Talking...my own personal, easily attainable therapy

Do you ever find yourself clinging to things that are therapeutic to you? Things that help dissipate the horrible *depression* feelings (or lack thereof) and make you feel more "normal" or "human" or "not mentally diseased"?

I do.

And the number one thing that I find to be therapeutic? Talking things out. For me, if I can express it verbally, whatever "it" happens to be, it always seems to leave my brain and let me focus on other things.

And the talking can happen with almost anyone... my mom, my friends, my counselor, and sometimes, yes, even strangers. Obviously I tell different sorts of things to different people, depending on how much I know them and how much I think they'll understand. Strangers obviously don't get the really detailed stuff that my close friends and family, or my counselor for that matter, would get.

But, all the same, talking about things has always been a sure means of therapy for me. And I've found that talking to strangers...that is, people who don't know me or my situation well...is someone incredibly therapeutic at times. That's one reason I like counselors so much. They are strangers when you first go see them. They know nothing about you, and they are not in any way connected with your personal life. What's great about counselors is that even after they get to know you, they still are completely separate from your personal life, so in some ways, it's always like talking to a stranger...because they aren't connected to your life except for that hour every other week when you sit for a chat.

I should clarify here...because as I read over this post, it kinda sounds like I'm saying that I like chatting up random people about my life and my issues and whatever. That's not true at all. I define "stranger" in this case to mean someone I don't know very well, but whom I'm comfortable with. Like a friend of a friend, or someone. They get the title stranger because I haven't known them quite long enough to dub them "acquaintances" but they're most likely on their way to getting that distinction.

And these kinds of strangers are very therapeutic to talk with. About life, about ideas, about anything. Usually I don't get so far as to tell them I've got depression (reference former post about the taboo on depression in our society), but I talk about things that are linked to my depression...sort of selectively letting them in on bits of knowledge about me. Not too much, but just enough to be therapeutic for me, and keep up an interesting conversation with the person.

Hmmh, I feel like I'm rambling in this post. Not the kind of writing that I like...because I feel like I'm going nowhere, and only saying things to say them. However, in saying that talking is therapeutic for me, this blog also counts. I used to journal all the time, and my style of writing is to write as if I'm talking to someone. But a journal is never really read...and my hand always got cramped because I write a lot. (I also went through so many notebooks, it was getting a little ridiculous!) But here in my blog, I am actually talking to real people. Albeit, people I probably will never meet...*real* strangers, if you will. But nonetheless, I'm talking to someone as I write this. And so it's therapeutic for me because I'm verbalizing it. Putting it all to words and sending it out into the world, because that's all talking is, right?

I guess I have to wonder WHY talking is so therapeutic for me. What is it about verbal expression that makes me feel more at ease once I've done it? I said earlier that it's like the words pull the issue out of my brain as they leave my mouth (or in this case, my fingertips and keyboard). But I think it's gotta be more than just that. There's something amazingly wonderful to me about talking out problems and little issues...no matter how serious or not they actually turn out to be... And I'm so curious now as to WHY THAT IS.........