote emotional rants. Diatribes about how awful life was and how horrible I felt. What an untalented, unskilled, unlucky, unlovable, un-everything person I am.
The problem with this kind of writing is that it reinforces the negative pattern of depression. I think and feel miserable, therefore I write down the miserable thoughts and feelings. This cycle is not helpful. It is not therapeutic.
Sure, maybe I get some of the negativity out of my body and mind, but then it is down on paper or computer screen — glaring back at me in black and white — telling me that, yes in fact, that negativity exists. It is real.
When I think back on it now, it strikes me as odd that my writing-brain was completely blind to my own writing.

WRITING AND MY REVISION PROCESS
It all began with writing. Anything. What comes out doesn’t matter. What matters is that something comes out, because then I have a starting point. I have words to work with. Any words are better than no words.
Once I have some words I can revise. I can read the words and think about whether they are the best words.
Are they the words that I want? Do I want to be that miserable person? No? Then how do I change the words so that they are not so miserable? I change one word here and one word there. “I am
unhealthy ” becomes “I am healthy .”
Then I write some more and see if the revisions have transferred into the new work. Do I continue to write the miserable stuff? Or do I begin to write revised stuff that is slightly less miserable?
Revising is improving — always improving, moving closer to the positive and true version of the story I want to be writing and living. (tweet this)
Writing and my health
A person who is healthy and strong doesn’t write about how miserable she is.
A person who is healthy and strong doesn’t write about being unlucky, unskilled, untalented, unlovable — she doesn’t write about being anything worthless.