Clear pictures, nagging thoughts, and homework

I am going over and reviewing old posts anyway, but I am also looking up previous posts that relate to what I am covering now. 

There are a lot of related posts.

In that process, I keep being reminded of all the assignments that I gave myself. Even birthday celebrations were assignments twice. Many journal sections were based on exercises in different books that later led to blog posts.

That's not surprising because I have a strong tendency toward giving myself assignments. It has a downside, because I often turn things I enjoy into work. I can struggle with that, but I generally end up being glad about the things I have done.

It does feel a little surprising to notice the scope. It hasn't felt like that much for that long.

Knowing that at least some readers are relating is gratifying, but it also gives me a sense of responsibility. A lot of the healing was preceded by great pain, and it isn't always a great idea to do it on your own. 

It will be easy to get ideas from some posts, but I am leery of making recommendations. 

I have learned to trust my own sense for myself, and that has led me pretty well, but it is also a very personal thing. 

If you have a lot of memories blacked out, that may indicate sexual or physical trauma. It may take something like EMDR to even access the memories, which generally only happens in a professional setting, but also it is a good idea to have a professional guiding you through the memories.

Remember the woman who talked with her therapist and discovered that unmourned loss of her mother? If you are going to need to spend three days crying to get through a loss, you may not have the time for that now. She couldn't put it off because it was damaging her relationship with her daughter, but if you are functioning pretty well and this doesn't seem like the time to rock the boat, that's okay.

(And if three days of crying is what you need, and you can do it, put some thought into hydration and electrolyte replacement. It can be brutal, even if it is what you need.)

With all of those caveats, this is a thing that I think is probably safe, and can be a good starting point.

A lot of these events that I am writing about were very sharp memories. Some of them were more obviously significant, but others didn't seem too important until I would keep getting these nagging thoughts. Why did I take that class? Why do I keep remembering that moment?

If you already know you have some memories like that, it probably would not hurt to write about them. Capture the details. Sometimes I know when something happened because of where we were living or who was there.

The ideal thing used to be a loose-leaf notebook, because if you remembered something later that happened earlier, it was still easy to get things laid out in chronological order. With an open text document, computers can make it even easier.

While that can be more free-form than the expressive writing, there are similarities and in general people had very good results with that. 

Then you may start noticing connections, and you can start thinking about where to go from there. 

Related post:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/01/expressive-writing.html