How Writing Healed Me in Ways Therapy Didn’t
Freelance writer Jaclyn Greenberg shares the ways writing has healed her in ways that therapy didn’t (and perhaps just couldn’t).
Almost 13 years ago, my middle son was born with multiple disabilities because I caught a virus when I was pregnant. His birth and diagnosis were sudden and shocking, and before my son was out of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), I had agreed to weekly therapy sessions. I talked with my therapist about my anxiety, my guilt, my worries about my son’s health and his future, and the stress of juggling his needs along with the rest of my family.
Therapy was an important step in helping me understand my feelings, get on the same page as my husband, and carve out time to process everything. Yet, even after a decade of weekly sessions, I still felt isolated, helpless, and invisible in my community. I was able to function and feel good when I was with my husband and children, but extended family and friends didn’t realize the intensity of how much my life had changed, people in town didn’t know how to include my son, and I felt like neither my son, nor I, were truly seen.
As a former tax accountant turned stay-at-home mom, I had never used writing as an outlet, but I wanted to learn how to express my thoughts in a way that would make it easier to connect with others. So, I signed up for a local memoir writing class.
At first, writing was a way of sharing my memories with a small circle of people. I replayed the moments that changed me and wrote them down in a very raw way. During class, I read about the day my son was born sick via emergency C-section after a routine ultrasound, the intense five weeks he spent in the NICU gaining strength, the day the neurologist told me my son wouldn’t walk or talk, and the many times people ignored my son or offered suggestions of how I should “fix” him—moments taught me how ableism would forever impact my family.
Reading my stories out loud in a supportive environment where I received encouraging feedback was liberating and forced me to see my life through someone else’s eyes. Listening to the other people in class read their stories and share similar feelings of isolation or fear, even if they were due to very different circumstances, made me feel less alone.
One memoir class led to another, and within the next couple of years, I was publishing articles about caregiving, parenting, disability, and inclusion.
The more I wrote, the better I got at flipping feelings of frustration into constructive stories that gave me a voice. For example, I wrote about how I learned to reconnect with friends, how I modified my home and van for my son’s wheelchair, and how my husband and I keep our marriage happy with so many daily pressures weighing on us both.
Writing the timeline of who I was when my son was born and the moments that taught me how to advocate for him helped me understand myself as I grew from an introverted tax accountant to an outspoken disability advocate.
Over the years, between therapy and writing, the strong feelings I had after my son was born have dulled. I can still summon them, especially when I experience an injustice that triggers my need to protect and speak up for my son and my family. But learning how to concisely write my story helped me understand those moments better and create solutions rather than drown in fear and worry.
Because of my writing, I now have a network of resources, that includes writers I’ve met during class and online, parents I connected with on social media and educators and caregivers, therapists and disability advocates I’ve interviewed for stories. These people make up a worldwide community I tap into when I need guidance or when I want to share an idea.
Writing has given me a voice and a way to channel negative energy into positive change.
Today, I still see my therapist. During our sessions, we talk about family dynamics, especially since my three kids are now tweens and teens. I share photos of our accessible family vacations and talk about balancing parenting responsibilities with my husband and finding time for self-care. We brainstorm story ideas and topics I want to research that might make good articles. Lately, I’ve been wanting to write about why we carry so much mother’s guilt and how my children taught me to be adventurous.
Therapy taught me how to identify, understand, and reconcile my feelings during the tough times in my life. Writing allowed me to turn those feelings into art, share them with people all over the world, and make a difference in the disability community.
