Some people, like me, pick up pen and paper or go to the computer when sorrow, grief, or other trouble strikes. The need to put emotion, especially that caused by trauma, into words becomes overwhelming. Words spill across the page or screen, allowing us to cope with the pain swamping our spirits.

Does verbalizing help us cleanse the poison of suffering from our hearts and minds? Or, are our words a cry for help? Perhaps, we need to verbalize and receive help in order to heal. In fact writing therapy is a recommended way of dealing with problems of all kinds.

Putting my emotions into words helped me survive the death of my baby. I thought I was going crazy as the dreams came each time I slept: dreams of holding her, caring for her, dreams too real. I'd awaken to the reality of my loss and empty arms again and again. Finally I started writing each time I awoke. I poured my thoughts onto the multicolored pages of a tablet and stuck the written words in the family Bible. As time passed, the grief became bearable. Writing helped me survive for my other children and my husband.

As I sat beside my mother's side after her stroke, I knew she probably wouldn't live, couldn't live. I grabbed scrap paper and jotted my feelings into lines of poetry. When my former son-in-law "stole" ? two of my grandchildren the day after their great-grandmother died, the emotions that never die gave realism to a novel about a young woman whose ex-husband takes their children.

As Robert and I lived through the time he was in hospice nearly two years ago, knowing that his life was ending, I questioned God, begged Him to touch Robert. Then I turned to writing again. I used words to cope with the pain of watching my husband suffer. Writing allowed me to stay strong for him. Then when Robert no longer was considered terminal, I knew that writing had helped me keep my sanity again.

Poetry especially grants me release from whatever emotions I may experience; writing the concise, precise words in poetic language becomes my therapy. Many lines of poetry fill the folder on my hard drive or reside in a published book. One time when extremely angry, I wrote the following:

Anger

Black, billowing smoke, fed by blazing flames,
Twists the mind and soul like a blade
Turning within a blast furnace of molden steel.
Thought becomes muddled with blasts of agony;

Nothing is clear or positive, but all confrontational,
Filled with the desire to hurt, to maim, even kill.
The pounding of one's heart closes his ears
To reason, to the cry of control, of restraint.

When the final explosion destroys all reason,
What is left is ashes of physical insanity,
The remains of emotional destruction,
The exhaustion felt by losing all inhibition.

Joy becomes a dim memory lost in violence.
( 2006 by Vivian Gilbert Zabel)

Anger dissipated as the words appeared on the computer screen. For some reason, putting what I feel into words helps me deal with the emotion and become stronger.

Putting emotions into words does help many to better understand, in time, and to deal with traumatic emotions. We can write our way through troublesome times.