Dr. D asked why African Americana is one of my favorite types of art. I like it because its simple. I like faceless black rag dolls and faceless black art. This little 4 x 7 piece is a simple illustration of country home life. It shows a mother and child in the garden with the flowers blooming in beautiful white all around. The mother gives her daughter a single bloom.
One of the other things I appreciate most about simple, primitive art is that I can give it my own story. Did a mother give her daughter a flower or did the woman gift her younger self? Did the younger person give the flower but the hand movement isn’t shown? Was the flower given on impulse of love? Maybe it was the perfect flower for the perfect friend. In primitive art such as in “Jane’s flowers Bloom,” the story isn’t spelled out for me in strict detail; it’s hinted at and whispered through the field. Continue reading “Jane’s GardenBlooms”
Today is a quiet kind of day. I’m a tad bit on the depressed side. I think the poem is heavier in truth than anticipated. I just starting typing and stopped when I was done.
Monday will be here quickly and it’ll be time for therapy again.
I’m physically tired with very swollen feet. I’ve had them propped up for awhile. It hurts to walk.
I’ve got a few financial concerns but in the end things seems to work out. Every bill is paid in full. The cat has food, Pete has food and Pickle will have more on Tuesday.
I’m old school, diagnosed in 1992 so I still call it MPD as well as Dissociative Identity Disorder. What ever you wish to call it one thing remains true – I’m not alone in my head.
The reason I’m writing today is because I visited a young woman who reminded me of how difficult it can be to feel as if nothing belongs solely to me. As time passed and therapy got deeper there was a decrease in the resentment I felt for constantly living as many.
Keep in mind please, that in order to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder / Multiple Personality Disorder, there must be major trauma in the child’s life. The word trauma is an important one because it doesn’t have to be abuse that triggers the extreme dissociative response. I personally know a young man who feels he first split while under going constant excruciating medical care as a child. No matter if it was long term abuse or other long term traumas, the mind will try to protect itself.
I know as a child nothing at all was mine. My body wasn’t mine, my thoughts weren’t mine, my actions were determined by what trauma was taking place. I had no freedom and no control over anything. So now I’m a multiple and still nothing is my own.
Let me discuss that for a second. I have always understood that each of us alters has split from the original personality. Yes, we feel very strongly separate from who we call the “original” personality but we do know we all originate from her. Moving on.
Think about never having a single, solitary moment to yourself. How do you think that would feel? When you eat at the table, type entries such as this, when you walk the dog, or take a bath the alters are with you. Your thoughts aren’t private, they’re heard by the inside personalities called alter personalities. Sometimes they chat among themselves, just stuff, but the incessant talking can become very troublesome if not managed in therapy. When I sit in therapy, take a bubble bath, read a book, paint, sit in the dark, use the restroom, brush my teeth, close the blinds, on and on and on there’s always someone else with whom I must share that moment.
At first this was a big issue for me but as I said, I’ve been in therapy for a long time. Gracious, I feel like a veteran. LOL, but I know these emotions are legitimate and that they do gradually become less of a burden when managed by a licensed professional.
I need to be clear on one thing. We didn’t choose this and neither did the alter personalities. Though some multiples have parts/alters that are difficult, many of us do not. I have alters that work together for the most part. In the beginning we were all over the place. Good gracious!! That was horrible. We could not get it together for the world. We didn’t understand that there was a whole system (group) of us and that what one alter does affects the others. For instance, lets say Alter A came out and thought it would be ok to give intimate details of our life to my birth mother. That alter may not remember how bad it was at home so speaking to my mother wouldn’t be as traumatizing for her. However, since she is not the only alter here, the difficulty falls on Alter B, C and D.
It took quite a long time before we all realized, on whatever level we could, that we share this body, this mind. Everything we do or don’t do affects the others in the system. Getting up and moving to Texas isn’t a decision we all made, but we were all affected by it. Promiscuity wasn’t a decision we all made, but we all felt degraded by it. We are not alone in this head of ours.
