CMC’s Respite Center recently took a new approach to helping the patients residing there while they work to overcome substance-use disorder and get their lives back on track. The approach was to have the patients create journals as a form of therapy.
Paula Sheil — board president of Tuleburg Press, a Stockton-based nonprofit publishing company — led the six-week program. The Respite Center patients created leather-bound journals in which they expressed their innermost feelings during a difficult time in their lives.
“Writing, I believe, moves trauma out of your body,” Paula says. “This process manifests itself in a certain level of confidence and appreciation for your own abilities. I’m asking you to show me what you know through writing. We all don’t sing well, and we all don’t write well. But we are all singers, and we are all writers. I do believe people need to write to express themselves.”
It was Lei McMiller, CMC’s Director of Substance Use Disorder Services, who first approached Paula with the idea of the journaling program. Lei believed creating journals could be therapeutic for the Respite Center’s patients.
“It allows patients to learn from themselves,” Lei says. “Journaling gives them the ability to informally assess what’s gone on in their lives, recognize the things they may need to change, and also recognize the things they have control over or have a sense of empowerment from.”
Paula recalled one participant, a Respite Center patient in his early 40s with three sons. The man’s relationships had collapsed because of alcohol addiction, and he had been living on the streets. Journaling provided an avenue for healing.
“He really wanted to recapture his dignity and his life, and he really wanted to work again and to see his children regularly,” Paula says. “There was something about the process that was so personal to him, and he could hone in on his goal: to recover from his addiction and to make right his life. When he finished the journal, he was so proud of it. He held it to his chest.”
Anita Ydrogo, Center Manager at the Respite Center, says patients told her they appreciated the benefits of journaling.
“It gave them the ability to look within themselves, and to be able to share their journey, their trauma, their life,” Anita says. “It gave them a support group to share their feelings. They said they felt very free, very open, and they felt they were being heard, and that was very therapeutic for them.”
The recent journaling program is only part of Paula’s relationship with CMC. She is partnering with CMC to produce WordsOutspoken, the spoken-word event that will take place Oct. 25 at Delta College.
“We’re using the spoken word as a mental health/wellness supplement to a whole person,” Paula says. “If you have a story that’s traumatic and you write that down, you are letting out some of the pressure, just like a balloon.”
