Expressive Writing & Its Power To Heal After Trauma
An examination of how I use expressive writing to process difficult experiences & connect with others.
Do you ever wonder if anyone will bother to read your work? Have you ever asked yourself, How does this even matter to someone else?
If you’ve ever thought, This is too personal…too specific…too unrelatable to share, I want to tell you something.
I think of these things (and more) every damn day, and yet I keep on sharing because
a) writers have done this for centuries and have helped me feel less alone, and
b) I feel more able to manage my life when I process it through writing.
And, as I was recently reminded, we just never know when the piece we need to write may eventually resonate with someone else.
Two weeks ago, I received an email from a woman I’d never met, in which she referred to an essay I published nearly two years ago about the death of my estranged father.
With the writer’s permission, I’m sharing her words here:
Dear Christine,
I wanted to reach out to thank you for writing your essay about your father and his passing. I know that it must have been very difficult to parse through and express something so deeply personal.
I lost my father recently and I have been struggling with the complexities and contradictions of his life and our relationship. More than anything else I have read, and I have read a good bit on the subject, your essay has given me a great deal of understanding and peace.
I just wanted you to know how much you sharing your story did for someone else in a similar situation. Thank you more than words can say.
Kindest,
J
I’m grateful to know my words touched someone searching for understanding.
When I wrote that piece in July of 2021, I’d set out to make sense of an unfathomable relationship, and to pull my overwhelming memories out of my head so I could put them, well, somewhere else. I didn’t write that piece for anyone else. I wrote it for my own healing.
It was definitely a painful piece to write — one that I wanted to give up on many times. In fact, I could only work on it for short chunks of time, 20-30 minutes max. My heart just couldn’t take more than that.
My father had always been an enigma, someone I both adored and feared. After years of estrangement, I learned from someone else about his death in 2010. In many ways, a door had already been closed, yet in other ways, the door was now finally shut. Coming to terms with that unnamed space between those doors was what I struggled with most, and that’s when I turned to my pen, hoping to name — and work through — my unclear feelings and begin to heal.
It seems I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, this work of documenting my life, moving painful thoughts out of my body — first by rubbing lead and ink onto the cellulose fibers of my childhood journals, then eventually, as I’m doing now, tapping my fingers on plastic computer keys — all in a quest for understanding.
For me, writing has never been a conscious choice, but rather an instinct, and, to be honest, a compulsion.
If I don’t have a chance to write each day, I get squirrely (and that’s a kind term), irritable, and flooded with emotions. When I don’t write, my thoughts and feelings often build up and overwhelm me. Writing slows down my active mind and helps me reframe my racing thoughts. Writing is my coping mechanism, the one I use to try to make sense of this unpredictable world. I may not always figure things out by the end of a session writing, but I always feel a bit more steady and grounded. Why? Maybe because, through the act of writing, I’ve given myself some agency — in other words, a voice — and that’s an incredibly powerful thing.
Did I become a writer because someone handed me a diary at the age of seven and suggested I try journaling? Maybe. Would I have found writing on my own, without that push? Maybe. Do I tend to confess my feelings on the page because I was raised a Roman Catholic? Unlikely, but maybe (and I’ve lapsed as a catholic, in case you’re curious). As you can see, in the act of writing this paragraph, I’m working through some unanswerable questions. The important thing to note is that, while I don’t solve my three questions, I use writing as a tool to make peace with them, at least for now. While I don’t answer the questions about why I became a writer, I’ve considered some possible reasons and documented them, knowing that, perhaps one day, I’ll come back to them for further consideration and even build upon their concepts. As such, writing leaves me with a strong sense of hope, as well as opportunities to consider matters in new and different ways.
And, I’ve only recently learned there is actual science behind the act of expressive writing.
We Can Write To Heal
American social psychologist James Pennebaker grew up in a small oil town in Texas and later described his mother as having been somewhat of a hypochondriac. Curious about why people got sick, Pennebaker wondered if it was because they kept secrets. His research in the 1980s focused on the health consequences of secrets. Pennebaker has studied and researched the link between language and trauma recovery and has been recognized by the American Psychological Association as an expert on trauma, disclosure, and health.
