Sundrip Journals
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Faith
I’m old school, diagnosed in 1992 so I still call it MPD as well as Dissociative Identity Disorder. What ever you wish to call it one thing remains true – I’m not alone in my head.
The reason I’m writing today is because I visited a young woman who reminded me of how difficult it can be to feel as if nothing belongs solely to me. As time passed and therapy got deeper there was a decrease in the resentment I felt for constantly living as many.
Keep in mind please, that in order to develop Dissociative Identity Disorder / Multiple Personality Disorder, there must be major trauma in the child’s life. The word trauma is an important one because it doesn’t have to be abuse that triggers the extreme dissociative response. I personally know a young man who feels he first split while under going constant excruciating medical care as a child. No matter if it was long term abuse or other long term traumas, the mind will try to protect itself.
I know as a child nothing at all was mine. My body wasn’t mine, my thoughts weren’t mine, my actions were determined by what trauma was taking place. I had no freedom and no control over anything. So now I’m a multiple and still nothing is my own.
Let me discuss that for a second. I have always understood that each of us alters has split from the original personality. Yes, we feel very strongly separate from who we call the “original” personality but we do know we all originate from her. Moving on.
Think about never having a single, solitary moment to yourself. How do you think that would feel? When you eat at the table, type entries such as this, when you walk the dog, or take a bath the alters are with you. Your thoughts aren’t private, they’re heard by the inside personalities called alter personalities. Sometimes they chat among themselves, just stuff, but the incessant talking can become very troublesome if not managed in therapy. When I sit in therapy, take a bubble bath, read a book, paint, sit in the dark, use the restroom, brush my teeth, close the blinds, on and on and on there’s always someone else with whom I must share that moment.
At first this was a big issue for me but as I said, I’ve been in therapy for a long time. Gracious, I feel like a veteran. LOL, but I know these emotions are legitimate and that they do gradually become less of a burden when managed by a licensed professional.
I need to be clear on one thing. We didn’t choose this and neither did the alter personalities. Though some multiples have parts/alters that are difficult, many of us do not. I have alters that work together for the most part. In the beginning we were all over the place. Good gracious!! That was horrible. We could not get it together for the world. We didn’t understand that there was a whole system (group) of us and that what one alter does affects the others. For instance, lets say Alter A came out and thought it would be ok to give intimate details of our life to my birth mother. That alter may not remember how bad it was at home so speaking to my mother wouldn’t be as traumatizing for her. However, since she is not the only alter here, the difficulty falls on Alter B, C and D.
It took quite a long time before we all realized, on whatever level we could, that we share this body, this mind. Everything we do or don’t do affects the others in the system. Getting up and moving to Texas isn’t a decision we all made, but we were all affected by it. Promiscuity wasn’t a decision we all made, but we all felt degraded by it. We are not alone in this head of ours.
The drawings included were created in 2010. They illustrate the life of a multiple. What’s interesting to me is how one piece shows a whole group holding hands with a sunflower behind them. It’s almost like a show of solidarity, a solidarity that includes the original personality.
Jordan
I paint with my heart and all but bleed on canvas. Painting is a powerful way to release anxiety and thoughts that pound my skull. While art as a whole is therapeutic for me, there are certain pieces that were created specifically as therapy with my psychologist. As I thin out the amount of art in my home, I’d like to make available on a continued basis, some of the art pieces created during my therapy sessions or at a later time.
As I said, art therapy has been one of the most powerful tools in my healing process. I can’t explain to you the relief I feel knowing that some of my abuse memories have lost their sting when I was professionally guided with the tool of art therapy.
This entry shows art two art pieces with a purpose. Rise, fall if I must. Stand to meet the challenge. What’s the challenge? I’ve got to get a hold of my stinking thinking. I have to change my outlook one single color at a time if necessary. While writing I felt a sense of urgency and desperation. I could all but see myself at a door grabbing the handle and pulling it, ripping at.
