Why I Write (and share with others)

My writer friends tell me it is therapeutic... and my therapist agrees.

I never enjoyed writing. When I was in grade school, it was always difficult for me to organize my thoughts and get them onto paper. Using a tape recorder with variable speed playback and a computer did help some, but the added steps and technology often felt like they added to the onerous burden of each assignment. My papers for English classes often came back to me so bloodied with red ink suggestions edits and revisions that it often felt like a funeral was appropriate and what got buried was any enjoyment of writing. Even writing in a private journal or diary became distasteful.
As a voracious reader with a mother who wrote prolifically as a major part of her job, I became the friend who was always happy to read your writing and make helpful suggestions, but wouldn't share what I wrote unless absolutely necessary.
In college, I avoided classes that required writing papers whenever possible, and was relieved that most of my Engineering classes focused on generating PowerPoint presentations and brief technical memos. Lab reports were a necessary evil, but most of my classmates agreed, so we suffered through them together.
Fast forward several years to my first long-term substitute teaching assignment. I had be taken under the wing of a veteran teacher and literacy coach with a career path more circuitous than mine. I admitted to her my tortured experience with writing and expressed my doubts about my ability to teach something I so disliked.  She encouraged me to try writing using the Writers' Workshop program my elementary school students had been learning through. At first, I was leary, but I quickly surprised myself by how easy it was to write on any topic I wanted in a notebook nobody would see unless I chose to show it. (I plan to post some of those pieces here, as I find time.)

Why is writing therapeutic?
When I find make time, I write about the lessons I'm learning from life. It's a way to process what is going on. Sharing those lessons with others is a way to make them sink in for me. Writing can be empowering. By helping others, I feel less helpless.
Given the right circumstances, I can talk for hours. Writing forces me to slow down and really THINK about what I want to share and how I want to share it. There are some non-verbal cues that can get lost when writing, but I can choose my words carefully to express exactly what I mean. Once you say something, you can't unsay it.
When I was younger, I was bullied a lot. I was angry and hurt and scared, but I had trouble expressing my feelings in a productive way. Crying in a corner may be a natural response, but isn't productive if it doesn't make you feel better. Someone (a therapist, a teacher, my mom...I forget) suggested that I write a letter to the people bullying me. Write about how I felt and why I felt that way. Write about what I wanted to do and what I wanted them to do. Write about whatever was making me upset, and then I'd feel better. The only problem with that was, it didn't make me feel much better. It's one thing to be able to express your thoughts and feelings. However, if you still feel that nobody is listening or caring about it, that no change will come from your efforts, then the benefit is limited. Finding an outlet where you can safely share how you feel with someone who can make a difference, even if that someone is yourself, is the important step that was left out.
Now, with blogging and social networking groups, I can share my thoughts and feelings and I can help others who are going through something similar. Helping others makes me feel less helpless.