In his groundbreaking 1986 study on expressive writing, Pennebaker, a pioneer of writing therapy, asked university students to write. Some were asked to write about superficial subjects. Others were encouraged to write about the most traumatic, upsetting event in their lives. His instruction to that group went something like this:
For the next four days, I would like you to write your very deepest thoughts and feelings about the most traumatic experience of your entire life, or an extremely important emotional issue. You might tie your topic to other parts of your life: your childhood, your relationships with others, your past, present or future. All of your writing is confidential. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar or sentence structure. The only rule is that once you begin writing, you continue until the time is up.
Then, Pennebaker tracked his subjects’ behavior. He found that those who wrote about their most traumatic and difficult life events reduced their visits to the university health center by more than 50%. Astounded by the results, he (and, over the years, others) ran versions of the test again and again, and in a multitude of ways, yet the results didn’t change. In fact, they amassed volumes of evidence proving that the act of expressive writing, while often painful as it happens, results in profound and positive outcomes, including:
Decreased anxiety, blood pressure, depression, muscle tension, pain, and stress
Enhanced lung and immune function
Improved memory, sleep quality, and social life
Increased grades and work performance
Think about this for a second. Expressive writing has the power to change our lives for the better.
Through the years, Pennebaker also discovered the importance of finding new ways to tell our stories.
While it’s very common to replay events — particularly traumatic events — on a mind’s endless loop, Pennebaker found that subjects tended to move in more healthy, positive directions when they wrote about difficult subjects from different and/or new perspectives. For example, Pennebaker encouraged his subjects to write from an “I” perspective, then shift towards the third person (“she”, “he”, “they”), then switch back to using “I”. This shift in perspective was a key factor in helping subjects process their most painful memories.
I know from experience that writing about a painful subject from different angles and perspectives is life-changing.
My Experience with Writing To Heal
On March 10, 1993, nearly thirty years ago, I survived a fatal Amtrak crash in Michigan. I was 24 years old.
I didn’t speak of or write about my experience for 22 years. I regularly had flashbacks and often got sick. During those two decades, I constantly went to doctors who rarely found causes for my various aches and pains. Despite access to excellent health care, the journey was expensive and frustrating.
In my mind, when the train accident happened, that was that. I’d been relieved that my boss and I walked off the burning wreckage without a physical scratch. In the immediate days after the collision, I read in the newspaper that one person had died, but I never knew what happened to anyone else. In those days, there was no Internet available to me to Google the crash, just a tiny blurb buried deep in the newspaper. Still, my mind never stopped the loop of sensory events:
— the horn
— the muffled crash and being thrown from my seat
— the flames
—the silence
— my screams
— the look on other people’s faces
— the movie of my life playing through my mind, certain I was about to die
— the news crews meeting us outside the burning train
— smelling of propane from the truck driven by a man who’d died at the scene as we conducted a client meeting later that day for work
For years, I couldn’t bear getting near a railroad crossing or hearing a train horn or smelling propane or being in small, narrow, tube-like spaces like minivans or planes or the tube slides at Chuck E Cheese with my kids. All of those environments triggered and overwhelmed me with disorganized, painfully intense memories. Looking back, they were just too much for my mind to handle, so I protected myself by shoving down my mixed-up feelings. I felt crazy, and I didn’t realize this was PTSD.
To make matters worse, since I’d also experienced childhood trauma, it’s likely that after the train accident, I was actually suffering from what’s now understood to be Complex-PTSD, or C-PTSD. I was distrustful of almost everything and everyone, especially myself.
Here’s how my mind worked in those days:
I’d think to myself: The accident’s over. I walked away without a scratch, so why does this keep coming up?
