Writing to Heal
Black typewriter with white keys pictured from above as it sits on a wooden surface.
By. Jacey Rogel
The vision I had for my life shattered when I was 23. I lost my teaching job, along with the desire I had carried within me since I was eight years old; I grieved the loss of this career and the uncertainty that was ahead of me. My income would come to an end at the end of the summer, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was young and naïve enough to believe everything would work out, that this was all part of some grand plan and something would fall into my lap.
A month later, I met my husband. I found a job still in the realm of teaching, to appease my family. After a few months, we knew we would spend our lives together, ready to merge our lives and our finances. During that time, he was a gift to me- allowing me to find a new path for my life; I went into our relationship without a clear understanding of who I was. Teaching was part of my identity, it was the only career I had imagined for myself. When it all came crashing down, the picture of who I thought I should be shattered. It took marriage and motherhood to put me back together.
Four years and two children later, I stared at another shattered version of my life.
This time, I wasn’t sure if everything would work out.
February 26, 2016: I’m feeling lost… I feel like I’m losing myself. I’m so caught up in the role of mother and I’m finding my identity in my children.
I became a wife at 25. A mother at 26. I threw myself into these identities. I made myself believe this was my purpose, what I had been called to do; my career had to end so I could be a mother. Thinking about the collapse of my career with rose-colored glasses was the only way I could handle the immense disappointment that had settled within me.
When my second child was born, the vibrancy that colored my world began to fade. I saw my life in black and white, good and bad. Rarely was I ever happy anymore. Depression seized hold of me, twisting itself around me, squeezing the life out of me.
June 25, 2016: I feel like I’m being eaten alive by pain and frustration, anger and isolation. I’m hoping writing can help me work through it all… I feel so lonely in every aspect of my life. I’m also hoping that maybe I can make this writing take me somewhere. Give me some sort of purpose. It’s always been a passion, but I’ve been silenced by fear and inadequacy. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t have a voice… I need to find my voice, my passion, my purpose. I need to find me! I lost her a long time ago.
I crawl into bed at the end of the day, grab my journal from my nightstand, and cry tears and words onto the pages. Journaling consistently has been a struggle of mine for years; I have a collection of empty and half-full journals filling up shelves in my bedroom. I try now to write daily because letting loose the terrible thoughts thrashing around my head and shutting them away is the only control I have.
August 19, 2016: [I want] to make journaling a type of therapy for me while allowing me to find my voice as a writer… to help me believe that I really do have a purpose beyond what I’m living now.
Within these pages, I see a faint outline of something more. I am not sure what is there, but I am determined to find out. I am desperate for a rope, a lifeline to pull me to safety, a storm shelter to protect me from this depression.
October 26, 2016: I figured out that writing about marriage and motherhood and mental health can be healing.
Books climb their way up the wall of my bedroom. Books on writing, craft, and inspiration. I throw myself into reading everything I can get my hands on, studying and practicing this craft. For the first time in over a decade, there is a stirring in my heart: I want to be a writer. My nightly journaling has turned into writing essays about my experiences in motherhood, my life with depression. It is healing to get the words out and make something with them.
February 4, 2017: I want to prove to myself, more than anything, I’m not afraid of failing. I’ve already failed plenty of times, and I can’t let that stop me.
My depression lasted four years. I have been writing creative non-fiction for three. Writing was my constant. A safe space for me to cry and complain, to learn, and to grow.
Finding my passion in the midst of motherhood has been challenging. I am pulled in a multitude of directions with three children vying for my attention, a husband to love, and a home to keep running. I am creating in the margins of my day, waking before the sun and my early-risers, writing during nap-time. I squeeze in moments to write while waiting in the pick-up lane, writing down ideas and topics to pursue in waiting rooms.
It feels dramatic to say that writing saved me, but when I look back at old journal entries during the worst of my depression, I know it is true. It brought me back to myself during a time I didn’t think I mattered. My identity was wrapped up in my family; it was warped and fragile from the storm I found myself in. Writing eased me out of the darkness of the storm, brought color back to my life.
Writing was always my passion. If I hadn’t let fear hold me back, I would have followed this calling instead of teaching, but I thought a teaching career would be safe. I believed my voice didn’t matter- whether in life or writing, and that belief told me writing would be a waste of time and money. Much like my teaching degree ended up being.
For the last few years, I have been sharing my words and my heart online. It has been a beautiful blessing, finding community on the internet, surrounding myself- if only digitally- with like-minded mothers who have become my distant village.
My desire for healing, my deep need for support helped writing sneak out and cradle me on those dark nights when fear told me to stop. My children were also the push I needed; I write for them.
The storm is not over yet, but I feel protected thanks to my writing practice. It is my shelter as the rain pours down on me.
Close up of Jacey smiling wide. She has long dark hair and brown eyes and is wearing a cream and floral shirt.
Jacey is a wife to her husband of eight years and together, they have three children. She finds solace in words and between the pages of a good book. Her writing has been featured on Coffee + Crumbs among others. You can find her on Instagram or jaceywrites.com