The Healing Power of Words: Writing Helped Save My Life In Prison

I lost it all.

My life. My identity. My career.

Money. Trust. Freedom.

I hurt the people I love. I took for granted the beauty of this world.

The beauty of freedom. The gift of choosing one’s own way.

Every day, pain coursed through my veins. Every day was darker than the one before it.

I wanted to die.

Every night, I prayed I would die in my sleep. Every morning, I was disappointed when my eyes would open to the dawn of a new day.

I was lost and did not know what to do. I was trapped in darkness. Suicide was my only light. Ending it would make this stop. It would make the darkness disappear.

I was on the edge.

Frantically grasping for anything to keep me from falling into the abyss. To take the vision of death away from every waking thought. I needed the darkness to go away.

A well-timed visit from my best friend of 30 years turned it all around.

I reached for a pen and paper. Every day, I would turn the spigot, and words poured out. The darker my world, the greater the stream.