I'm a writer with no published works but have been writing since around age 10. I had written entire stories start to finish by the time I was 13, but my family moved while I was visiting my grandparents one summer - and everything I had written and been thrown away. I was devastated - but I just started all over again, lol. I also write poetry. 
Life came at me fast - taking me out of the US to Iran, where I had to live for ten years in order to be with my then 5-year-old daughter (my ex had abducted her there while I was attending a family funeral). My son was born there, and in 1997, my children and I were able to escape - but hit the ground running - and for many years we had to live life looking over our shoulders. My kids are grown now and have families of their own - but in 2011 I fell into a crippling depression and writing became an effort - which I mentioned to my psychiatrist, who responded with "So stop writing then." I took that and ran with it, and realize now it was a grave mistake. I'm still struggling, but I'm turning back to writing again, and even tho it does not flow like it once did, I'm hanging in there. I've been encouraged to write my memoirs, and this is what I'm embarking on now - and it is so very difficult to resurrect all the trauma. But, I'm plodding slowly onward.
Meanwhile, I'm publishing the poetry that survived a very deep state of depression where I went thru and started deleting and/or shredding all my poetry and short stories. I don't know how they survived - some I was able to find on old accounts and re-claim, others I found among papers stacked away in a forgotten storage container. I was determined during that state I was in to just rid the world of my pathetic ramblings, lol. I regret it more than I can express - because the words I craft together feel like a piece of my soul. I'm thankful for these and am struggling to get back into writing poetry again like before. It serves as a type of therapy for me.