> If I get upset about something, I feel much better after I have "written it out," to quote Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of 26+ books, including 'Anne of Green Gables'). Sometimes that's enough for me, and I calm down. There have been many times where I never told the subject of my anger that I was mad or upset. Of course, this can lead to problems in itself, because if you keep everything inside, you eventually explode. (Case in point: me.)
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When I was a lovelorn and terminally-shy teenager (actually, up to around age 22), I used to write out my conflicted emotions just as a means of working out what, exactly, I was supposed to feel and do. True, my personal set of "rules" for what to feel and do were not wonderfully practical or mature, but by writing everything out I felt that I achieved some attitudinal consistency, and being consistent was something I highly valued.

Too, I got satisfaction from finding ways to describe with precision what I was going through, whether in an essay or in (bad) verse. Nowadays I don't write out my feelings in prose any longer, but if I'm *really* uptight or depressed about something, I still find pleasure in grinding it through my little poetry-mill. At least then I have a nugget of creativity that came out of whatever the bad experience was.

Sometimes, when I feel like an underachiever for having gone so long without producing any poetry, I'll wryly lament the fact that I haven't felt depressed enough about anything to write. :-)

Iss "Alack!" achar