Motivations for Writing: A Retrospective

My last post was heavy in plot. Sometimes I wonder if my entries with plots are more engaging than those without or with little. I wonder about my posts with heavy descriptions too. Are they more pleasant to read? It's such a tricky endeavor, trying to please my current audience and attract a new one at the same time.

This reminds me that I am also the audience. When I try to figure out if I have written my posts well and engagingly, I am really asking myself if I would like to read this. I wonder more if I would enjoy the prose than the content. I think everyone lives a life worth writing about, although less introspective and observant people will likely have more trouble getting the words out, at least in a way that will accurately convey what they are trying to say.

Lately I've been wondering about what compels me to write what I write in here. A lot of it, especially when I am feeling awful and describing that experience, I write because I want a reaction. I get that through comments. It's support. I get that in my personal life from my loving family and friends, but I simply can't express my feelings and ideas as well through speaking as I can through writing. I need to have words in front of me. It helps me organize my thoughts and remember what I said seconds earlier. Also, writing helps me think. Whether it's an essay for school, a letter to a friend or a post in here, I seldom know what I'm trying to say when I start writing. Then everything comes to me when I start typing or handwriting.

I think it's partly the physical act of writing. A thought comes into my head. Then I think it again as I type. That repetition of thought keeps me from forgetting what it is. I'm just thinking of whatever words I'm currently typing. One thought -- one sentence -- at a time. This allows for a focus and concentration that I can't get with thinking alone. Writing makes thinking more manageable. Also, I tend to think too much. Part of my introspective nature, I suppose. Writing helps me put that thought away so I can focus on other things.

But back to my reasons for writing here. I've had a bunch of illnesses and disability issues in my 24 years. Why did I decide to start writing about it all in November? Why not earlier? I think it was a culmination of things. It seemed like all of my friends were moving out and getting grown-up jobs. This made me resent my current health situation because I had finished university like they had, but was not moving forward like they were because I was sick.

Because my balance and fatigue issues had worsened, I was reflecting on provisions that had been made for me at school as a kid due to these issues or at least to concerns for my safety. Writing in this blog was my way of trying to understand these provisions which, for the first time in my life, I felt I needed.

Blogging helped me come to terms with the effect of my health and disability on my childhood and it also helped me deal with the reality that I will likely have to tailor my personal and professional lives to whatever my body needs. Many times here, I have shared my fears that stem from the invisibility and unpredictability of my issues: Do people think I'm faking symptoms? Am I imagining some of this? In here I have expressed my gratitude that I have medical evidence like a CT scan to remind myself and others that this is real.

Writing in here helped me realize that I was in denial about my issues. They're mild issues in the disability world, especially because they are intermittent, but they're still a part of me. I struggle sometimes. I felt that writing more about it here would help me get comfortable telling people when I was struggling and asking for help if I needed it, being okay with having some difficulties or needing breaks or needing to opt out of things if I didn't feel up to it. The truth is that I still have trouble telling people I'm having a hard time or need to take a break.

I have so many questions about my health issues and I suppose I naively thought I could answer them through writing here.