I wonder if my cat hates my job every bit as much as I hated my mother’s profession? How many times have I said to Joe Schmoe, “Here I come?” but made him wait a long time in dead silence? How many times have I sworn to take a break? “Really, here I come.” Sometimes he looks lonely. I worry he feels ignored just like I did.
Instead of papers and pencils it’s paint brushes and canvas.
I enjoy brushing Joe and chatting at him. The aides adore him and take over loving on him; and I let them. When they leave it goes back to being me and him in silence.
He’s sleeping in bed with me again. He sleeps by my head, curled up, back to me, in silence. It’s always so quiet in here.
I’m at the table, back to Joe. Right now I can only hear the trickle of the waterfall in the Betta tank. Ah, but what is this? Joe has turned the tide? He came to sit beside me and break being apart in silence. He kissed my hand and lay beside me. I’ve got to go. There’s no way I can do anything but spend a few moments with him just as he is asking.
My heart is smiling. The day has been given a great gift.
I take pen to paper and near violently sketch, in order to manage obsessive thoughts and counting. The Etsy painting expresses anxiety building that I needed to manage.
I paint what’s swirling in my head, marching, counting or popping. Art helps manage the symptoms and situation.
When focused, I’ll express how I feel in bright colors next to black lines, and upside down flowers without uttering a single word.
This painting is 5.5×8.5 inches on watercolor paper, unmounted, signed, sealed
“The Crooked Tea Cup” – Arrows direct the path I should take; paranoia is her guide.
I chose a name that’s not as harsh and doesn’t include the word freak because I’m not a freak.
Here’s the finished piece. Yes, She wants to fade into the background because by nature she’s a private person, now she feels exposed by the caseworker.
Even if some don’t get it, there’s a difference between the private life on the net and private life off line. Yes, for 20 yrs I’ve blogged my personal issues but do you understand I got to choose? It stayed on the net. My closest friends still don’t know I have DID, but this caseworker pops up and somehow gets my medical doctor to sign a form releasing all medical and psychiatric diagnosis. And just like that my caregiver company knows which is terrible news for me.. I want to crumble…. I did… Then I got back up!
At bottom of the painting a thin bone figure swings ropes and lines as she dangles her feet above the cup of tea below.
I intended to keep the colors brighter like always, shockingly bright, but this time darker colors felt right.
The rainbow was given a darker red and a mustard yellow stripe in a midnight blue sky. The clothing of the figures is in plum, dark red, green and blue.
As I worked I realized the high amount of frustration and anger associated with feeling like a freak; feeling broken if not shatteted. Line after line I drew myself shatteted for the last time! I will not do it again.
I felt so hidden behind the lines, even hidden from myself. I’ve described being a multiple like looking into carnival mirrors. It’s hard to know who is who. Well, I may not always know the who but I do know The Way.
I need hope too. I don’t feel hopeless but sometimes I feel like I’m in prison here. I wish I could leave. This isn’t my home anymore. However, I can’t just up and go in the middle of the night – won’t up and go like that. I’ll move somewhere safe, clean. One thing is for sure, there’s no more peace here.
The painting will be in the shop very soon. Check my Etsy.
The Deluge is complete and is in my Etsy shop. One of the things I point out about the balance. The woman standing has legs and feet that are wound around. Each foot meets a tiger lily, a child and a purple flower in full bloom.
It is haunting in some areas. Those are the areas to leave behind. Those are the areas of the past that I can’t take with me to the future that I am building here. I’m not going to another planet. I’m right here. But some of these things need to swim free because they no longer have a place here.
If you visit my Etsy it’s worded better 🙂 You may also purchase through PayPal. Please see appropriate email address on the contact me area.
“The Southeastern Blue Bird Learns A New Song” is a folk art original painting by Faith Austin. At 6.5×4.5 inches it’s miniature stature delights you with her song as she sits on a stick in the forest.
The song is new; it’s the song her father once sang. The young Blue Bird has yet to master it but she will, before the day ends.
This whimsical, folkart piece includes faux blue and orange features, music notes, flowers, branch, acrylic on paper, ink, water, wind and hope. She is signed, sealed and unmounted.
CONTENT – Child Abuse. Strong emotion. Therapy Review. The art work is not finished but will eventually be in my Etsy shop.
If I believe I have a real future and a real hope, why do I keep wanting to go back and fix things? Why do I still feel like that little girl who needs her mother to love her?
No, it’s too late. I know she’s gone but I feel myself unable to give up. But not giving up the past means there’s less room for the wonderful future ahead, a future I firmly put faith in.
Today Dr D ask me if I could say anything to her what would I say? My words are in bold. I told her Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me! Keep away! You keep saying you’re going to give me a way, then do it!
