In her final letter to her husband Leonard, Virginia Woolf wrote, “I feel certain I am going mad again... and I shan’t recover this time.”
(from The Letters of Virginia Woolf).
It’s a moment that stops me. Not only because of its sadness, but because of what it says about a life lived with too much awareness. Virginia Woolf felt things the way some of us breathe – constantly and continually. She noticed everything.
For her, writing was a way to hold it all – to make sense of what she couldn't talk about. And perhaps that’s where I feel most connected to her story. I began writing The CP Diary 15 years ago, not because I wanted to create something public, but because I needed to make sense of what I was made to live through.
Writing became my way of finding meaning in uncertainty – in trauma – of turning my experiences into understanding. Over time, it became less about documenting my life and more about interpreting it: how I coped, how I was able to think, how I kept going.
Virginia Woolf once suggested that writing was how she made herself real. I understand that. Every entry I’ve written – every reflection, every attempt to unpick a thought grounds me. Some people find peace in silence or movement; I find it in words.
Like Woolf, I know what it is to live with an inner world that doesn’t align with the outer one. But unlike her, through time, I’ve had the language to keep exploring it. Writing has become not just a practice, but a lifeline for me – one that has helped me to see the patterns in my own thinking, and the shape of my emotions.
Virginia Woolf didn’t get to see the full impact of her work. She left believing she had failed. Yet her writing continues to give voice to those who think and feel differently. She showed that private reflections: however personal can reach beyond us.
She wasn't going mad. In all likelihood she was dealing with anxiety or depression – something many of us understand all too well. It’s not that you’re going mad. On the contrary, your feelings are real, but society has a way of making you feel that you are. Not everyone cares. It’s sad that she felt compelled to end her life.
I still write because my words matter to me. They mean something. Words connect us – across time, through experience, and understanding. And because somewhere, in writing, I continue to find my way back to myself.
