March 25, 2012

Closure

Last week I finally got to have a closure meeting with my old therapist. I'm so glad that I got a chance to do that. I feel like I finally got to say what I needed to say and it was good to hear her response to what I said. I gave her a drawing as thanks for everything we worked on together and to show my appreciation for what she helped me accomplish.


Bloom

February 4, 2012
This is what I wrote on the back of the drawing:
"The flower is a representation of therapy and what it was like for me working with you. The flower is made up of warm colors – pinks, red and purple – to represent the safe and warm environment that you created. The twisted stem represents working together in the therapeutic relationship. The flower blooms out to show how you created hope that there is something better than what I’m going through right now. The hill on the side is the one that therapy is helping me climb to get through depression and PTSD. The background sky goes from dark to bright to show how I feel like I progressed from a darker place and made changes to get to a better place."

March 17, 2012

Tiptoeing Around

I have been neglecting my blog this week so I'm going to try to change that right now. Good news: I've been doing pretty well recently. I'm scared to make any sudden movements though in case I suddenly dip again. I'm scared to think about things in case I trigger myself. I'm nervous that something is going to happen that will make me plunge back into that dark place. But despite that, I have been doing well and hopefully it stays that way. By the way, tiptoeing is a really weird word to spell.


Chasms

March 6, 2012
The blue lines in this represent how depression sneaks around in my brain. It kind of winds around everywhere so I'm scared to think about the wrong thing or I might set it off. Surrounding the blue are the "normally" functioning parts of my brain. I know that I'm able to be rational and I'm smart and creative - the colors are bright because I know that I am capable of joy and happiness. Despite that, I'm almost constantly scared that the blue line is going to expand and take over. I'm scared it's going to make me irrational and self-destructive. I'm really hoping it stays under control.

March 8, 2012

Caving Again

Just another cave. On this drawing I figured out that rubbing the drawing with tissue creates a cool effect so I pretty much used it on everything.


Dark Cave

March 1, 2012
This is yet another depiction of my depression/PTSD cave. This time it has sharp uncomfortable rocks on the ground. The ceiling is covered in dank stalactites. The air is reddish black to represent how suffocating and scary it is in the cave.

March 5, 2012

Happy Amoeba!

I have been feeling a lot more positive this past half week. I got to visit my brother over the weekend and it really helped me get unstuck from my head. I also just got off all of my sleep medications, and even though I didn't really sleep all that well last night, I still feel relieved that I'm not on 4 different sleep medicines anymore... Hopefully I'll get some decent sleep tonight. Since I'm not feeling so depressed and I'm feeling lighter, I'm going to post something that my roommate thinks looks like a happy amoeba...


New

February 21, 2012
I drew this when I was feeling depressed because I wanted to draw something more positive than how I was feeling. I've been trying to think of all of the recent changes in my life as positive so this drawing is supposed to represent a fresh start. It represents optimism about the new things in my life. Even though I wasn't feeling that way when I drew it - it represents how I'm feeling right now.

March 2, 2012

Lava?

I'm slowly fighting my way out of a really shitty period of depression. I was feeling really horrible about myself for letting myself get to this point. Depression is so stupid. It's like, "Hey, let's make you feel shitty. And also make you feel shitty about feeling shitty." So fun. But I am now getting little breaths of fresh air; of actually seeing that maybe things will be OK. That definitely helps with dealing with those feelings.


Disappointment

February 21, 2012
This is my big pile of disappointment in myself. I hate struggling with safety. Every time I do something when I'm feeling bad, I swear to myself that it will never happen again and I really am determined every single time I make that promise. Then something happens in my head where I just get to the point where I don't care anymore and I give up. And then I feel even worse because when I can think again, I realize what I did and that it has set me back. So I guess I just have to go with what my therapist told me - to take something from every time it has happened and learn something from it. My lesson from this time: asking for help before things get really bad is really important. I spent so much energy on pretending that things weren't going downhill that I didn't notice how far downhill things were going.


My brain is now officially mush. It took me about two and a half hours to finish this because I can't think and I'm half watching TV...