Feelings, Feelings, what are they?

When I first started writing, it was due to depression and struggling to feel. I tried a diary and journalling but felt I was just complaining a lot without ever fully understanding what I was writing. However, from a young age, I always had a fascination with poetry and old English writing, so an idea occurred...

What if I used poetry as a way to express my feelings?

So I did just that, below is one of the first poems I wrote during a depressive phase:

Feelings, feelings what are they?

What’s their message? What do they portray?

I feel nothing good- only the bad,

Like feelings lost and forever mad,

Is this normal or is it me?

How do I change what I cannot see?

I feel so much confusion but 'I'm always strong',

It’s the only way I know, or is this wrong?

So many questions to ponder and ask,

But no answers to help with the task.

Feelings, feelings what are they?

Why must you make me lose my way,

I’m not in tune and block them out,

Logic is my only shout.

Feelings, feelings you pointless things,

Hate is all it brings.

.....

As you can tell it wasn't a good time for me, I was running from trauma and a bad childhood of abuse and trying to navigate the world around me without letting any of this show. I was like a broken doll constantly wearing a mask of strength to ignore the earthquake under the surface. Poetry became my way of getting it out. I'd write poetry in suicidal states and even when I was numb, but for some reason, despite feeling very 'grey' and 'absent', the words flowed and rhymed with ease and once they were out on paper, I'd feel a bit lighter.

In my opinion, writing is an underrated way of healing and self-reflection, it helped me for years, even if it was short-lived. Looking back at these poems, it's amazing to see how much has changed. Nowadays I barely get any depression or suicidal thoughts, many thanks to meditation and meditative healing and a lot of self-reflection in trance-like states. I also offer healing and therapy to others as a result of my experiences, so in a strange way, while it was difficult time, I'm grateful that it allowed me to help others.