When Writing Doesn’t Heal

If you’ve ever put pen to paper, you know how writing can heal. Few things are as therapeutic as creating poetry or prose from pain. But writing doesn’t always heal us the way we expect. It can take time. And, in some cases, it can take a change in the way we think. I learned this many years ago, when I was grieving the loss of a friend.

I’ll call her Kay. We met in India, two American graduate students struggling to adapt in that fascinating and difficult country. We laughed at the challenges of being women alone in such a conservative culture. We thrilled at the beauty we saw around us and railed at the horrors. We talked—about everything. Fashion and philosophy. Men and sex. Careers and marriage and the price of guavas in the shop on the corner.

As our years in India drew to a close, I was accepted to New York’s Columbia University, where Kay was doing a doctorate. I was ecstatic. We talked about getting an apartment together, about how she’d show me Manhattan, about shopping trips and nights on the town.

But from the day I arrived in New York, things went wrong. To begin with, Kay backed out of our apartment plans with an excuse that was clearly made up. I swallowed my disappointment about that, but it was harder to hide my feelings when she began avoiding me. She turned down invitations to movies and concerts and even the free tickets I’d scored to a Broadway play. When I called, she was always studying or with company or just on her way out, and she never called back, not once. It took me months to admit to myself that Kay was snubbing me. When I finally did, I stopped calling, thinking she’d eventually come around. I never saw her again.

For months, I wondered what I had done wrong. Had I suddenly changed in some unpleasant way? Was I fine as a friend in faraway India, but not in hip New York? Maybe I’d complained too much about the men I was dating. But hadn’t I listened to her long and passionate laments? Wasn’t that what friends did?

Perhaps it wasn’t me at all. The following year, Kay took a new exotic first name, got married, and moved across the country. So maybe she was merely seeking a new life, and I was part of the old one she was discarding.

Whatever the reason, my pain was acute. And so, I wrote. Poems about betrayal. Stories about the importance of friends. Long, thoughtful essays about loss.

But to my astonishment, putting my feelings on paper didn’t assuage them. In fact, it made them worse. Writing brought my pain to the surface and turned the heat up on my anger. Every piece I finished left me drowning in self-pity and indignation.

Nothing I wrote was good anyway. Kay always ended up sounding demonic, and I came across as pathetic. I’d always believed in the healing power of writing. But now, when I needed it, it was failing me.

Then one day, I sat down to my typewriter and wrote about the time Kay and I went to the silver market in Delhi. I described how foolishly we tried to haggle. About how we were stared at, two American 20-somethings in a place we didn’t belong. About the searing heat that day, and the glimmering bracelets we brought home. There was nothing in my piece about pain or anger. Why should there be? The end of a friendship doesn’t erase the good times, any more than a cruel divorce negates the happy years of a marriage.

And there it was. That healing balm. The sense of ease and joy that can shine through grief when it’s least expected.

Writing to heal doesn’t always mean venting anger, expressing sadness, or seeking answers. Sometimes, it’s not about describing pain, but about setting it aside. Writing can heal us in many ways. One of those ways is by turning our attention away from pain and reminding us of what was beautiful.