macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Your Macular Journal/ey – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Your Macular Journal/ey

It dawned upon me I should probably say a little bit about journaling. After all, these pages are a journal, sort of. I blend a lot of psycho-education into the mix but at the core these pages are about me, my life, my feelings.

I started this journal because I needed something to do while I was home, newly visually impaired and unemployed. The unemployed part turned out to be temporary but I did not know that at the time.

I also needed to express my feelings in a constructive rather than a destructive manner.

I have kept journaling for those and a couple of other reasons. For one thing, it keeps me honest. If I tell you to keep a positive attitude or help medical research, I damn well better be doing the same. Talk the talk AND walk the walk.

A humbling reason is at least one of you has said I am her voice. I have put words to feelings she did not know how to express. I am beyond honored to have been able to do that.

However, should I accidentally step in front of a truck tomorrow – which remains a possibility – I would like each and every one of you to have his or her own voice. Thus, journaling.

It was suggested people started writing journals in 10th century Japan. Since then many, many people have kept journals. What is a journal? It is daily writing about your life, events, emotions and reactions.

Two ways my pages are NOT journal pages in the true sense are a) they are not private and b) they are not uncensored or unedited. True journal pages are private. For your eyes only (“Bond, James Bond”?). They also are unfettered by the rules of spelling and grammar.

And the benefits of journal writing?  Writing things down allows you to clarify your thoughts. It helps you to know yourself better. In that way it is like observing your thoughts and actions a la DBT. For example, why would I associate THOSE two things? And really in true dialectic fashion, journal writing allows us to resolve disputes by helping you understand other view points in a non threatening environment.

Some of these ideas were liberally ‘borrowed’ from PsychCentral. Check there and other sites such as Tiny Buddha for more ideas on journaling.

Lin and I remain open to the idea of publishing guest pages by our readers and anyone else out there. Please keep it R rated or lower and on topic. Topics being AMD, vision loss in general and self-help, all interpreted a bit broadly. We will NOT publish advertisements thinly veiled as pages or posts. We retain the right to censor or exclude without explanation. (Sometimes the explanation is as simple as I got a bad vibe. I tend to listen to my gut.)

Happy writing!

Lin/Linda here: please send me an email with your page in the body of the it or with it attached.  I can open documents in a variety of formats.

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