Recently, I happened to come across a website where disgruntled, depressed or delirious ex-lovers could write obituaries to their failed relationships. My first thought was to smile and laugh a little over some of the letters that had been posted on the site. Then, I began thinking about my own train of thought and belief that writing is the best medicine for getting past our troubled times.

Some of society’s best songs, poems, stories and books came about as the result of the author’s sadness and need to write the sadness as a coping mechanism. Over the years, countless psychologists have expressed how writing down one’s feelings on paper is the best release a person can have.

A 1999 Center for the Advancement of Health study on the positive affects that writing can have on chronically ill patients showed that 47% of surveyed patients who wrote their feelings on paper for 20 minutes per day over the course of three consecutive days showed noted improvement in their overall moods and health over the course of a four month period. The survey also showed that some patients had as much as a 28% average reduction in the severity of their disorders. This study, alone, proves that writing is beneficial in the healing process.

While I, personally, do not feel that a public forum is the proper place for displaying crude or spiteful comments of any nature towards another human being, I do agree, from firsthand experience, that writing one’s feelings of sadness or loss does serve to ease the mind and therefore, I would recommend a notebook or pen to anyone needing a means for comfort. The key, however, is to keep some civility in a break-up or lost situation. If you’re thinking of publicly posting a seething remark about the friend or lover who left you feeling jilted, remember that what goes around often comes around and any negativity you emit may not be as welcomed, if the roles were reversed.

Good luck as you go forward to bigger, brighter and better things!

© 2008 – Jill Eisnaugle. All Rights Reserved.

Jill Eisnaugle is the author of the poetry books, Coastal Whispers and Under Amber Skies. She resides in Texas City, Texas with her family and pets.