I’d beat myself up for dwelling, for not having control of my thoughts, for being dramatic, difficult, emotional, and sensitive. I had no idea I was having flashbacks. I just thought I had annoying, oddly-timed memories. I had no idea that what I’d been through was officially considered an acute, traumatic event. I had no idea how important it was to process trauma, let alone how to do it.
Those memories, however, were so strong — almost like little seizures, freezing my muscles and my mind into place, even for a few seconds, pulling me back with such force into days long past. It felt at times annoying, unnerving, and always out of my control.
Then, in 2015, I finally decided to write about it. I was a freelance columnist for the Chicago Tribune, on deadline for a story but without a clue about what I’d write about.
There’s a common saying among writers: “Write what you know.”
Well.
I knew how upsetting my memories of the crash were, and I knew I was curious about its specific details.
So, with the help of the Internet by then, I opened open the door I’d tried to keep closed-and-padlocked for more than two decades.
I couldn’t even remember when the crash had happened, so I started out by researching the facts. What year was it? What month?
What gave me pause immediately was the timing: when I sat down to write that column, it was March of 2015. The crash happened 22 years earlier, in March 1993. At this point, I was riveted. This was the anniversary month of the event? Was it a coincidence that I felt compelled to write about it then? This was my first flash of making meaning of my trauma.
I then wanted to know exactly where the crash happened. On the day of the accident, we’d left Union Station in Chicago bound for Battle Creek, Michigan, but where along the route had the collision occurred?
How many people were on the train with me?
How many cars?
What was the weather like?
What time of day was it?
I had no memories of any of these details. Up until this point, the only thing my mind could process were the sensory aspects of the crash.
I was about to help myself change that narrative.
After researching for a couple of hours, I finally sat down to write. I did so for about twenty minutes, and I kept my phrases short, almost clinical in tone. Just the facts, just to get them all out of me.
At the time I wrote my piece, I regularly wrote about community-based issues — store openings, school matters, civic leadership, etc. — so this one was a clear departure for me.
Though I wasn’t yet emotionally capable of diving deeply into my feelings about the crash, I gave myself permission to write the piece quickly and just for me, knowing I could decide later if it was worth sharing with my editor.
What’s fascinating is that it’s a piece anchored by numbers — and I’m not even a numbers person. I have something called dyscalculia — a persistent difficulty understanding numbers. And yet, by focusing on a language (numbers) that I’m uncomfortable with, I was able to write this piece in under 30 minutes.
Let me tell you something. After I typed the last words of that column, I sat back in my chair and wept like I’d never wept before. The relief I felt, staring at my computer screen and seeing those words in front of my eyes instead of behind them, changed me forever.
No longer was I running that confusing movie in my head of a train crashing into a propane truck. I’d learned new details that I discovered through some research, then offloaded them onto a page. I felt like a new person. I sent my column to my editor, and it was published the following week.
Having written that first piece, I felt less triggered and more confident thinking about the crash. It’s not like the memories went away. Rather, they felt less intense and less in control of me.
To be sure, expressive writing is not easy. There is pain in this type of writing. It’s a process. It’s a journey. It’s layered. And yet, it presents an incredible opportunity to build and heal. I said it before: the practice of writing offers hope.
In December of 2017, an Amtrak derailed in Washington State, killing 6. When I saw the headline, my mind naturally flew back to the memories of my own crash in 1993. And so, I turned to the practice of expressive writing to help me sort through my feelings on an even deeper level. This is what I wrote the following month, the second piece I wrote about my crash.
In it, there’s more detail than my first piece, more reflection, more action. And, the second piece is less about me. It’s also about many others who were there that day — those who survived, and the one who didn’t. It documents how I was in the process of taking further steps toward healing and understanding.
After I wrote that piece in January 2018, I heard from a family member of Amtrak engineer James Chiles, who’d driven the train I’d been on when it crashed. Chiles’s family expressed thanks for what I’d written, and we formed a meaningful connection.
