Blending
This is an art piece I made probably more than a month ago in "My Healing Guide's" office. I have had it sitting in my desk at home and was waiting for the right time to put it up here. I rather like the image, so I am not quite sure why I waited so long.
I have had a mixed relationship with art therapy the past many months. I went into a long drought, slipping back into the "I can't do any art!" self-judgment. For a long time I have known that the golden rule of art therapy is to leave your art critic at the door. Maybe I should have closed the door, because the critic has been walking right in and sitting on my shoulder all the time. There has been huge resistance. I had supplanted that resistance with working doubly hard to solve things intellectually. But I learned a while ago that not all problems can be solved intellectually.
Shortly before I went into the hospital before Halloween for what was an ultra-brief four day stay, I did go back to the skills that had helped me in the past. While my hospital stay was not among the best of experiences, it still did a couple of key things for me. For one, it helped increase my level of internal acceptance; always a good thing. For another, it helped me achieve some internal communication that had alluded me. Not bad for four days!
Since I have been home, there has been some mild internal chaos. I have been determined to stay safe, but this has meant that I have had to breathe through some intense bouts of pain and some uncomfortable changes of state (of the personality kind mostly, but also the emotional kind). As a result, time is a bit choppy for me.
I am here to remind myself how helpful it is to express feelings through art. It is like a common language we all share internally. I learn so much about myself that is vastly different from what I learn if I try to think everything through.
This piece of art came at a time when I was conflicted internally. "My Healing Guide" knew I was not feeling able to do art, so she suggested that I just lay down some colors on a page. I chose very specific colors, colors that represent aspects of my system. I cannot remember, but I think I just drew lines of color in a kind of quick and irritable manner, ending with a sort of "There! Are you happy now?"
But, I chose oil pastels and it is very hard to stay irritable when you use oil pastels! She has many types of art media, plus I keep several with me in my backpack. I chose the oil pastels because I find solace in the physical process of blending the colors with my fingers.
That was the case here. What started with the feeling that everyone inside was separate, ended up with the feeling that we were all together and "blended." Our therapy session shifted. I opened up. Art can do that for you.
N.B. A reminder that submissions to the Expressive Arts Carnival No. 5 are due in two weeks (on November 23).
20 Comments
Leave a new comment
Hey Paul! We're definately burning the midnight torch tonight! I like your art picture you did in the oil pastels. I can't really get philosophical about it but when I look at it I smile inside. I like how the colors hold their own color but lightly blend into the other colors without giving away their basic color. Each color still has its own space even though the colors lightly spread over each other. My parts smile inside when they look at this. :)
Thanks Nansie. I have noticed, and maybe I should say this offline, that you seem to be much more aware from when I first met you. That's super good. I'm happy for you!
I think Nansie said it well...
It's great you achieved so much while in-patient, despite the challenges facing you.
Take care,
CG
I am very much with Nansie. Own space but connected. For me it represents what I am still working on: interdependence. Internally as well as externally. Glad that the hospital stay had a silver lining!
Nice piece. I would frame it.
What I do is go to Walmart or Micheal's and find a black frame that is not out of shape and then sand it with 400 grit and spay it with a high grade furniture lacquer sanding between coats and do lots of coats. Then just cut some spacers out of some cardboard so the pastel does not touch the glass. Then take the frame to a glass shop and buy a piece of museum glass at $6.00 a sq foot instead of frame shop prices.
It is real fun to handcraft the frame. I have made some that is hard work.
Note: Lots of people have stuff framed at Michael's at 1/2 price and you get a better job than a frame shop for the same cost. The 1/2 price thing is a scam.
I know that everyone is different but my "colors" spike when they are upset (don't know how else to explain it). So, for me, your artwork is warm, happy and calm. It is also calming to look at. I agree, too that sometimes I just can't "do" art (don't know why that, either.)
Thanks Paul... I have worked so hard on awareness. This is scary work for me because I am terrified sometimes by what I see and then very fearful of what might be in there that I don't yet know about. It comes to me slowly but it's a work in progress all the time. Your picture looks soothing to me for some reason. Some of the pictures I see I can't even comment on because they scare me. Not so much yours but others I find when I am surfing blogs. They aren't necessarily bad pics... just stir stuff inside that I'm not comfortable with yet. But this one... AHHHHHH it's nice! Don't worry about saying stuff to me outside of email... we're all in good and safe company here! :)
Hey Paul! So many of us DIDers visit your blog so I wanted to ask everyone....do we all have headaches in common? The come into my forehead and behind my eyes and stay for days. Is it like that for anyone else and can we network a little bit about what helps this? Hope you don't mind my asking this here....I want to know more about it and what anyone else does that helps them?
I experience headaches just like you described Nansie - particularly when we are having a stressful time. I never really thought this was a DID thing because I also get migraines occasionally (which feel different again) and thought it was to do with that.
With our stressful headaches I usually take it as a sign that we need some quiet "chill out" time. For us that means curling up in a hot bath, cuddling Ulfie and watching the littles fav movie - Curious George - or pulling out our hammock and lazing in the sun. With this, a bit of time and extra sleep the headaches fade.