The drawings included were created in 2010. They illustrate the life of a multiple. What’s interesting to me is how one piece shows a whole group holding hands with a sunflower behind them. It’s almost like a show of solidarity, a solidarity that includes the original personality.
Ah, it’s time to start really thinning things out at home. I’ve tackled one corner of my room that has been bugging me for a good long time. It’s the space where I hold all my old art journals and writing journals.
A person can only have so much art before it starts to come out of places it shouldn’t, so I’m cleaning out the studio. Here’s what I’m doing, as much as it hurts to do so, some complete art journals are being tossed out while some are being kept. Some that are being thrown away have drawings taken out of them that I’ll keep.
As far as the journals that are being kept, they’re being stored in a waterproof and air tight container. The individual pieces are stored in a filing system thingamabob. In a day or two I will start scanning the individual pieces then put them up on Etsy.
I saw my psychiatrist today. We talked about the suicidal feelings. She asked if I feel suicidal at the Kingdom Hall. I said no, I feel like I can make it one more day. She and my psychologist suggested I stick close to the brothers and sisters. but especially try my best to be there in person.
I know my attitude stinks. I’ve got to pray much more about that……
Dr. D and I are taking on an art project where I let my body speak. Often I form experiences and emotions on canvas but they’re from my head. They’re all but photographs of my mind at that time. The rather large therapy painting will be a painting where body expresses itself as it goes through medical changes.
Imagine not speaking the language of anyone around you. Pictures are all you’ve got to tell how you experience the world, the world where there is only one person, one physical being. Now that body has to try and free itself of silence so that bitterness is released. It needs to speak and I can tell and I have a feeling this assignment will be very emotional, humbling and beneficial. I think I’ll have a sense of freedom. I think it’ll give me relief.
To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions I was inwardly calmed and reassured.
Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.
There is a chance that I might have succeeded in splitting them off; but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them.
As a result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images which lie behind the emotions.
I am still managing Lupus and Fibromyalgia but with new doctors.
I am hopeful that I will begin to have better days.
I am looking to the middle of April to re-open my Etsy shop. While it is on vacation I’d like to give a preview of a few of the 60 art pieces that have been completed in the last few months while recuperating. These art pieces are 6 inches by 9 inches and are done in black permanent ink. Forty permanent pens were used to complete 60 art pieces. Some drawings have color, others are more powerful with black and white only. Some posted may eventually be in color.
I am still here. I don’t have any more black pens though. 🙂
Reach is a surreal painting / etching created with Crayola Crayons and Crayola Markers on 6.5 x 4.5 inch paper. This is original art drawn with Crayola, smoothed with my fingers then detailed in ink. Your painting is hand crafted in that the images, including the woman with many arms, the sitting figure, the rain drops and the large heart were all finger etched.
Painting Details: A figure in white wraps its many arms around a large, red heart that suspends in the sky. A black figure holds onto the heart with one hand. His heart is blue. He drops blue and purple rain onto dark green grass where a man sits with his hands together under a large face created by the heart and the arms of the female figure in white. Continue reading “Reach – Surreal Etching”
The name of this piece is called Playground. I have to say I had a blast. I started with one swirl and kept going. I found it relaxing and gentle on my mind. It took about three days before I finally said it’s complete. When I did I began to pick out little hidden figures. Some parts look like a rainbow of salmon fish on the run, some parts resemble to me a swarm of rainbow-colored bees. I can even see the head of a bird. This was pure fun thus the name. Continue reading “What Can Crayola Do?”
Dr. D asked why African Americana is one of my favorite types of art. I like it because its simple. I like faceless black rag dolls and faceless black art. This little 4 x 7 piece is a simple illustration of country home life. It shows a mother and child in the garden with the flowers blooming in beautiful white all around. The mother gives her daughter a single bloom.
I am still here.
Reach is a surreal painting / etching created with Crayola Crayons and Crayola Markers on 6.5 x 4.5 inch paper. This is original art drawn with Crayola, smoothed with my fingers then detailed in ink. Your painting is hand crafted in that the images, including the woman with many arms, the sitting figure, the rain drops and the large heart were all finger etched.