Monthly Archive for November, 2007

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The Spontaneous Gathering

Published on November 19, 2007 in For the Record, Gratitude Journal and Relationships. 4 Comments Tags: , .

I had quite the nice week end with only one regret. I have no idea what possessed me to pick up a football and play with two 9 year old boys. I suppose I forgot that my bones are aged. But, for a bit I didn’t feel any pain. I just had fun. There was one 13 inch deep dish apple pie, 4 adults, two kids, 4 dogs and 2 cats. It was a spontaneous gathering of neighbors. Cappy Crunch got to play with his pals and I got to play football. It’s been awhile. I can’t believe I got my butt kicked by tiny 9 year olds.

This morning I sat on the porch in my big red fluffy warm slippers and smiled as I reflected on football and apple pie. I wish I had more pie and fewer football “memories.”

Austin

 

Tradition- Random Memory Friday

Published on November 17, 2007 in For the Record, Humor and Relationships. 6 Comments Tags: , , .

At Wally World the other day it didn’t register WHY a man stood beside the door ringing a bell. I only noticed he danced around with his headphones on. I wondered what was on his ipod but other than that I didn’t think about the fact that he stood there because it’s the holiday season. He wanted donations for the United Way. I got that but still, I wasn’t thinking along the lines of the holidays. I don’t celebrate them so I suppose I see things differently. I have to remember that even if I don’t think in those terms many others do. I have to try and remind myself (via email notification) that many of my friends will be kind of busy with family and friends. I wouldn’t want to call on Wednesday or Thursday expecting a friendly chat only to find that I’ve interrupted their celebration.

Continue reading ‘Tradition- Random Memory Friday’

Art As Therapy

Published on November 16, 2007 in Art, Art Therapy, Dissociative Identity Disorder, For the Record, Gratitude Journal, PTSD and Therapy. 1 Comment

I was surprised to find out two of my paintings were featured on Redbubble. The first was a version of Face It and the second painting is Lady Hope. She got featured yesterday. This so so cool. You can see my this piece here.

Lady Hope

Strange I know but above being happy about getting featured I was more pleased with the fact that a talented artist that I truly admire favorited Face It on my Flickr page. I like this artist because of how he paints people. One particular piece shows a nude lady standing in what I call a ghost town. She’s standing stark naked in the middle of town with no one in sight yet she’s holding a gun straight out still trying to protect herself. Now, this is of course my personal spin on the painting. His stuff lets you do that, spin your own meaning. But when I look at this painting I see a woman that is exposed yet isolated. To onlookers it’s like, well why is she naked and why is she holding a gun when she is the only person in the painting? There are no other people in desert town. Perhaps someone is standing just outside of the frame? I figure she is and has always been in protective mode even when there is no real cause for that level of alarm she’s still at that level of alarm. Louie’s paintings are quite vivid, quite detailed. I hope when people look at them they look with the depth they demand. So, even though I was featured on Redbubble (twice in fact) I was so honored that Louir liked a piece of artwork from a small time Indiana girl. Now that is enough to make a girl smile.

The two pieces that were featured are both art therapy pieces. The pieces with the most meaning to us were the one’s chosen but it got us to thinking. I wondered if people will start to long for the romantic and exotic type figures Joan is known for or the floral paintings Maureen is known for. Since Robert has been out there haven’t been too many of those. I doubt that there will be. I wonder if I’ll scare people off the art blog because of how different his art is from the art of other Pride members. We did paint Angel the other day which has a slightly different feel to it than our other works but it is certainly not Robert’s artwork.

The stuff he’s been through reflects in his work. The busy, full, constantly moving, high texture images he creates accurately show what’s in his head and how he feels. Dr. D asked what Robert’s life was like. I didn’t know how to explain the howling, the incessant howling. That’s how he use to do, kind of as a way to ward off but also to bring others closer. Robert’s howl was quite mournful. He needed someone to hear him but he was scared to death, scared of himself and of others. In his artwork he is able to relieve some of the pain of his past.