Hope this helps a little
This headache info really does help. As I am relating to everyone I realize how much we have in common and then I can gain more insight into what's going on with me! I have also found that when I fight switching is when I get dizzy. If I flow into it...it's very smooth. But with therapy I am learning to stay present more and more and I think that's why I experience dizziness more often now. But it amazes me more and more how much we all have in common and then realize how some of the things I have just learned to live with over the years are part of system and not something everyone has. Hope I said that right but thanks everyone!
I remembered seeing this somewhere and then Kylie's comment brought it to my email again just at this time - coincidence? hmm. I'm starting to not believe in such things.
I've had a headache since Wednesday evening. It was a day of integration and shift for me, and this has happened before for me. I have never been sure if it was related to the DID or if maybe somehow I am more vulnerable during times of illness - like this headache - and so more likely to be able to shift as I do.
I don't know if that makes sense. I guess its a matter of which came first, but yes, I definitely experience headaches that last for days and the one I have now is about to drive me crazy. Nothing makes it go away. Even when I take enough ibuprofin and tylenol to ease the pain I'm still aware that the headache is there. It's not a migraine, which I also have had on occassion, but it does share some of the traits - like the way light seems different.
Sorry to hear about this Shen...hope you feel better soon! Sometimes when this happens to me I sit and try to mediatate and ask if there is a part inside that needs something? Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't but when it works the headache is gone and I really make some progress with myself. Just a thought!
I was going to write about something different today, but I think headaches would be as good a topic as any.
Thanks Paul, you are inspiring me more and more to try art for therapy. I am approaching therapy very intellectually, actually EXTREMELY intellectually, and I am beginning to realise that something else is needed - I need to *feel*. And every time I read about your art therapy, I think that this might be something to try. Perhaps I should get myself some supplies for a start.
Dawn
I love oil pastels! I took a couple of classes in them a few years ago and really took to them. I agree with what you said about art therapy. Sometimes, like journaling, it's like: "just do it!" And then I feel some sort of healing progress taking place.
I'm sorry Halloween is such a hard time for you. I, like you, really struggle with Easter, but Halloween itself doesn't seem to have any specific triggers. I do find the entire Autumn still challenging, however.
I was supposed to be at a botanical illustration retreat right now and the damn thing got canceled. I realized that I was rather "living for it" as a type of way to get through the annual "fall freak-out," so I went ahead and kept my hotel reservations, even though the workshops are canceled. So, here I am in my hotel room with free Internet access, trying to catch up a bit in bloggy land. I was getting pretty stressed out and triggered before I came here, but feel a bit better now. *sigh* Oh well, it's a lot cheaper than the hospital, and I don't have any mental health insurance coverage anyway.
Rambling a bit, sorry. Hey, thanks for those supportive comments at my big blog announcement post recently. I appreciate you, Paul!
Thank you all for your supportive comments! In fact right after making this post, things fell apart for me and I landed back in the hospital (where I am right now). I think I was supposed to do a piece of work around what's brought up every Halloween, and now that I'm back I am going to attend to it. There is no way around it. Thank you to you all.
I've looked at this piece several times in the last few days. It really is wonderful on many levels. It's good you posted it - it would be a shame to put it in a drawer somewhere. I'm glad you are feeling better and are home now and I hope that goes on for a while.
I was away for a couple weeks and have been completely obsessed and engrossed in the stuff I put up on my blog since I returned home. I had a kind of a "knocking down" experience last night and now feel my feet planted firmly on the ground again. I don't know if that is good or not - I guess it just is. Anyway, I'm trying to catch up with the posts I've been neglecting that I always enjoy so much.
Shen, Thank you so much! I don't think I said it here on the blog, but I am back in the hospital again. I did another similar image in the hospital last night representing where I was at. Much less color. When I get home, I'll share it here and make a post about it. I, too, enjoy catching up on blogs, but have had a hard time doing so. Too much going on in my own life. I'm going to see if I can read up now.
Just found this post recently after you made a comment on my blog. I love this piece of artwork - it is such a great expression of all of you. Nansie really said it well.
A number of people said you should frame it - and I so agree with this - for us we have a wall at home where any of my little ones can put up their art. It means a lot to them that they can display their artwork - but that they don't have to.
Your remark:
"What started with the feeling that everyone inside was separate, ended up with the feeling that we were all together and "blended.""
made me a little envious. I am very lucky that for the most part my system and I are really starting to work well together. However we still feel very separate - My T will make a comment about how they are just different parts of me and while intellectually I know she is right I find myself wanting to fight her - as do a number of my little ones. I hope one day to feel a little less separate and a little more blended.
Hi Kylie, Thanks for coming back to this post. I find it healing. The statement about "we were all together" is more about how it was for this period of time of doing it. I get to experience that enough to know what to strive for. But, "normal" for me is much more that we are separate inside. That's why I like this piece, because it's a good buffer for that way of being.