Lets talk more about the art at the root of these emotions.
Creating non objective abstract art started with a self challenge in June of 2014. I really wanted to create some of the beautiful art I was seeing, but it didn’t think I had it in me to do that type of art. When I first challenged myself I said I’d do 10 paintings. I wasn’t looking forward to it because it was as if I had no idea where to start, let alone know how to finish.
Though I’m still learning, I can say I have left behind the anxiety. I enjoy it creating non-objective abstract art. I find it soothing to create and I actually feel I know when to start. As a matter of fact I start non-objective abstract such as “Landfall” the same way I begin other art, with a single stroke.
I don’t think too hard and I sure don’t plan ahead. When it comes to art, if I plan ahead then I’m planning for a disaster. I start art with one single stroke and go from there. I paint from the hip…..not literally because that would be uncomfortable. My next challenge with abstracts is to paint them larger. Continue reading “Landfall Abstract Ocean Scene”
DECEMBER 27,2015.
Times 32 on the multifunctional remote, flash blurred scenes for you. My eyes have processed them all, bit by bit, no translation of hue or tone lost to speed.
I see. I hear. I can’t make it stop.
Pulled plugs, short circuit, a hundred failed attempts to rewire.
Still I hear
every car honk, every cellphone ring and every exasperated, exhausted,
needy inner plea, burned in the screen of my mind .
Robert
I look at the drawing called “The Hide” and question how much I should reveal concerning it’s symbolism. I’m sure if viewed long enough it will interpret itself without me or anyone else having uttered a word. However, if one word were to wrap up how I felt as the ink crossed on paper, that word would be vulnerable. Vulnerable is the dominant emotion felt when I display art that expresses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
My heart sinks with each intricate line that builds a fortress from the inside out. Figure after figure emerges with each level of lines. Though the staircase would appear to lead down to the central black figure, in my mind it leads up. The figure is in a fortress of her own making, and that fortress is….. I’m not sure how to end the sentence.
When I painted this piece I wasn’t necessarily thinking about natural disasters such as a hurricane, tsunami or an earthquake. I was thinking of the disasters of the mind. I was thinking about events that leave us feeling crippled and isolated.
What Remains is a painting with many brush strokes, strikes with a toothpick and with black ink. Everywhere you look there is something filling the space. It’s full, overwhelming the canvas with flowing color, splashing contrast and texture that digs at the heart of the matter.
Art Title: The Growing Process
Art by: Faith M. Austin
Medium: Acrylic, ink on artist paper, size 8.5 x 5.5 , signed, sealed, unmounted.
The Growing Process is ready to ship today.
Monday afternoon I showed a friend this painting. He said,
“She looks sad”. I replied, “You would be too if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
Yes, she does look sad, and yes great responsibilities are hers. There’s a lot riding on her actions or inaction. However, she has not given up, nor has she slowed the growing process. Continue reading “The Growing Process”
To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions I was inwardly calmed and reassured.
Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.
There is a chance that I might have succeeded in splitting them off; but in that case I would inexorably have fallen into a neurosis and so been ultimately destroyed by them.
As a result of my experiment I learned how helpful it can be, from the therapeutic point of view, to find the particular images which lie behind the emotions.
Carl Jung
A Bird Flew in the Window
I Release Her
fma
I know what I want from this painting but who knows how long it’ll take to reach the finish line.
24 x 36 on watercolor paper.
This young girl is made of ashes. She’s wearing a dress made of bits and pieces of this and that. There is burlap and there are wood shavings, colored paper and ink ‘spills’. In her arms she will carry a bouquet of red roses but not bright red. The young girl’s hair will change slightly. You can be sure I’ll pull the wolf (in the top right corner) out in more detail. He’s just a cloud formed above her. At this time there is only one raven in the sky and a few solar flares in the sky. The final question is, will she be for sale? I have no idea. Continue reading “Ashes – Hesitant to Speak”