Robert is the main one in our system that experienced torture by the hands of our mother but the hands you see in the picture above are not of concern to the nested masked figure. They’re protecting her, guarding her so that she can grow, she has a reason to hope. She’s several different colours but not divided as to which is her true identity. The mask in this image though, it’s not like the others. She has no identity yet, she hasn’t decided who she is. There’s nothing to withhold because she hasn’t grown to that point yet. She can only hope that life will give her a chance to find out. She is being guarded, watched over closely so she can flourish, so she has a real chance at bursting forth. Notice the rays that come down and flood over her. In every single way this woman child is nurtured. In the beginning we called her Guarded but the title changed to reflect the more positive side of the painting. Now we call her Lady Hope.

Austin

Will You Choose To Pass This Down?

Published on November 14, 2007 in Abuse, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Female Sadist, Mental Health, PTSD, Soapbox and Therapy. 3 Comments Tags: , .

It makes me sad. Sometimes I resent the whole I’m going to therapy thing especially when the cousin comes up. We talked about the cousin and about the lack of male influence growing up, about the vast majority of women in my family hating men but being closet lesbians. There were 2 boys in my life growing up, my older male cousin aka the wolf and my younger brother. Wow, I just smiled when I wrote “my younger brother.” We steered the conversation away from him and ended up talking about Robert and how he identifies with two abusers. We talked about how my adult male cousin is the only person in the family to pay for his crimes. I wonder if he had grown up differently if he would have hurt his girls? Even still we all have a choice. We have a choice to hit or not hit, to harm or not harm. People can get help. There is no excuse for abuse, none at all. People have a choice not to hurt. We talked about the mother choosing to hurt her children, choosing to not get help. That hurts so much, to know not only did she choose to hurt us she enjoyed it. That makes me angry.

We talked about me holding the baby on Monday and how it felt to do so. I didn’t freak out when she handed her to me. I didn’t run or try and sanitize the baby. No OCD issues at all as a matter of fact. He asked how it felt. I told him I like kids. He noticed the glow when I mentioned my foster boys. He asked how it was that I was able to be a good mother when I was never shown how to be one. For me motherhood came naturally plus I could relate to the boys and their fears.

We talked about how abuse gets passed down from one generation to another. I understand that. I’ve said it before, there are 6 generations of abuse in my family. I’ve heard stories from 5 of them because 5 generations were alive at one time.

I know my mother saw herself in me and I understand that. I understand the idea that a mother can look at her child and see the child they use to be. I understand looking at her and thinking you hate her because you see yourself, the weak, hurt, scared little knock kneed kid you were. I look in the mirror and detest the reflection of the scared child I use to be. But still, stand back and take a good hard look. She’s not you. I wasn’t her and I deserved a chance to not feel like she did. Because I do know how she felt it’s her fault, not the fault of the person that abused her. This is on her, it was her hand that hurt me and her apathy that allowed others to hurt me because she didn’t see me (herself) as worthy of protection. But you gotta draw a line between you and your child somewhere. Why, cause it’s right to do so, because it means her future health to draw that line.

Think about this, why on earth would you put her through what you went through? You can’t destroy yourself or your past through another person especially a child. Making the choice to do no harm and figuring out a way to follow through on this goal is vital for yourself and for generations to come. Do not pass this down! If you wouldn’t consciously pass down AIDS or ovarian cancer, breast cancer or any other deadly disease why would you be willing to pass down abuse? It is unnatural to hit and abuse, it is natural to love but sometimes anger from the past snuffs out our will to let love abound. Please, for the love of God do not pass this down!

Austin’s August

Will You Choose To Pass This Down?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007-6:31PM EST

reprieve

Published on November 13, 2007 in Art, For the Record and Gratitude Journal. 7 Comments Tags: .

the vast majority of this day has been spent in laughter

and art work

this links to the art blog with detailed views

austin

Session Review – Religion

Published on November 13, 2007 in Morton's Pride, PTSD and Therapy. 0 Comments Tags: .

