{"id":4723,"date":"2014-03-31T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=4723"},"modified":"2014-03-30T20:39:34","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T03:39:34","slug":"ride-if-out-write-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4723","title":{"rendered":"Ride it out. Write it out"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other night I was up having one of my periodic nocturnal crying jags.
\nI tried to stay in bed and go back to sleep but eventually got up and wrote for a few hours. About the crying jag and the not sleeping. Maybe you read about it. <\/a><\/p>\n

After a few hours, I went back to bed. Just as I was falling asleep, I had a thought. It was cold in the house, and warm under the covers, so I didn’t particularly welcome the thought. It was 0400. I wanted to sleep, not think. I tried to cajole the thought into going away by telling it I’d remember to write it down when I woke up. The thought wasn’t going to fall for my pathetic tricks, so I grabbed the nearest electronic device and wrote it down so it would shut up and leave me alone. <\/p>\n

My technophiliac version of a scrawled note. <\/p>\n

It said:
\nRide it out=
\nWrite it out<\/p>\n

Since I wrote it on a keyboard, I could even read what it said the next day. The miracle of technology saves me from my own bad handwriting once again. <\/p>\n

I had just ridden out a bad spell by writing it out. It is what I do. Either ride things out or write them out. Or both. <\/p>\n

Some people can talk it out. I can’t do that. I am almost entirely literate and essentially non-verbal. Can you use literate like that? Verbally non-expressive, but able to write my feelings ? There must be a better word for it than that. I wonder what it is? I wonder what it is. Great. I am officially not only non-verbal but only marginally better equipped to express myself in writing. <\/p>\n

Regardless of what the word for expressing thoughts and feelings better in writing is, what I do if I am having a feeling or thought that is impacting me in some way is write about it. Writing about it helps me think about it more clearly. It helps me ride it out. <\/p>\n

If I just think about something, I am much more liable to fixate on it and get into a brain spin. Writing seems to put a bit of structure around it, whatever “it” is, and help me work it out instead of just inventing alternative scenarios until I can’t think of anything else. <\/p>\n

Writing helps me pinpoint what it is that is bothering me, but forces me to be relatively concise about it. I may not stop thinking about it completely after writing about something, but there’s a good chance that I’ll know myself and my feelings better. <\/p>\n

It might bring out unwelcome emotions in the short term while I’m writing, but long term it keeps me calmer. That is a huge help in letting go of what needs letting go, or figuring out what I want to do about something where a more concrete decision is in order. <\/p>\n

Where it’s most helpful, though, is with the kind of things where there is no right or wrong answer. Where it’s not a question of just making a decision but where there’s a situation I’m just struggling with mentally. When really, I just need to get my shit together and hang on. <\/p>\n

I am very good at hanging on, but I wouldn’t vouch for my level of sanity. <\/p>\n

If I can write it out, then there’s a very good chance I can ride out just about anything without going completely nuts. <\/p>\n

I’m still partially nuts. Nothing can fix that<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other night I was up having one of my periodic nocturnal crying jags. I tried to stay in bed and go back to sleep but eventually got up and wrote for a few hours. About the crying jag and the not sleeping. Maybe you read about it. After a few hours, I went back … Continue reading Ride it out. Write it out<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-1eb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4718,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4718","url_meta":{"origin":4723,"position":0},"title":"Talking to myself in the middle of the night","author":"Michelle","date":"March 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Wake up in the middle of the night crying. Not sure why. Maybe a bad dream. What actually woke me up is tears dripping. Sort of a disconcerting way to wake up. Physical symptoms of distress, but no clue as to what the distress is about. Try to comfort myself.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4348,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4348","url_meta":{"origin":4723,"position":1},"title":"What if?","author":"Michelle","date":"March 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Several weeks ago, I read Stephen King's book \"On Writing.\" To summarize his recommendations for would-be writers: Read and write a lot. The reading being as important as the writing. Know your grammar. Don't be afraid to edit. Heavily. Don't use many adverbs. Avoid the passive voice. When you're writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8960,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=8960","url_meta":{"origin":4723,"position":2},"title":"More than words?","author":"Michelle","date":"January 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything that goes into my mouth seems to make me fat, everything that comes out of my mouth embarrasses me. --Gabriel Garc\u00ed\u00ada M\u00e1rquez There are worse prisons than words. --Carlos Ruiz Zaf\u00f3n\/The Shadow of the Wind Last year I wrote over 168,000 words. 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Several.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6851,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6851","url_meta":{"origin":4723,"position":4},"title":"Don’t be afraid of the dark","author":"Michelle","date":"August 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Turn the lights on or you'll ruin your eyes! We paid the electric bill. You can turn some lights on. For as long as I can remember, people have been chastising me for my fondness for sitting around in the dark. My grandmother, my mother, Mark... 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