To Stay Sane

INTRODUCTION:

            In the chapter “To Stay Sane” from his book, Why Write?, Mark Edmundson posits that “writing is not likely to cure a haunting depression or a truly torturing case of anxiety and as for the more serious psychological maladies – schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and the like – writing will do no more for the suffering soul than persistent whistling would” (Edmundson 162). And, this is where I do agree with Edmundson. I am not, and probably never will, be a creative writer. My strengths lie in research writing and technical documentation. Creative writers have the ability to reveal their personalities and their deepest, darkest secrets through their writing. I, on the other hand, cannot do so. The very thought of creating a window for others to see into my head and into my life is utterly petrifying. So rather than reveal facets of my personality through creative endeavors, I do so through my various research interests. Writing about them from an objective distance accords me two things: it keeps me safe and it brings me a great deal of pleasure and self-satisfaction. More importantly, by writing about them with the hope of one day sharing my interests with others educationally, I know that legacy will live on, and hopefully, whoever my readers are will learn something new, and in turn share it with others. So, I guess, it is the thought of helping people through academic writing helps me to stay sane when my world become turbulent, scary, and seemingly enveloped in a thick cloak of perpetual darkness. Maybe in some way I do reveal facets of my personality through writing, but just enough to prevent my life from being examined under a microscope in the event that I become famous or revered for my academic interests and pursuits.

            In my version of Edmundson’s chapter “To Stay Sane,” I will attempt to include many things that Edmundson excludes from his chapter, such as: how different writing genres can help writers “to stay sane” when afflicted with depression and other psychological disorders, how personal expectations vs the expectations that other people have for a writer contribute to a writer’s anxiety, depression, and stress, and the same for personal judgment vs the judgment of others. I will also discuss how different methods and strategies, such as, music therapy and writing therapy can be utilized and employed to help writers who struggle with coping with existing psychological disorders. Lastly, I will state and discuss an American writer of classic literature, and how their writing processes helped them to stay sane.

HEALTH BENEFITS OF WRITING:

            Writing about emotional, stressful or traumatic events is found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in both clinical and non-clinical settings. Over the past two decades, a growing body of literature in psychology has illustrated the positive and beneficial effects that expressive and non-expressive writing about traumatic events has on the physical and emotional health of writers. According to a series of studies on expressive and non-expressive writing conducted by J.W. Pennebaker and S.K. Beall on a group of college students, “participants who wrote about deepest thoughts and feelings reported significant benefits in both objectively assessed and self-reported physical health 4 months later, with less frequent visits to the health centre and a trend towards fewer days out of role owing to illness” (Pennebaker and Beall (274). While I am not an expressive writer, the very act of writing helps me to stay sane because it provides me with a sense of purpose in a world fraught with chaos and uncertainty. When I write about subjects that I research, I do so for a higher purpose. It reduces my stress by providing me with a medium to express my findings, my questions, thoughts and observations over the material. It keeps my brain healthy and functional.

COPING WITH PERSONAL EXPECTATIONS & THE EXPECTATIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE:

            Countless factors influence human behavior, other people’s expectations make up just one of them. I used to worry constantly about living up to other people’s expectations. My decision to pursue an English major is one of many examples from my life where I failed to live up to the expectations of family (mostly) and friends (less so). My decision to pursue an eventual career in the Arts and Humanities was met less with concern over the viability of my eventual degree(s), but more so with outright disgust and scorn. Family and friends alike tossed at me a barrage of questions and comments filled with both criticism and skepticism over my choice. Their negativity used to weigh heavily on me to the point where I almost flunked out of college after my first semester as an English major. Afterwards, I decided that it was best to disregard their opinions. After all, I am an adult over the age of twenty-one. I was aware of the risks. And I truly love reading and studying literature and writing. It feeds my blackened soul. I guess the advice that I’m trying to impart on all aspiring writers is to just say “Fuck it. My goals and what I want out of life takes precedence over the opinions, however supportive or not, of other people.” It is not easy to do, like with writing, with enough time and practice, all writers can overcome the negativity and vitriol spewed out by insecure assholes.

