Nora Ephron wrote her first novel, Heartburn, after discovering that her husband was cheating on her while she was pregnant with their second child. The main character at one point says she tells stories “Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.”

So, what are some ways to write yourself whole? You know better than I do, but here are a few ways to get started:

Write the childhood you wish you’d had.
Write the thing you wish you’d said.
Write the ending you wanted or want for your marriage, career, friendship, life.
Write who you’d be if you’d chosen to take that flight to San Francisco for a job instead of staying in D.C., or whatever that pivotal life decision was.
Write who you’d be if you’d said “yes” instead of “no.”
Write the Band-aid for the hole in your heart and psyche that haunt you.
Write your secret. Write your deepest longing. Write your starkest truth.
Write in a different voice than you’ve ever written before.
Do this not in journals or memoir but in fiction, in telling stories that give you the distance to have a better understanding of and more compassion for the person experiencing those things, making those choices, failing and flailing.

More here: https://writerunboxed.com/2023/12/13/write-your-way-whole/