That comment was interesting because the entire time I was talking to her I never said I love you or why don’t you love me? I never said hug me. I never said anything like that. It was it, Get away from me! Get away from me!
I didn’t want her to touch me ever again. I was angry about her watching me. I was angry about her letting others watch me. I was angry about all of the touch. I was angry about her destroying the mind of my sister. I was angry about her destroying the relationship I could have had with my sister. I just wanted her to go away. That was different from the feelings I thought I had. When I had the “spontaneous opportunity” to speak it was the voice of rage not a tiny, vulnerable child. That was incredible.
The artwork I’ve been doing lately shows exactly how I feel about my mother’s voyeurism. She was everywhere to the point that it was scary. Now that I think about it, if she stalked her boyfriend with us in the car of course she stalked my sister and me. And she wore that stupid black coat with the stupid hood looking like the grim reaper. She wasn’t holding anything, but dang! Standing in a pitch black hallway in a black trench coat watching people like a psychopath!
She told me she had people watching me and my sister and that nothing could be hidden from her. Dr D jumped in an said, “This is why you have DID.”
It was the most terrifying time of my life growing up with her and yet I thought I wanted that woman to love me. I wanted a little child me to go to her. To run to her. To be held by her.
Are you kidding me! No way! This is the woman who beat my lips with a wide tooth comb. Who beat my body with a towel rod. No. No. I have got to scrape this off of my heart so I can let myself have that future that’s so right in front of me. I’ve been crawling towards it. How do I scrape this off of me, the filth that she layered on me? The filth belongs to her. Whereas a future filled with hope is mine. I believe that with all my being.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Eating Disorders occur together up to 40% of the time. My OCD and my eating disorder have gone untreated because there were other things that took first place like getting me emotionally stable so I could stay out of the psych ward, moving to stable housing, stabilizing dissociation and of course getting beyond the hospitalization in 2018. There’s always been something to push attention elsewhere.
Dr D and I have been discussing OCD regularly, and I’m still reading the OCD workbook. That’s going slowly because it’s very triggering. I discovered one of the most traumatic memories wasn’t my mother being abusive but having strong OCD symptoms for which she never sought help.
Every year when we went to Kentucky we crossed a bridge. While crossing we had to sit perfectly still for fear of triggering my mother, who said she’d drive over the edge. THAT is part of her OCD. At a reoccurring meeting, I worried I’d stand up and scream the F-word. THAT is the same kind of symptom from the disorder I inherited from her.
My mother and I share quite a few symptoms. We both need to see our belongings. I arrange and rearrange my apartment almost daily. It used to be daily. Now it’s once a week. The meds for OCD have helped me in many ways.
I keep quite a few art supplies out for two reasons; 1- easy to access 2- easy to see them, which brings me comfort.
Right now I’m having a difficult time with compulsive eating. There’s the obsessive thoughts followed by the compulsion. A box of 10 Twinkies was purchased the other day. Once the box is opened I’m compelled to eat the entire thing or risk something bad happening to me. I’m not sure what, but it happens with most packages of food. If I open it I’m compelled to eat the whole thing. I’ll eat during the day and night. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night until the item has been completely eaten. This means high calories that don’t get worked off like they used to. To make matters worse, three of my most vital medications has the side effect of increased appetite. I have that pulling on me and OCD associated eating.
There’s no strong emotion followed by binging. It’s obsessive thoughts followed by binging and compulsive eating. I don’t purge in any way though it has recently crossed my mind. I don’t want to gain more weight but I also don’t want to ever purge again, in any way.
I have to say, being in a wheelchair has increased pacing, rocking, counting and staying awake until I absolutely have to go to sleep. Then when I’m sleeping I don’t want to wake up. These may not all be OCD issues. I just recognize these behaviors in myself.
It can sometimes take
The book has really helpful information but as I said, it’s triggering because it brings back unwanted memories of my mother and her extreme behavior.
I’m unaware of aunts having OCD. As far as I know it’s in the immediate bloodline. It goes from my mother to my sister and me. It’s as disruptive in my life as dissociation.
Art
The woman feels very judged and misunderstood.
The 12×9 collage is on heavy paper and includes words and phrases cut out and strategically placed. It’s a work in progress. I’ve got to figure out what to do with the background. I started this piece today. I hope to finish it and one other piece very soon. The below piece is called The Deluge. The eating disorder piece is called Dignity.
I keep sighing. My heart is heavy but I keep trying to lift it up.
The fatigue is insane.
I’m learning so much about how OCD affects my life and how it affected my mother and sister.
I don’t know why I keep thinking about my father. I remember his voice was kind and sweet. I don’t want to be angry with my mother for separating us. It’s foolish to entertain what-if scenarios but what if one of my parents loved me.
