Autobiography · Mental Health · Writing

Don’t Write

Ruby Pipes

"writing table" © Graham Holliday, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.
“writing table” © Graham Holliday, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.
Don’t write about it. Writing about it solidifies the hurt. Gives it form, texture. Writing about it creates a framework where the darkness can continue to exist. Another form of rumination. It reworks those pathways in your brain, rivers cutting deeper and deeper into the earth every time you put a word down.

Each word is another snowflake leading up to the avalanche. Creating something which used to not be there. Destroying that which used to be safe.

Don’t write about it. Your words are sharp, broken glass under delicate feet. Thoughts like drops of water, each one insignificant, but they come on like a flash flood. You’re drowning.

Sometimes writing can serve as a way to sort. Pulling belongings out of the bottom of your backpack, putting them in the correct drawer. But today writing is doing nothing but fanning your anxious flames. Pulling the cord on a chainsaw until it screams to life and you’re left wailing on the floor.

Don’t write about it. Take a breath and divert your attention. Watch TV, take a walk, make huge gashes of color with markers across a blank piece of paper. Crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “This is really fucking hard.” But don’t say why.

19 thoughts on “Don’t Write”

  2. It sounds like you are really hurting, and my heart is going out to you. It is really fucking hard. Could it be that there doesn’t have to be a reason why. Maybe you don’t need to explain yourself or justify yourself or your feelings? I hope you can find a way to write through whatever it is, to find a way past the pain, to write yourself new channels, healthy pathways, make fresh connections. ❤️

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  3. I can see the point of that. But my experience of not-writing it is that the words continue to cut channels deeper and deeper into my psyche, gaining weight and gathering darkness the more I try to keep them trapped. I hope your experience is that your determination to give yourself an influx of outside and sunshine and twinklysparklygoodness is one which pays off and displaces the bads and sads.

    hugs

    It’s really fucking hard. But it won’t always be.

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    1. This is true. It definitely has to be the type of thing you can distract yourself from for this to work. Otherwise you’re just stuck repeating it over and over until you get it out through some written words.

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      1. I tend to use writing as a bit of a braindump and get it all out. Helps me unsnaggle it a bit as I go. I know it doesn’t work for everyone though, so I shall wish you light and happiness and bright sunshine for your day. Keep rainbowing 🙂

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  6. Some days avoidance is the best prescription. Your metaphors are very powerful. It seems so many I know (including myself) are struggling so much more at the moment. We are not alone. Hang in there through the hardest days. We are all reaching out our arms and holding onto each other.

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