Stains.

I was just reading this interesting (and very well-written) post by @riverflows and somehow, it connected with something that was on my mind already and has been for some time. No, not childhood memories, good or bad, just memories in general. Experiences. And more particularly, the bad things that happen. Because everyone just loves telling you about the good. In her post, @riverflows says this

The knife might be sharp, but the typist and editor in you is sharper, and keener, and more clever.

And I love it, it's extremely well-put. There are things inside you just don't talk about, on or off the blockchain, things that don't make sense inside your mind and conclusions you don't know how or when you reached.

And something that's been a lot on my mind is catharsis. We keep telling ourselves that writing is cathartic, but is it? Depends what you mean, I suppose. Do you mean writing in general? Sure. Writing's great. But hey, I think I'd be pretty screwed if I thought otherwise, huh?

I do think stories and just you know, writing random things can get your mind off problems and overall help improve your mood. It's just, I'm not so sure about the other things. You know, the bad things, and specifically writing about them. We're told to write about it, to get it out of our systems. But what if there's no getting it out? What if some things are just inside you forever?

What if writing about it doesn't make it better?

We live in an age where we like to pretend there's a cure for everything. A neat little pill or a yoga class that will take it all away. But maybe some things just don't go away, you know? No matter how much you write them out. Like a stain.
And it will never come out and you know, but you keep rubbing at it, in the hope you're wrong.

So, I guess my question is, how long do you continue in this attempt to get rid of it? At what point do you accept you just have a stain?

Thing is, yeah, maybe it helps writing about the nasty shit you're going through. Maybe it is cathartic and a much-needed release. But maybe it's just being stuck somewhere, dwelling on the stain, instead of seeing the greater picture...

You know that old Warhol saying, so you have a stain, so what?

Maybe you don't need to write it out of you over and over. Maybe you just need to get the fuck over yourself.

So, how you dealing with your stains? Do you find writing helps? I'm honestly curious.