Journey with Journaling: Jotting down thoughts a pressure valve, creative outlet for some

Two years ago, 17-year-old Humberto Zavala was in a dark place.

The PSJA Memorial High School senior had problems interacting with people. If someone made him mad, he solved the issue with his fists. If he disagreed with teachers, he’d let them know in confrontational ways.

“I used to be the one who had a lot of pride,” he said. “I didn’t know how to swallow it at the time.”

While angry, Zavala said he saw no other solutions — until he discovered journal writing.

“One day, I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “I picked up a pen and started writing. I showed it to my coach (PSJA Memorial boy’s track coach Israel Garza), and he said, ‘I think you’ve got something here.’”

Journals — also known as diaries for traditionalists — help people around the world find an outlet for feelings and creativity. Some of the world’s most influential people have kept journals, from Christopher Columbus to Charles Darwin.

Teens use journals just as much as adults do, with perhaps a greater need. Holocaust victim Anne Frank famously kept a diary while hiding from the Nazis during World War II, in which she recorded daily occurrences as well as her feelings. While teens today live in a very different world from Frank, they still use their journals to cope with the world around them.

“The teenage years are a tough time, and you’re very insecure,” said Joan R. Neubauer, author of The Idiot’s Guide to Journaling and Dear Diary: The Art and Craft of Keeping a Creative Journal. “You don’t want to say or do the wrong thing for fear of ridicule. A diary is the place to get acceptance.”

Zavala records many things in his journal. Sometimes the entries talk about his day; other times, they include song lyrics, poetry or doodles.

“Sometimes I get pretty bored and go off topic,” he said. “I’ll doodle, and my friends are like, ‘What’s that?’ And I’m like, ‘They’re just stupid pictures.’ I can’t really draw.”

Journal writing can begin at any age. Ana Garcia, a sixth grader at Cathey Middle School in McAllen, began writing in her journal, which she named “Anastasia,” when she was six years old. Her topics range from holidays and birthdays to “when I’m mad or sad,” and she sometimes draws pictures to represent how she feels.

“I just wanted to express my feelings in a way that was my own private space,” she said. “When I didn’t feel like talking, I’d just talk to my diary and write stuff down.”

With the Internet’s wide accessibility, more and more teens have turned to using web journals and blogs to record their innermost thoughts and feelings. Some teens use Web sites like Xanga, which has the exclusive purpose of providing free blogs to anyone who creates a profile on the site. Others create blogs on other social networking Web sites, like MySpace. Both Xanga and MySpace have the option of making blog postings public or private.

Zavala said he utilizes both ink and keyboard to record his thoughts and feelings. On a regular basis, he writes in a notebook. If he doesn’t have his notebook, he sometimes types his frustrations on a computer and saves them to a floppy disk. He also keeps a MySpace blog. Zavala usually reserves his blog for something he thinks “needs to be out there” or should be read.

“I know a few people who are writing with pen and paper, and some who use the Internet,” he said. “I know some that use both. I tend to write more than I type out on the Internet, but some people would turn to the Internet. That’s why we have blogs and web journals.”

Occasionally, personal blogs achieve cult celebrity for their writers, Neubauer said. Like adults, teen bloggers sometimes find themselves with a growing list of admirers.

“It’s not for personal use anymore,” she said. “Some people have an online journal that’s so popular they have a regular fan following. Maybe somebody is restoring an old car, and they’re putting up journal pages about it and blogging all the things they’re doing to restore the car, and they have fans. It’s really interesting,”

Computers and the Internet have become a way “to get emotional human feedback and support,” she said, with teens using blogs as a way to reach out to others. At the same time, however, most are like Zavala in that they also keep more private journals.

“I find that people that have those kinds of journals have a personal journal that they keep for themselves,” she said.

Journals mean different things to their keepers, and give them different kinds of satisfaction. Garcia, who took a creative journaling course last summer, said journaling helps on the occasions she can’t talk to a friend or parent.

“I just feel sometimes that maybe they won’t understand, that I just need to write it down instead of talking to someone,” she said. “They might take it in another way that I don’t think is the correct way, so I just write it in my journal.”

For Zavala, his journal is his medium for creativity — he either wants to be a musician or a writer, he said, and his journal lets him practice writing. But more importantly, the journal is an escape.

“I lose myself in writing,” he said. “I’m in my own little world. I feel like no one can touch me.”

Garcia said more teens should use journals to de-compress.

“It really helps if you don’t have anyone there for you to just blow off steam,” she said.

Zavala said journal writing has helped turn his life around, from the classroom to his personal life. Knowing what journaling has done for him, he thinks it can have the same effect on other teens.

“A lot of people in this world have emotion and don’t write about it,” he said. “I think that everyone our age should be doing something like that in their life.”

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Kate Lohnes covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4427. For this and other local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.