The Emotional Cost of Writing What Hurts—And Why I Still Do It
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There’s a certain kind of silence that follows writing about grief, anxiety, or death. Not the peaceful kind. The hollow kind. The kind that settles in your chest after you’ve poured something raw onto the page—and you sit there, wondering if you’ve said too much, or not enough.
Writing what hurts is hard.
Not in the “I can’t find the right word” way, but in the “this feels like ripping something open that was trying to heal” kind of way.
And yet—I keep doing it.
Why write about the things we’d rather avoid?
Because they’re not avoidable. (And I’ve been avoiding my emotions for far too long.)
We will all experience loss. We’ll all face our mental health. We’ll all confront aging, menopause, money struggles, mortality, or the thousand quiet fears that live under the surface of everyday life. And for many people, those moments come without a guide.
Writing gives us the chance to light the path. Not to fix or sanitize it—but to make someone feel less alone inside it.
That’s why I write stories about death and grief and mental overload. Why I draw illustrations that whisper humor or hope beside hard truths. Why I keep saying yes to projects about end-of-life care or the tangled mess of financial shame.
Because I remember what it felt like to need those words and not have them.
The toll it takes (and how I manage it)
There are days when writing this kind of content leaves me emotionally depleted. This happened many times while I wrote Life on the Road. When the research hits too close to home. When the fictional scene mirrors something unresolved in my own life. When the character’s experiences are just too devastating.
When the silence after I hit publish feels like a void.
Here’s what helps:
Rituals. Lighting a candle before I write. Taking a walk afterward. Creating small containers to open and close the emotional energy. Taking a bath. Taking a nap.
Boundaries. I can write about painful topics without bleeding on the page. I’ve learned the difference between being honest and being exposed.
Perspective. When someone tells me they saw themselves in my words, or finally understood something that had been haunting them—that’s the reminder I need.
Writing what hurts is an act of hope
It says: here is my truth, shaped into something you can hold. It says: this pain is survivable. It says: even in the darkness, we can make meaning.
So yes, it costs me something to write what hurts.
But it gives something back, too.
It gives me connection—with readers, clients, and strangers who reach out to say, “I thought I was the only one.”
It gives me clarity—a way to make sense of things I’m still unraveling inside myself. Often, the writing shows me what I didn’t know I needed to see.
It gives me permission—to be human, to be imperfect, to write through the mess without needing to fix it first.
It gives me courage—because once something has a name, it has less power over me.
And sometimes, it gives me healing—not a quick fix, but a kind of slow stitching that comes from naming the wound and honoring it with care.
That’s the secret no one tells you about writing what hurts:
It’s not just about helping others feel seen.
It’s about letting yourself be seen too.
And that, in the end, is why I’ll keep doing it.
