The data consist of 69 self-administered writings in Finnish, obtained through a writing competition announced in several magazines, email lists, and on the Internet and social media in Finland. The competition was organised by the Finnish Association for Mental Health and the magazine ET-lehti, and was targeted at senior citizens. In the writing competition invitation, the participants were asked to send about 1-10 pages of text by email on how they had managed to overcome life's crises, what understanding they had gained from them and what brought joy in their lives. The received texts were varied in format and style: diaries, life story narratives, stories written in third person and poems. Crises encountered included poverty, discrimination, problematic relations with relatives, problems in couple relationships, illnesses, death of persons close to the participants, their own or other people's alcohol or drug misuse. Background information included the participant's age and gender. The dataset is only available in Finnish.

2013