I find that escaping into a world of my own creation, where I can control the entire universe, really helps with GD. It's a place where my problems don't exist and I can just be me. I turn to writing whenever something really upsetting happens. For instance, my grandfather passed away recently. I've found myself writing more nowadays. I enter the world and I can take command of the greatest armies of the world or I can go on a heroic quest or I can do anything else (I mostly write fantasy). Does anyone else do the same?
It's become less of an escape while it's been the subject of the uni course I'm doing, and my tutor does not seem to think much of my writing half the time, but yeah, writing does help. It'd help even more if I could make some money off it, but that's my trouble, 10 years self-employed and you start thinking about ways to monetize every possible skill. I'd like to just do it for fun but I guess I'm not that way inclined.
I don't think it's just limited to being self employed that leads to "how do I monetize this or that". It's our system of Capitalism, and currently our level of "inflation" that's attempting to turn every activity in any way to squeeze more value out of anything and everything.
I've used writing as a coping mechanism for years. I first started with fan fiction and although I didn't think they were really any good -- I wrote for just myself. I love writing in the first person perspective, as I can really get into the head of the character I'm "trauma dumping (or is that trauma filling?)" on. I did let a close friend read some of that early writing, and got the best compliment I've ever received from my writing. "I forgot I was reading a story."
As much as I would love to write as a career, there's too many do's and don'ts to keep in mind when writing professionally, and that sucks the majority of fun out of the writing process.