A few more tiny details and the African American clown with red dreadlocks, who hosts birds in her hair will be complete. I’ll photograph her, seal her and add her to my Etsy shop.
The African girl clown is wearing white speckled overalls with shimmering maroon sleeves. Her hair is red dreadlocks with sporadic yellow, purple, blue and green dreadlocks. The younger August is painted white with the edges of her African American face still showing.
Her full lips are painted red. The nose is designed and painted red. Our little one looks straight ahead with big, brown eyes surrounded by blue clown eye shadow.
Striking are the large sunflowers the August child stands beside with her birds. A huge, white Gerber daisy and huge green leaves huge the clown and make her feel better.
Joe is a guardian cat. A watching feline. A gentle whiskered friend whom I adore. It’s just that sometimes the psychosis pushes me away from him a little, away from people a little. I want to isolate.
I have to force myself to accept this new mental weirdness and fear. I wear paranoia. I’m dripping in it. I only know to fill my cup and clean my paint brushes. Art it out!
Covid-19 handed me a fever high enough to leave permanent hallucinations and damage, for which I feel shame. But my cat Joe still finds me palatable to love and be seen cuddling, openly. His love gives me a little more strength to keep going.
What goes in your cup of trials and stress to dilute it so you can do one more day ? 🙂
Finishing “Awake” took much effort but it is here, reworked, beaming with color and striking details.
Bellow are my comments.
I woke to a new existence somewhere unknown, they called it a stroke. Now words come like slow snails, or they are kidnapped so as not to form on my chapped lips.
I painted the emotional roller-coaster I felt as I played tug of war with my body, emotions, speech and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately I felt lost, defeated and misunderstood. I also thought I’d never paint again.
Grueling therapy and persistence with paint brushes helped me get to the point where I can say I’m awake. I’m awake to what has happened and the I’m happy the hardest part of it is behind me. Awake is about surviving the body after stroke and making it my new home.
You will find more images and a short video on Etsy. I also accept PayPal.
Thank you for letting me talk. Thank you for visiting SUNDRIP Art for Life.
I’m pleased to have been able to finish this piece with its color symbolism and Scripture favorites. I like Jonah a lot. It often feels like I’m in the belly of a big fish with no way out just like he was.
I love the original meaning of the rainbow and how it is on God’s thrown as a symbol of peace so I added that to the image.
I know for a fact that hope does not lead to disappointment.
The last part of the image shows three distinct figures, a date and two blue hearts. The black child’s hair is hearts. Of course there are sunflowers. There must always be sunflowers. 🙂
CONTENT – My cat Joe is dying. Friend always contradicts me. (Changing meds.)
It’s been difficult watching Michael Joseph become weaker and weaker, sleep more and more. It’s tearing me up. I don’t know what to do with the anxiety sometimes.
I’m working on several art projects. I’m successfully working with my CNA. I’m successfully writing letters. I’m holding up my end of things and I’m proud of that. But I’m anxious as I watch my little guy grow weak and cry out in pain. He literally sounded like a cow mooing. It tore through me! My baby Joe Schmoe isn’t well! I can’t take it.
It’s interesting, the very first reaction is to distrust my instincts and listen to others but I’ve thrown that away. I’m his mother. I clean his litter box every day. I brush him every day. I feed him every day and remind him that he’s the mascot of Sundrip so act right little king! lol I hold him. I cuddle him. It’s me he sees day in and day out. We went through the lock down together. I KNOW JOE SCHMOE very well. Seeing him deteriorate is heartbreaking. My God!
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.
I’ve not shown off my Philodendron Hope plant in awhile. It’s growing out of two Betta tanks.
I’m going to clip it back soon and allow certain leaves to mature. It’ll look nicer cut back.
I have hope.
There’s no doubt about the hope I have, but the path to it feels difficult at times. Fear is enemy number one.
I know I have hope. I’m just having a hard time keeping my fingers on it.
Maybe it should be enough, the fact that I can see it and know it’s within arms reach.
Well, in typical artist fashion, I’ve got several projects in different stages all going at once. Still, I’m encouraged by the “I Believe” piece.
It seems to carry the same symbols as two other pieces, which is very interesting to me.
I’m so happy to be making art just for me! And I so love that one young girl’s hair is 3 hearts instead of round puffs. 🙂
OMGoodness I have fallen in love with collaging entire works with my own art scraps. How satisfying!
It makes me smile to paint here in this little place I’ve created; sipping tea, dabbing paint brushes, writing letters and such. Recently a naysayer called the entire apartment an ecosystem. He has no idea how happy that makes a girl like me.
I enjoy waking up to meaning, purpose and usefulness in my little ecosystem- apartment. I could use a double shot of usefulness about now.
Covid update – still running a fever. Unproductive cough, mostly at night. I still break out in a sweat which feels different from hot flashes. I have GI issues, a rash on my back, my scalp inexplicably itches, too. My blood pressure has dipped so low that I’ve passed out.
I ordered supplies from Amazon since getting to the store is out of the question. Coconut water, cheerios and of course jello were among many of the supplies. Why do I love jello so much?
Please excuse me, I’ve got some cuddling to do before the day begins.
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.
My mind will catch up with me if I turn over and go to sleep.
Grief will catch up with me if I allow my mind to slow down.
I’m afraid of the images that are so vivid even with my eyes closed so I watch worthless TV shows and listen to books I’ve heard more than the author has heard it himself.
I feel myself running. I’m afraid of being left. I hate hanging up the phone after therapy. I hate when my CNA leaves for the day. I feel alone in the world when people leave. It’s not that they are leaving to go home, it feels like they’re leaving me.
My face is different all the time.
I see my different selves in photos.
My appearance drastically changes as the day goes on.
It takes so much mental and physical energy to leave the house. When I return, I look swollen and tired. Seriously, these two photos were taken hours apart.
I often do not recognize myself in the mirror and that spooks me.
On days when this is happening I go in the restroom with the lights off, and keep my eyes down so I don’t catch the eyes of the person in the mirror.
I recently looked at more photos of my mother and her sisters. You can tell we share blood. I don’t mind clearly being from that family. Years ago I started getting ok in my head with having my mother’s hands. It feels like it should bother me to look so much like that family but it doesn’t. I suppose it would be another story if they were dog-butt ugly.
Art
I like to play with light on my face. I often want my face to be my art, expressing different emotions.
Photos after dental surgery (and with a filter) allowed me to show how my heart feels bruised and beaten by grief. It’s not just grief for -K-, it’s grief over the catastrophic consequences from the selfish choices my family routinely made when I was young. It’s grief over decisions I made as an adult trying to survive my past.
Sometimes these things feel as if they consume me.
*No worries. These photos are from past dental surgery. I’m 100% safe and healed, as seen in the recent photos at the top of the entry. *
I sold a few paintings.
I sold the little girl with the balloon
and the one about faith. The funds will go towards my trip at the end of June. I’m hoping to really fill my Etsy shop in hopes of making more money for my three day stay. I’ve also updated my Redbubble shopthat offers prints and products of my art pieces.
It’s 2 in the morning. I have things to do tomorrow but being alone in the dark is hard.
My head is no better than when I started writing. Please, I need peace inside.