Talked about hyper-vigilance and trust issues fueling hyper-vigilance. No Robert today which was interesting. He asked why we were hugging the pillow. We told him it was to feel more hidden. Talked about hiding with long sleeve shirts and about 3 reasons for wearing a hat all the time – style (← I so got that), to hide and as a sign of guilt. Head coverings in the Bible often represent a person’s humble recognition of sinfulness. He asked what I have to repent of. Oh, I don’t know being a smoking, cussing lesbian I guess. This lead to talk of religious connections growing up. La Regla Lucumi/ La Santeria, Wicca and Catholicism. I stressed that I’m not connected to any of those. It was quite confusing to him I guess why it is our family would be into that. If you toss in the grandfather’s heritage along with their love for all things Hispanic the connection to La Santeria becomes obvious. That sounds bad I know.

We talked about 2 out of the three taboo subjects – race and religion. I suppose Wednesday we’ll talk about politics. Unlike MacBlue he wasn’t anywhere close to offensive. He wondered why our family was so interested in Spain and its religions which lead to background info on familial heritage. Asked what race we consider ourselves. If you ask my grandfather he’d say West/Central African, from what use to be called Zaire. If you ask anyone else in my family they’d say, “What the hell kinda question is that?” I told him I say I’m black, it’s quite simple. I don’t have a lick of Spanish blood in me but the family sure loved that country and spent a heck of a lot of time there. They mostly loved the land and didn’t get too much into locals other than the religion we spoke of. He asked if it scared me as a child, if I participated in rituals. Nope. I sure didn’t.

It was a lighter session than usual. How on earth could that be light? Well, compared to other sessions it was light. After the session we went out to see if our favorite little guy was in the waiting room. He was in session so I didn’t get to see him. His father asked why I didn’t have Captain Crunch with us. He’s basically retired we told him. I offered to trade Captain for their newborn. I got to hold the little guy’s newborn sister and feed her. She’s so precious. She looked all of 3 inches and one ounce the last time I saw her so I didn’t hold her but today I did cause now she’s like 5 inches, 2 ounces…tiny, tiny, tiny.

I got in the cab to come home. While driving home a bus broke down causing a back up on the highway ramp. We sat there for twenty minutes until people started backing up. I shot a photo from the window and did an art piece with it called On The Bridge.

Goals: dinner, trash, watch Spiderman 3 again. I ♥ that movie, gotta get all 3.
Completed goals: raked leaves, walked the dog

Joan
Session Review Religion
Monday, November 12, 2007-11:07PM EST

***comments are close*** ***the reason comments are closed for session review entries is because the notes are specifically for Pride members. It makes it easier for us to come and read our notes without the complication of comments. When we come and look at our therapy notes we want to be able to focus on the notes and not the comments. It’s not that we want to keep people from responding if they so desire we just need to simplify an already high emotional situation. I hope that makes sense. Feel free to comment via email. For simplicities sake I need to close comments on therapy review entries. Our address can be found on the side bar under contact me.***

Scrap That There Idea

Published on November 11, 2007 in For the Record, Humor and Relationships. 1 Comment Tags: .

Unfortunately this was a real conversation….not to mention a really bad idea. The conversation went something like this:

Holiday- Do you want me to come over and give you a hug?
(A little light came on above my head.)
Me- Ya know, I think if a person can order up a pizza over the phone or online they should also be able to order a hug online or over the phone.
Holiday- We could start a hugging business. They could call us and we’d drive over and give them a hug.
Me- Yeah, we could charge like twenty bucks per hug.
Holiday- Then charge extra for stuff like rubbing their back while we hug and other false expressions of sympathy. And there should be a time limit on the hug or that’s extra too.
Me- Would this make us call girls, hugging hoes of some sort?
(silence)
Me- Yeah, we might want to re-think this idea.

Something about being a twenty dollar hugging ho just didn’t set right with me. Back to the drawing board I go for a get rich quick scheme.

J of A
Scrap That There Idea
Sunday, November 11, 2007-1:13AM EST