# Putting feelings into words produces therapeutic effects in the brain



## Modest Me (Feb 23, 2008)

Dear Papa,

I like to think that you and I are the oddballs in our family- the only people we are like are each other. 
I've always had a unibrow: I know as a girl, its ultra-embarrassing. I've always plucked it, and never thought twice about it. Then one day, I was looking through the baby pictures of everyone in the family, and I noticed that no one else had a unibrow. I asked around about which family member I had got it from, and no one could tell me. I accepted it for the longest that it was just some freak thing, like it wasn't something that got passed down, it was just something *I* had. Then I found a picture of you taken when you were in the army back in the day, and what do you know? You had a unibrow. Its makes me smile just thinking about it. I've always hoped that none of my kids will ever get the unibrow- to save them from embarrassment- but now, (it sounds funny to say) I really hope they do. Even if they pluck it away like I do, I just want them to share that with us.
The oddballs.

I remember one day I was looking through all your photo albums, I noticed that page after page was just filled with pictures of me. I asked, "Why are so many pictures of just me?" Mama told me that you had put those albums together. Just the way that those albums were put together showed how much you loved me. I cried when she told me that (only for like a minute though, I didn't want to explain why I was crying to her). You were still there that day (physically, the Alzheimer's had already taken over). All I can think now is, why the crap didn't I just run to you, and hug you and tell you that I love you too, with all of my heart? But I know, I was just too sad, and I didn't want to face it all. Its the same reason I didn't come to see you the day that you died.

I cry every time I think about you. You'd think that after all this time, I'd let it go, but I can't. There are just so many things left unsaid. All the family drama thats happened since you left just makes me think about you more. I've tried my best to not let the recent tarnish of your family name effect my memory of you. I've always wished you were still here, but lately I've come to realize that maybe its better this way. I know if you were here, you would just get your heart broken along with the rest of us.

I know you love Mama, but every time I think about the day you died, I can't help but be angry at her. She made me feel so guilty about not visiting you that day. She told me that you asked for me, and that she felt bad for you, that I would rather sit home and watch tv than to see you. It may not have been a lie that you asked for me, but what kind of person lays all that baggage on a 11 or 12 year old? I've had such a hard time in my life since then, and I wouldn't be at all shocked if some future psychiatrist finds that everything boils down to my guilt from her.

I would give anything in my entire life to be able to just look at you and say that I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you. 

I hope that someday I'll see you again, and I'll get to say all this to you in person. But I hope, in some freak way, you can read this, or hear me thinking the words out in my head- and that you understand how I feel. I would never do anything to hurt you. I love you, Papa.


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## velo (Feb 23, 2008)

Very moving.  Thank you.  A couple grammatical errors but I'll be damned if I can remember them right now.


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## jacobworld (Feb 24, 2008)

nice one


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## Just Jim (Mar 15, 2008)

Beautiful, Modest Me. And well written.

I hope that the writing will bring you peace.

I believe that time is just something that we, the living, need.
Beyond time, perhaps he heard you.

Jim


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## Chessrogue (Mar 20, 2008)

"I like to think that you and I are the oddballs in our family- the only people we are like are each other."

Try something like...

"It's probably safe to say that you and I are the oddballs of the family. We're so alike sometimes that it's frightening!!"

I would recommend working on better sentence structure, but your story has a lot of feeling and you are correct in your observation that expressing oneself will create a dramatic effect on paper...


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## Olly Buckle (Mar 22, 2008)

When people are emotional they blame, placate, go robotic or talk about something else, they rarely level. Your mother's reaction seems unfortunate but human to me, losing a partner is an even more intense emotional experience than losing a parent in my experience, if there was ever a time she was entitled to lose the plot a little that was it.
  Literate, readable, structured, no niggles that I can spot.


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## kaytea111 (Mar 23, 2008)

very very touching
good job


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## lilacstarflower (Mar 23, 2008)

That was moving - could tell it came straight from the heart. Good job


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## Prof (Mar 26, 2008)

A moving piece.  I went through, no scratch that, only you went through what you did.  My own experience is my own.   We shared some feelings, but not all, for example I felt a lot of rage as the process went on.   I find wrtinng as you did here very cathartic.  You did it well, thank you


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## kaseyisrad (Mar 26, 2008)

good job. 
it was very touching.


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