May 2011 Archives

Welcome to the May 2011 edition of the Expressive Arts Carnival. This month's theme, see announcement, was to "create an image about mechanisms you have used to cope when you thought you could not."

This month's activity came from contributor Kerro. Thank you Kerro! She made a blog post with her submission talking about how she came up with the idea and how her coping has evolved. You can read her post at: Expressive Arts Carnival 11 - Coping (at Kerro's Korner).

Here are the entries in the order received. Only if there is a blog or a post to accompany the entry, the artist's name will have a link to it.

Entry 1: Tai

Tai wrote: "I use fantasy all of the time to escape my life and sometimes it's how I get through something that seems unendurable. Of course many times, I end up in the hospital so I could have done that as well."

Entry 2: Catherine

Catherine wrote: "I have been cutting as a way of coping since I was 13. I started when my life felt out of control. I like having at least a little bit of control over my body. Later I came to love my scars. I felt that they were the only way I could show how much pain I was in. Now I write on my arms instead of cutting. I tell myself 'you are safe now.' I am learning to express myself in words and art instead of scars. It feels good."

Entry 3: Wantstorun

Wantstorun wrote: "Ways I use to cope include: Imagining myself not falling to pieces in a time of crisis, but remaining put together; counting/writing out numbers, because I have been told that the most intense of feelings can only be sustained for a maximum of 10 minutes, so I will literally sit and count/write out numbers 1 through 600 to get through those 10 minutes; I will try to imagine soothing colors about me, to calm myself down."

Entry 4: Kerro

Kerro wrote: "I wanted to capture not just the range of things I've done to cope, but the progression in them as well. When I first started out on my healing journey I turned most often to those maladaptive strategies I'd used in the past - cutting, getting drunk, etc. As my healing progressed, I became more able to seek out things that weren't just about "coping" but also about soothing and helping myself. I've used a spiral to represent this, as many times I returned to the old ways of coping, though less so as time has gone on."

Entry 5: Castorgirl

Castorgirl wrote: "Last year I underwent a psychiatric assessment to determine my level of impairment.  I knew that this was probably going to be difficult, so put in place some safety plans ahead of time.  One of those plans was a trip to the beach.  The emotions stirred up by the assessment were intense.  After a particularly difficult night, I forced myself to pick up my camera and go for a walk.  This photo is one I took while on that walk.  It's not my best photo, and if I'd been more present, I would have chosen a different angle and camera setting. But as it is, the photo shows my attempts to connect to the environment around me."

Entry 6: Kylie

Kylie wrote: "For me, losing myself in music has helped me cope with so much. I often find music that reflects my mood. Drawing to is another way for me to cope, I actually drew this one night when I was not feeling very good. Music and drawing have become my two biggest sanctuaries."

Entry 7: Bay

Bay wrote: "Just some of the things we use to cope, some of them healthier than others. Like to think we use more of the healthier ones these days, though I have to admit, when things get bad they're hard to see and it's the unhealthy ones that have the power to keep us from falling over the edge."

Entry 8: Paul

I wrote: "There is a particular image that I tend to draw or paint that helps me reconnect. They are all variants of showing many colors as a patch quilt of sorts. This is what I did last night. I represent parts of me as colors, and sort of take a "snapshot" of where all of me is. It is sort of like a check-in. I find it helps in the moment. We will see if it does longer term."

Entry 9: Leslie (blog)

Leslie wrote: "The doll is from my childhood. I chose her because she represents how fragile I feel some..ah...most of the time these day. As I pondered this project, I realized that writing (either journaling or blogging) has been my main coping mechanism. The color red in the dress, the pen and the background represent the pain that I am trying to free myself of by writing."

That's all folks! Thanks to all those who contributed, especially those of you who are new. Thanks for taking a chance! If you think this Carnival is worthwhile, then let others know about it and we can continue to increase the contributors for future months.

How apt that this month's arts carnival is on "coping when you thought you could not." This is precisely where I find myself. Without getting into much detail, I have been much more compartmentalized and not particularly invested in changing the situation.

This is sort of unusual for me. I normally have the fight in me to change things. Not so much these days. The reality is that times like these are to be expected. I do not always have the emotional strength that I need to do the healing work and maintain all the responsibilities of life.

Since my beloved Boston Bruins hockey team is in the conference finals for the first time since 1992, I will use an example from sports. So often you will see a team start a period as if they were shot out of a cannon. They can just take control of the game away from the other team. This happened last Saturday when my team scored three goals in the first period, to the other team's zero. I had the feeling is was going to be a huge blowout. But we ended up losing.

