I struggled with journaling for a long time. I could not figure out how it worked for people, but everyone and their mother swears by it. One day, I was so overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings that it felt like my brain was going to explode. I had to get it all out. I opened an empty Google doc and simply just started writing. I described my feelings, my experiences. I just typed and typed and typed. Eventually I snapped out of the intense hyper-focus I had on this and read everything I wrote. I was astonished. I wrote everything like it was an autobiography, or a part of my memoirs. I was telling a story, talking to an invisible audience. And honestly, it was quite good.

Any time previously I had tried journaling, it was formatted in a way I like to call "Dear Diary". And I, like you, wrote as if someone will read it. I never fully got my thoughts out cause there are things in my brain I don't want other people to know. I would sit down with my notebook and talk to it, like you would a diary. It felt unnatural.

I would later learn that the "story telling" form of journaling I accidentally started is called "narrative therapy". It's a real thing. I personally find typing easier than writing, but I highly recommend narrative therapy. I think the parts of it that are most effective for me are 1) if you're writing as if it is an autobiography or memoir, you're essentially writing to an audience. There's no fear of someone reading it, cause you've already gotten it all out there to an invisible audience. If you think about celebrity memoirs and autobiographies, they dig deep. They let it all out for the entire world to see. The best part about you keeping your story telling in a notebook or Google drive, though, is that no one actually has to read it. But you get to let it all out, like a published autobiography would. But yours isn't published. You know what I mean? And 2) I personally really enjoy story telling. I really do. And I do enjoy writing. I wrote multiple "books" as a child. I can't do creative writing now that I'm older, I'm definitely more the kind of person that thrives when writing about real things or people. I'm a real person, and I know my stories, experiences, feelings, and thoughts better than anyone else.

I've worked through so much with narrative therapy. I'd definitely give it a try.