October Journaling Prompts: Making Art a Medium for All

Can we tell stories that don't start with suffering? Can good art transport us on a joyful journey? Can I be a good writer--in the ways that feel real and true and visceral--without being a martyr?

---

Last week my therapist blew my mind.

I was talking to her about how I’m at this juncture in my work where I feel like I don't know exactly what I'm doing anymore.

if you’re more of a visual person, here’s a reel I posted on my instagram about our conversation:

rachel_havekost

A post shared by @rachel_havekost

In many ways, sharing my mental health story publicly has been a double-edged sword.

For four years, I've been writing about mental health—specifically, telling stories during some of the darkest moments of my life in hopes of honoring the reality of living with mental illness.

I’ve written a memoir about my eating disorder and divorce, written blog posts on Substack, Medium, and my website about suicidal depression, sexual trauma, and grief, and done my best to create safe spaces on Instagram and TikTok for people to feel less alone in their lived experiences.

Last week I did an interview with the eating disorder program I attended, The Emily Program, about the experience of writing about my mental health (as soon as that’s live I’ll share it!). The interviewer asked, “how has writing/sharing your story contributed to your healing?”

I told her that revisiting the most traumatic events of my life, not once, but multiple times was devastating.

“The pain of recalling how I fell in love with my ex-husband while simultaneously grieving our marriage sent me down a spiral of confusion and doubt. It absolutely exacerbated my grief process and made it difficult to accept reality and let go.”

I was basically living inside the past for a year--the good and bad. It was a firsthand lesson in how living in the past is not an effective way to heal: it kept me stuck, resentful, angry, sad, and lost. 

“On the other hand,” I told her, “sharing my story made me feel incredibly connected to other people experiencing similar pain. The more I shared, the less alone I felt.”

The less alone I felt, the less shame I felt for who I was. I was human, just like everyone who said "me too" to something I'd written.

I no longer have anything to hide: I'm an imperfect person, and life is untamable. I'm comfortable with that now.

So why have I felt so UNcomfortable in my work as a mental health writer and advocate for almost a year?

My ex-husband once told me, “I’m worried that if you start writing about your mental health you’ll always be unwell in order to have something to write about.”

This comment fucked me up and stopped me from writing until we finally got divorced. Because in many ways, I believed him.

For the first time in years, I feel mentally and emotionally stable. And in this space, I have felt at a loss for what to share and what to write about. Was he right? Can I not write about mental health unless I’m unwell? Do I have to be suffering to make good art?

I wrote more about fearing what it meant to be well in the post below. It’s interesting to reflect back on this story only a month later and see that “being well” conjured up a fear of being void of emotion, when in reality, my emotional void was a resistance to the joy and peace I’ve been feeling. I’m discovering more and more how I haven’t allowed myself to feel joy, and in that resistance, I numb my feelings the same way I used to numb my grief or sorrow or fear. Funny, how the mind and body resists what isn’t familiar.

---

I'm scared I'm dead inside

---

For the last four years I have come back to my ex-husband’s comment in times of stability.

When I’m well, my creative juices feel dry and my passion stale.

“Now that you’re stable,” Ellen Barry, who is covering the story of my recent trip to Harvard’s Mental Health Creator’s Summit for the New York Times recently asked me, “how has your writing been?”

“Fucking AWFUL!” We both laughed.

“The thing is, I feel great,” I told her. “Present. Joyful. Yeah I get stressed and anxious and scared and hate rejection and all those human things, but it’s manageable now. I have tools for living and a different perspective along the way. And right now I feel like my writing sucks, because I don’t have anything to work though, and that’s been the crux of my art for so long.

“It’s got me thinking A LOT about the idea of martyrdom and artistry—because in a way art is a neccessary vehicle for us to make sense of our pain. It helps us transform suffering into meaning. It helps us alchemize absolute shit into something tolerable. It’s how we show up vulnerably, publicly, and bravely to say look, I don’t have it all figured out, but perhaps you’ll see yourself in me, and together, we can find comfort in what could be, in what is, and all that’s unknown.”

Photo by Diana Fernandes on Unsplash

To make good art, do I have to be a martyr?

These are the questions I’ve been mulling on for months.

Do all good stories come from suffering? Is that all art is? Alchemizing pain, making meaning, and trying to connect with others in our darkest despair?

I’m coming to the realization, or perhaps belief, that no—that’s not all art is.

Art, I’m deciding, is everything.

Art is making sense of our pain and finding hope.
Art is mixing colors and changing shapes to tell our own stories.
Art is re-writing the past or reclaiming it through melody, coming closer to the truth and then exposing it to stranger’s eyes who witness their own stories on the canvas.
Art is turning small moments of joy into sweeping soundscapes and theatrical narratives that bend the mind and ignite imagination.
Art is playing with life so that we come back to our childlike wonder.

Art is not a sacrifice, it’s a medium.

And if we use the channel fully, we can transport anything and everything from one end to another.

This is how I find myself now—on one end of a tunnel, stable, joyful, and well, reminding myself I am allowed to walk through with this story. That as I paint the inside walls and hear the echo of my voice in the chambers, I am still making art.

October Journaling Prompts: Making Art a Medium for All

If you are a creative person, identify as an artist, or are simply at a juncture in your recovery/healing journey where you’re noticing a shift from pain to pleasure (and perhaps some resistance in that transition), October’s journaling prompts will invite you out of martyrdom and into creative play.

Away from a sacrificial lens where art is only a vehicle for transmuting pain, and towards an expansive lens where art is a vehicle for communicating life’s rich and vast experiences.

Let’s dive in.

Monthly Journaling Prompts are a special feature for paid subscribers. If you’d like to check out this month’s prompts and past posts before committing, you can do a free trial by clicking the button below.

Thank you for your support—writing about mental health has been deeply satisfying, terrifying, healing, and inspiring. Without your support we would not have made it this far in de-stigmatizing so many real, human experiences. THANK YOU.