Retrieving textarea from tabbedpane

Retrieving textarea from tabbedpane

I am trying to save the contents of a textarea that is on a panel inside a
tabbed pane.
So far I have tried:
bw.write(tabbedPane.getComponent(tabbedPane.getSelectedIndex()).toString());
and have been looking through all the methods for tabbedpane and I can not
seem to work it out. I know I must get the selected component from the
tabbedPane, then somehow get the textarea from that and then convert it to
string I assume?