ALTERNATE SUGGESTIONS:

            One of the suggestions I have in mind is undoubtedly an obvious one that may make whoever reads this roll their eyes, but, please, bear with me. Music therapy. Yes, I can hear the crickets chirp. For anyone who is unfamiliar with music therapy, a definition and a brief overview is necessary. Music therapy is simply a healthcare based discipline that uses music and music-based experiences to target non-musical treatment goals in educational and healthcare related fields and settings. Basically, the objective behind music therapy is to optimize the quality of life for individuals, groups, and families. Music therapy connects to writing from a scientific standpoint in that music taps into the parts of our brains that processes emotions and memories. When I write, I always avoid music with too fast a beat or tempo, and sometimes music that does not have any vocals; it increases my anxiety and makes me jittery and easily agitated. Often, I will play either classical music or New Age music because it is soothing, and surprisingly, it facilitates deeper thinking and inspiration to form, thereby making the writing process a smoother one. Of course, these music genres may not apply to everybody, but it is an option to consider the next time it is 3:00 in the morning, and you have a paper due in six hours for one of your classes, and you have invariably hit that terrifying wall known writer’s block that each of us encounter as writers. When that happens, put on some Beethoven, and just see if it helps to unblock those creative channels in your brain. A second option is to see if you can form a writing club with other students or aspiring writers. Think of it as a relaxed and judgment-free group therapy session comprised of friends and other like-minded individuals to offer writing tips, or just to bounce ideas off of each other. It also gives one the support necessary to maintain one’s sanity during extremely stressful times. What have you got to lose?

FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS THAT STRUGGLED “TO STAY SANE”:

            In his chapter, Edmundson states that “the major trope used by American writers is the trope of surprise. They did not specialize in irony or metaphor, but in the surprising of others and themselves with what came forth on the page” (Edmundson 163). I must respectfully disagree with Edmundson’s statement. Immediately, upon reading this, I thought of one “great” American novelist that frequently employed the use of metaphors in their works to reflect their emotional and psychological states of mind: Willa Cather. Willa Cather, famous for her works about the Nebraskan frontier, namely her Prairie Trilogy, which consists of her novels O’ Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Antonia. In those three books, Willa Cather, details the struggles of immigrant pioneer women who struggle to come to terms with the harsh environment in which they have been thrust into, and the emergence of their own inner strength. It is widely known and documented by family, friends, and Cather Scholars alike, that Willa Cather intentionally utilized the backdrop of the vast, uncompromising, Nebraskan frontier as a metaphor for the trauma she experienced as a young girl when her family was forced to relocate to Nebraska from Virginia after her family was threatened with death because of Willa’s father, who was a Union sympathizer during the Civil War. She described the move as scarifying. She felt that she had been virtually wiped off the face of the planet. Her reaction to the move was recounted through the eyes of the male narrator, Jim Burden in her novel, My Antonia: “Cautiously I slipped from under the buffalo hide, got up on my knees and peered over the side of the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no cracks or trees, no hills or fields. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man’s jurisdiction. Between the earth and sky I felt erased, blotted out” (Cather 36-7). For years afterward, all of Cather’s novels utilized either directly or indirectly the Nebraskan frontier as a symbol of all of her life’s struggles. She actively wrote about her struggles with gender identity, love, loss, loneliness. It changed in her later years after she moved to New York City where she later passed away, but she is just one example of many writers who employed metaphors in their writing as a means of coping with their psychological maladies. In her book, Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice, biographer and Cather Scholar, Sharon O’Brien, provides further insight into Cather’s writing process: “Cather could only use metaphor to describe the creative intuition to which she had submitted. Her metaphors have two elements in common: in both the writer is moving through a familiar landscape, and in both her progress comes from surrendering to a power the ego cannot control” (O’Brien 423). What O’Brien is saying is that in her later fiction, Cather sought to actively use metaphor to not only reflect on particular life events, but that she also employed metaphors in her works in a way that they can be seen as a sort of road map to her life, and the transformative process of Cather as a person, and as woman. This example clearly refutes Edmundson’s claim that American writers do not employ the use of metaphors or irony in their writing.

CONCLUSION:

            Writers are a damaged lot, haunted by their life experiences, unsure of what sort of effect their words will have on those who choose to read their work. One thing is certain, however, our words do carry with them a great deal of power. Writers have a responsibility to themselves and to their readers the types of messages they relate in their writer. Never feel like your work is a burden to anyone. Do not get bogged down in the mechanics of writing. Never let writer’s block or your previous experiences in life control your voice. Write to unleash your voices, your fears, your insecurities. In doing so, you have the power to control them, and not to let yourself be controlled by them. Writing is the only way for you, the writer, to stay sane.

           

Works Cited

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. New York: Penguin, 1994. 36-7. Print.

Edmundson, Mark. Why Write? New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. 162-69. Print.

O’Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. New York: Ballantine, 1987. 423. Print.

Pennebaker, J.W. and Beall, S.K. “Confronting a traumatic event toward an understanding of inhibition and disease.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, No. 95, 1986. 274-81. Print.