Not long after that, I heard from Amtrak conductor Russell Dilday who’d also survived the accident. Speaking to him on the phone, I knew that Dilday, like few others on this earth, knew exactly what it felt like to rush through flames at 60 miles an hour. He knew what the screams sounded like. He knew what it felt like to be thrown through a train car. He’s also seen the movie of his life flash before his eyes, waiting for certain death.
Nearly two years later, on October 28, 2019, I heard from the truck driver’s son. I was absolutely stunned. James had been a child when his father, Nicholas, was killed in the Amtrak collision, and I’d been a 24-year-old passenger on the train that ended James’s father’s life. What a heartbreaking connection we have. What could I ever say to him except how sorry I was? James told me his door is always open if I want to connect in person. I hope someday we will.
Next month marks the 30-year anniversary of the crash, which happened on March 10, 1993. I’ve learned so much in these three decades. I’ve learned that life can change in an instant, that so much is really out of our control, and that, with the right tools — like expressive writing — we can and do reclaim the voices lost to trauma.
Expressive Writing and Trauma
According to James Pennebaker, here’s how expressive writing has served me:
Acknowledgment. What happened to me was a very, very big deal.
Using words, I’ve created structure and meaning around that event. By applying language to the out-of-control event I experienced, I created that which has served society for thousands of years: a story, with a beginning, middle, and end, one that helps to still my mind and quiet that endless, uncontrolled, unprocessed loop. Having written about my experience multiple times, I don’t have to think about it as much or keep trying to fit it into a framework that makes sense for my brain. Now it’s on page (or pages) that I can come back to if I want or let go of for now.
Through expressive writing, I’ve decreased my body’s inclination to obsess, creating a cascading effect of positive outcomes. As a result of writing about my traumatic event (and there are studies that back this up), I now sleep better, which helps my physical health, particularly my immune function. I’ve also experienced improved mental health, greater working memory, and improved social interactions since I’m now able to focus on relationships and less on pushing away thoughts of my traumatic event. Many who use expressive writing as a coping tool also find that they decrease their use of substances to still their minds.
What’s perhaps most important to note is that expressive writing need not be shared or published. Pennebaker went to great lengths to ensure his subjects’ anonymity and privacy, which, no doubt, contributed to their willingness to disclose personal secrets and information. I’ve found, however, that once I work through my feelings on the page, I’m left with such relief, clarity, and release that I’m often eager to share what I’ve learned. Maybe that’s the former teacher in me? Or the former catholic? Maybe. Maybe not.
BIG NEWS!!
In May, I’ll host the Write To Heal Retreat in Carefree, Arizona, a 5 day/4 night experience exploring the process of expressive writing. As we examine our memories on the page in this supportive, nurturing environment, surrounded by wellness professionals and experts familiar with trauma, I’ll have James Pennebaker’s research close at hand, reminding myself that, when we’re willing and ready, we can absolutely write to heal. To learn more about the event, or to stay in touch, reach out at www.christinewolf.com/contact.
Resources
Pennebaker JW, Susman JR. Disclosure of traumas and psychosomatic processes. Soc Sci Med. 1988;26(3):327-32. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(88)90397-8. PMID: 3279521.
Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2011). Expressive writing: Connections to physical and mental health. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 417–437). Oxford University Press.
Pennebaker, James W., and Joshua M. Smyth. Opening up by writing it down: How expressive writing improves health and eases emotional pain. Guilford Publications, 2016.
Pennebaker, J. W. (2018). Expressive Writing in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(2), 226–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617707315
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on expressive writing!
I started a Substack account called Rocky Point (Jordan.jankus.Substack.com) at the beginning of January. I can't say that the posts have been deeply expressive. They're more remembrances of a life lived with some stumbles along the way. I have been posting six times per week and this schedule is really making my 72 year old brain work. The rewards have been deeper sleep without disturbing dreams. I wouldn't describe the posts as revelatory, but I have been cleaning out my mental attic. It's getting more organized and my path isn't blocked with unmovable stacks of boxes.
Thanks for your writing!