by Barbara Stahura, CJF
Family caregivers can feel equally bewildered, as well as terrified. I certainly did when my husband sustained a serious traumatic brain injury nearly a decade ago. But my journal offered a safe sanctuary where I could pour out my deepest thoughts and feelings without judgment or criticism. Writing somehow made them more manageable. Despite being diagnosed with secondary traumatic stress, journaling allowed me to hold on and cope with the overpowering uncertainty, fear, and anxiety.
As I’ve found during six years of guiding journaling groups for people with brain injury and family caregivers, telling your story through journaling can enhance the healing process. “Healing” here does not mean restoring your injured brain to its former functioning or your life to the way it used to be. Instead, it means finding healthy ways to become aware of, accept, and acknowledge what has happened so that you can move forward into your new post-injury story. Journaling, for even five or ten minutes at a time on a regular basis, can help release you from yearning for the past and open positive doors to your envisioned future.
How to journal
There are no rules in journaling, except perhaps to date all your entries. So don’t worry about correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You need not be a “good” writer. Simply write in whatever way is comfortable for you. You can write on paper or use a keyboard. If a brain injury prohibits you from doing either, you can speak your entries into a recording device, use speech-recognition software, or find a trusted confidante who will scribe your words without judgment or changes.
Keeping your journal private allows you to write honestly. But if you write an entry that you never want anyone to read, you can tear it out and destroy it. The benefit of journaling comes in the writing, not in preserving what you write.
To begin, you can simply pick up your pen or put your hands on the keyboard. But it’s helpful to create a structure for yourself by starting with a prompt (for example: Today I feel… or, Brain injury has…), experimenting with various techniques such as Dialogue or Unsent Letter, or even setting a time limit.
Especially if you’re writing about a traumatic experience, don’t simply begin writing with no structure in place. Even something as simple as a five-minute limit can help you avoid writing yourself off an emotional cliff with no way back to safety. Stop writing if you feel yourself getting unusually upset. And over time, try to keep a balance between positive and negative so that you don’t end up endlessly ruminating on the darker aspects of your life.
After a brain injury, you might not be able to write much or for very long. Do whatever you can, and please don’t judge yourself harshly. As your condition improves, you will be able to write more. If you’re a caregiver, you might have difficulty finding time for self-care, but know that you can journal in only five or ten minutes at a time. A small journal will fit in a purse or pocket, and you can write wherever you are.
As you continue journaling, you will have written memories of your healing and of how far you have come since brain injury altered your life. And there, in those words on the page, you—whether survivor or caregiver—have created the foundation on which to build the new story that will carry you into the future.
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