Of women and their diaries

According to psychologists, “Writing about your feelings can help the brain overcome emotional upsets and leave you feeling happier.” Matthew Lieberman, a psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, said when people wrote about their feelings, medical scans showed that their brain activity matched that seen in volunteers who were consciously trying to control their emotions.

Lieberman added that “Writing seems to help the brain regulate emotion unintentionally. Whether it’s writing things down in a diary, writing bad poetry, or making up song lyrics that should never be played on the radio, it seems to help people emotionally.”

Over time, also, the diary has come to be the woman’s closet buddy. Many wonder how it is possible for women to tell it all to a book, when there are human beings out there who can understand feelings better. Weird, you would say right!

Diary writing is a little like weaving the daily happening of our lives. We choose words to tell the story on the pages of the book instead of involving a second or third party. In particular, they signal the importance of relationships in daily life.

In diaries women become the subjects of their own lives and they can tell their own story. For many women the diaries have formed the basis for which most of their decisions are taken in life. Many have argued for and against the diaries. But of what relevance are diaries in our lives?

Feminist critics have recognized the importance of diary writing as an activity.

“The diary can be a place of resistance, defiance or a comfort zone for most women. A place where they can tell stories which would otherwise not be heard, or where they can lay claim to writing. Sometime we need to bare our minds on and unburden our hearts and the diary is the perfect place to go to when we find ourselves in such a situation. For me the dairy comes in handy in terrible situations where it is better not to utter words which could be destructive especially when it involves relationships,” says Habiba Aliyu Yusuf, 34, a civil servant.

Mr James Okpara, a civil servant, says “Many women find solace in writing in the diaries; it is a game that does not need more than one player. It serves as an avenue where they can narrate all their emotional triumphs and defeats. It is the only place where most of them keep their deepest secrets in life and can go to any length to fight whoever tampers with their diaries.”

‘’The life of a diary is often born of a tension, disequilibrium in the life of its author, which needs to be solved or held in check. Many people had come to think of the diary as primarily a woman’s mode of expression.’’ Diaries gradually became less a spiritual tool and travelogue and more an instrument of release of emotions. The diary is, first and foremost, a psychological tool, an instrument for self-understanding. Those who recognize it as such look upon their diaries as companions and confidants. Like a good therapist, the diary is the perfect listener,” writes Steven E. Kagle in American Diary Literature.

“Women’s diary writing is very important to an extent as it provides stories of women in the past who, while not particularly famous, struggled in their own unsung lives to negotiate the conflicting demands on women. And from this diary writing that is mostly seem as a waste of time we can find tales of courage, negotiation, compromise and resistance. Through these diaries we can see the real trauma a woman goes through on a daily basis. A woman’s diary is the best companion she can ever have. I never go a day without consulting mine,” Ms. Aneesah Ibrahim, a Public relations officer, says.

For Abullahi Ismail, he feels it is bad for people to keep diaries as it only reminds someone of the past which isn’t good for the future. “Women always have a way dealing with personal relationship with their diaries. I mostly wonder how a woman can bear it all to her diary what she would rarely bear to her close friend. There is this feeling that a woman uses her diary to record those things that she could not tell anyone. For me it does not help anyone not even the writer because at the end of the day the diary does more damage than good. Why should anyone hold on to what has happened and even document it. It only brings about bad sentiments. Another fact is that if the diary falls in the hands of an enemy then you are done for. So why lay all your guards down by documenting your weakness and strengths?”

The diary comes up handy to a fresh creative domain, where the woman’s philosophies, revelations and reflections get hung up to dry, they mirror her experience or shed new light or even give her a back up. So maybe the reason why most women see the diary as her companion is because they see them as the only ones that they can truly rely and trust in whatever situation.