Sundrip Journals
I heard so many one line commands about who I shouldn’t trust but you never told me when its okay to trust.
Never trust a man when he tells you he loves you. He just wants to sleep with you.
Never trust anyone who says “trust me.”
When is it okay to believe a man who says “I love you?” Exactly when is it okay to trust at all? Please tell me, how did you summate the trustworthiness of a complete gender into one single sentence?
I’ve mentioned that I’m in a creative rut right now and that my artistic well is pretty much dried up. I also said that my self esteem is a huge block for me right now. I decided to write a few thoughts about painting, sewing and other forms of creativity.
When I paint or draw I am at my freest. I have few inhibitions and will take color and composition risks. I take risks in art but avoid them in real life. Man I’m not a risk taker, sheshh but in art work I’ll cross lines I was taught to observe and do it with no real concern as to if it turns out good or not. I mostly enjoy the journey but in real life I avoid risks like the plague.
Right now I feel bound and blinded by self doubt. I’ve painted for too long to say “I can’t.” Self criticism prevents me from seeing that I can. When my sight is limited progress suffers. Nothing gets out or in, including creativity.
There’s too much in these paintings to try and explain everything. I think the 
overall theme is anxiety, rage and grief.
When Dr. D saw this one here he didn’t notice at firs that it’s a human head vomiting up flowers. The head is tilted back and is strangled by a golden rope as flowers “grow” from it’s open, strained mouth. He said it’s disturbing but very well describes how hard it can be to manage what I feel. He said to keep writing, keep drawing what’s in my head and dreams because the work will pay off in healing. God, I hope so. I’d like to try and do a digital version of Flower Pot. I like that it expresses the feeling of being overwhelmed in an accurate but grotesque way. Grotesque is important since there’s nothing comfortable at all about how I’m feeling.
My therapist and I discussed the hanging people. I tried to explain to him that they aren’t suicide gestures but an illustration of how overwhelming emotion can be sometimes. My thoughts and emotions sometimes feel so powerful that it feels as if they could kill me. This is not me hanging but emotions strangling me. One of the things we talked about too is how the figure has evolved from a simple dress-like figure to one with hands and feet to one with distinctive clothing. I commented that perhaps the emotions are getting a little clearer and less generalized. I hope that’s the case. I hope things get clearer in my head.
***comments are off***
It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m annoyed, angered, exhausted by the whole thing. I also know there’s no way on earth I’m going to be okay with starting over not when I fear being tossed aside again when the wind blows slightly off course. That pisses me off, it does, to feel thrown away over the …..(no more editing my thoughts) I feel thrown away over the most stupid, minor bull shit of which only half was my fault. I just want to scream, we aren’t in a fucking fairy tale, guess who screws up? Yup everybody and I figure unless there is some huge crime committed that can’t be resolved then one shouldn’t have running away at the top of their list of ways to resolve issues. It pisses me off that….it’s wrong is all. It’s totally wrong. Because there’s an issue or two it doesn’t mean someone has to leave but I’ll be damned if that isn’t exactly what happened. So yeah, I’m frustrated, I’m angry and maybe even a little bit bitter.
Dr. D said my unconscious mind is process a lot right now. Right now my dreams are shorter and to the point. A few of them are long and twisting which is normal for me but those have been few and far between. Recently the main theme of my dreams has been vindication and self protection. On one level I’m pleased to see my dreams aren’t always about me being hurt in some way but on the other hand I’m still exhausted when I wake. I still feel as if I’ve run a marathon but didn’t cross the finish line. If feels as if when I go back to sleep I’ll start at the beginning and exhaust myself, the next night I’ll do the same thing, on and on an on never reaching the finish line of rest and rejuvenation which sleep is supposed to bring. Whether it’s nightmares of “positive” processing I still feel worn out!
Note: In this dream I lived in the house form the 4th grade, however, like in most of my dreams I was an adult. My mother stays the same age in my dreams as does my brother. The brother stays 3 years old and the mother stays around 35 years old. My sister ages as do I which means in this dream I was thirty-eight.
Most of these are based on anger and feeling overwhelmed and taxed. One in particular has to do with Bella being sick yet again. There’s one I like to call basic or primitive which is the box with the three colors around it. It shows how shut down I was feeling after a nightmare written about in my sketchbook. One drawing shows a woman hanging from a tree. There’s a house in another tree and they’re surrounded by bright colors as her body is picked over by vultures. I have no idea where that came from but I do know I purposely made it all bright and sunny with a very dark theme.
Some of my anger issues have to do with the loss of a friendship which I cherished. I’m quite angry over that and wish it hadn’t come to such a senseless end as it did. There’s confusion and concern for why I can’t seem to keep my head on straight at home right now. Also in the drawings are a few dream themes of things morphing from one thing to another. I think the one that stands out for me most is the one that’s all bright and cheerfully painted but has a dark theme. It’s presented as almost a childlike drawing, presented as innocent and maybe even fun, that’s what the colors say anyway. It’s hard to know what to feel when I look at it. It’s a true representation of my inner conflict, of the face I show outside, the craziness in my head, where I want to go, where I’ve been and the loss of energy trying to make sense of it all. There are so many contradictions and …..yeah, nothing is what it seems to be. Never trust the colors……
As much as I trust my boy I’ve had difficulties with allowing him to stand behind me or lay behind my chair. I can’t see him and it drives me batty. This is the same dog I sleep beside and have no issues with turning my back to but when I’m not in bed it drives me crazy for him to be behind me. In therapy today we talked about how instead of me feeling afraid because someone is behind me I end up feeling angry. Dr. D suggested that sometimes anger makes a person feel less vulnerable and powerless than when they feel afraid. I get that but I can think of a situation that may have changed this all from fear to anger.
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