I say my mother didn’t love but I’ve got to retract that statement. The more I learn about her mental health the more I think she had love for me from time to time but was unable to most of the time. There were many things I can point to now and see a shadow of normalcy where love could have existed. Somewhere in that shadow she may have been capable of loving me. Sometimes there may have been a spark.
I bet my mother battled depression after the divorce. I remember feeling like a failure after my marriage ended. Is that why she cried so often? Did she cry because of the divorce and the loneliness?
It’s hard to say she may have loved me while knowing the extremes she went to in order to hurt us.
She lied and told me my father was dead when he wasn’t. Now I wonder if what contact she had with him in my younger years.
Like all my other family photos, my father’s photo is tucked away so I can’t see it. There are no family photos on my walls at all, just art.
Our family of three left a restaurant together. While in the car my mother told me and my sister to “freeze, it’s an emergency, don’t move.” She said look straight ahead and don’t move. After about a minute or so she gave the all clear then said, “That was your father in the car next to us.” It was cruel.
I’m tired. I’ve got to sleep very shortly then get up and eat. The fatigue is heavy.
Original Art
This piece has changed significantly. It now reflects dissociation and PTSD. It’s currently listed in my Etsy shop.
This is more Chatter Art. It’s art that I do to better manage the incessant talking in my head. I’ll put this in the shop too. It’ll be in the section for journal art.
The above is complete and ready for the shop. It too is chatter art. It feels great to finish art pieces. You can see more in my Etsy shop. 🙂
I have a restart button hanging on the wall so if things really start to go down hill I can hit the button, take 5 minutes for breathing exercises then get back to life. I got the button from Dollar Tree.
CONTENT – Suicide. Abuse with few specifics. High emotion and anger. Not a light entry.
I stayed in bed three days with the lights out. I fed the animals and went back to bed. The world felt too big and too dark. Now I’m in the weeping side of grief.
Behind me. Cherrios. I Love Mom.
I was talking / weeping to my BFF that the memory of the various events is as clear as the day they happened. The fear was so incredible but someone had to do something!
My head is full. Sleep is a joke. I keep accidentally calling the cat by his name. It freaks me out a bit.
The image of him at age 3, turning and smiling that smile, it no longer makes me feel warm and sentimental. It makes me angry. I want to know if he would do things differently if he had the chance to learn the Gospel truth that “this too shall pass.” I’m angry.
I talked / blubbered to my BFF about how I can see better just how emotionally unwell my mother was. I can see how we ended up the way we were. I know the difficulty I have functioning even with my large support system. She had nothing. No information. No experts taking care of her mental health, like I have. She was shell shocked after the divorce and just lost. I pity her. No family who loved her. No friends to talk to intimately. No one to trust, and two kids in tow. Yeah, I pity her.
Her anger about life was coupled with mental illness, paranoia and OCD. It made every day a survival course. Here’s my thing, I see the paranoia clearly in her behavior, but I also know that her response to the paranoia was chosen and thought out. Her first choice was always violence. She said a person needs to be humiliated in order to learn. That’s not mental illness, that’s just messed up.
I always felt responsible for helping her feel better. If my mother cried, it all but destroyed me. I couldn’t stand to see her cry. She cried a lot in her room. I used to hang hearts all around the hallway and her room to prevent her from killing herself. It never crossed my mind that it’s the child who we’d lose to suicide. I was suicidal too, so was my sister. An entire family of suicidal people.
When I think about it, my sister and I were the focus of my mother’s paranoia. She always accused us of stealing, lying, etc.
As I sit here I still pity her. Pity feels much better than hate. Pity feels warranted.
I empathize with her being unprepared for the divorce and have two small children. I understand how things got crazy. I know she managed to keep a good job but still had us sleeping in the car. I know that her mental illness fueled that. But the violence, wow, just wow. That was always her first response, violence. You never knew what the heck she was plotting in retaliation for some false issue she accused you of. I couldn’t trust the moment, and once 3am hit, God help us bc it was about to get bad!
She hardly ever raised her voice, hardly ever cursed. She was a professional who men fawned over. She dressed well. At 5’10 she was a sight to see. Despite being pretty, my mother had one boyfriend when I was growing up. That is a whole different story.
I remember the last conversation I had with the child before the police took him away for good.
It was a house of horrors, period. I thought by getting him out of there he’d have a chance. Now I ask so many questions, did I do it soon enough? Were the things he endured from her too much to bear or was it an accumulation of things? Did I fail him? I can never forget the last night he was there. My God! My God! No one should be asked to endure that.
I know I didn’t fail him. I risked my life for him. Right now, holding his memory instead of his hand I think to myself, it should have been her, not him. But really, any suicide turns the world upside down and sets it on fire for a very long time. My heart is still in flames.
