Alice came one day obviously stressed and depressed. She shared that in her writing and always read, even though she was often in tears. The writing was a haven and support for her. She said and wrote how being part of the group became part of her self-care, and its existence carried her through some difficult days.

Creating Safety through Writing

I found that the writing itself helped create safety. Deborah Morgan (2002) sums it up:

Writing and supportively sharing our stories can be an insightful and pleasurable means to self-discovery, personal validation, literacy skills development, connection to the community and increased emotional and physical well-being. (p. 4)

The very act of writing down—sharing, getting out all those parts of one's life that get in the way of learning—became liberating. The unmentionable and unacceptable were written and talked about and the writers were supported and affirmed. Perhaps by allowing some of those pains and blockages out, there was room for light and learning.

In our first session with the writing group, one of the writing prompts we used was, "What do you want to write about? What do you NOT want to write about?" The women all wanted to write about "nice" and "easy" things. They were quite definite that they DID NOT want to write about addiction, abuse, loss, mental illness, prostitution—all the painful and consuming things in their lives. Yet those are the very topics that the women sometimes chose to write about, even though we never presented those topics as prompts.