It is so very difficult to maintain intensity in any endeavor. I have clearly lost that intensity. In sports it is often referred to your "compete level." I have talked before about "taking vacation" (from healing work), but honestly I do not see that as possible for me. The stakes are too high. When I get too out of touch with a healing path for too long, it does not lead to anything good. Safety becomes a serious issue. Fragmentation can get to a place where it is too big a hole to dig out of.

There is a particular image that I tend to draw or paint that helps me reconnect. They are all variants of showing many colors as a patch quilt of sorts. This is what I did last night. I represent parts of me as colors, and sort of take a "snapshot" of where all of me is. It is sort of like a check-in. I find it helps in the moment. We will see if it does longer term.

If you have been holding off on submitting to this month's Expressive Arts Carnival, there are now a couple days extended to the deadline. I will publish it on Friday.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) has, for decades, been described in terms of a prototype model which has roots in being called multiple personality disorder. Recent years has seen a realization that dissociation, including more intense dissociation seen in DID or DDNOS, is experienced in a myriad of different ways for different people and at different times.

However, I am not at all convinced that this realization is widely embraced. Clinicians not exposed to many cases of more extreme dissociation or those who try to grasp what dissociation is without prior experience, including those who are newly diagnosed, are often hard pressed to think outside the prototype. While the television series United States of Tara, for example, captures a good deal of what the experience can be of dissociation and switching, it also goes a long way towards reinforcing the well-defined prototype.

I have seen so many, including myself, get caught up in what the DID prototype says we are supposed to be like. That can be a real barrier to healing. It encourages us to deny those experiences that do not fit the prototype and accept those experiences that do fit. That is not to say that we do not have experiences that conform nicely to the prototype. I have seen, and experienced, florid DID which is much like the prototype of Part A knowing nothing about Part B, with self-destructive acting out. DID can really be out of control, but most of the time DID is not like that for most people. And, so, I think it is important to look at all of this from a broader perspective (i.e., that those of us with DID or DDNOS are much more than simply our disorders).

For those of us who experience a wide range of dissociation, we know that the prototype is mostly feature driven and, as such, somewhat superficial. Massive identity shifts are often responses to stress or a trigger. Everyone has reactions to stress and everyone has triggers. With large dissociative walls, our reactions simply tend to be more extreme than most, but they are fundamentally based on the same principles. Complicating matters is that anxiety associated with switching is usually self-perpetuating. Often there is an resulting panic when we realize that we have not been in control of what our body has been doing or have lost time.

In order to heal, our focus needs to become internal and personal. We have to realize that the task is to identify and come to terms with our myriad internal conflicts. When we do that, we are not focusing on the prototype, but rather our own unique experiences and feelings. That is how the barriers can come down, how communication can commence, and how collaborations can ensue. When that happens our experiences become richer. We become more aware. My increased awareness changed everything for me. In many ways it is not even easier, but much harder. I sometimes liked it better when I was not as "co-conscious", when I could just slip away and let someone else take over. Now I am somewhere in between, trying to find my way to a place of healing.

I see DID as a complex network, one that has features of the prototype (parts with rigid barriers), but also has fluidity that allows for barriers to come down and parts to interact in a seamless, dare I say completely normal, way. I have often represented this visually, with parts as circles and lines connecting them. I try to show the reality that the system is not static. That we are not locked into a prototype. That the barriers can come down, but that they can go back up too, and come to some appreciation that DID is really about how we interact with ourselves, no matter how "unconventional" it may seem on the outside.

While DID is unquestionably very challenging, I think it helps to place it in some context. There are far more complex systems on different scales. DID for an individual can be seen as simpler, than say, the community in which you live. Or world governments. Or ecosystems. Or the network of neurons in our brains. Or online social networks. I am constantly trying to reality check my experience of DID with the complexities I know exist in the world. When I am able to do that, my struggles become a bit easier to cope with.

I am not saying that DID is normal. Far from it. But I am saying that when we look at it in a wider context, we make it much easier for us to heal.

Welcome to Activity No. 11 of the Expressive Arts Carnival for the month of May 2011. Thank you to all who participate and a special welcome if you are new!

This month's theme:

Entries are due by Tuesday, May 24, 2011.

You may also feel free to send me a link to a page hosted on your own site (or blog), if you have one. It is important to repeat that nobody is required to have a website in order to participate.

The Carnival will be published on the afternoon of May 26, 2011.

To submit an entry use this link to e-mail: paul@mindparts.org

Please use "EXPRESSIVE ARTS" in the subject heading to help me keep track of submissions. Every submission will receive an acknowledgement of receipt. If you do not receive one within a day or two, then please follow up with me.

If you have questions or need clarifications, direct them to me by e-mail or ask in the comments here.