No Longer Solely an Art Blog

I think that it's time to change my blog description. This has become a place to not only share my art, but to also share my thoughts and experiences with PTSD. I think I would feel a lot less guilty about not having new artwork every time I post something if I changed the description.

So now I can share my thoughts without feeling bad that I don't have any art: I hate St. Patrick's Day. I feel like hibernating during it. A combination of this time of year and having that small contact from an abuser is making it really really hard to want to do anything other than work, eat and sleep. I am having a LOT of intrusive symptoms and it sucks. 

Here's the funny thing about the Facebook friend request from one of the abusers. When I was little, he would write me little notes that asked me if I loved him and then it would have two little check boxes for 'Yes' or 'No'. I always felt like there wasn't really a choice and I had to check 'Yes'. A Facebook friend request is essentially 'Do you want to be friend's?' Check 'Yes' or 'No'. It's kind of hard not to be thrown straight into the past with that. I know in every way that I should not - do not want to - do not have to check the 'Yes' box... but the kicked down, helpless child in me feels like I have no choice. I haven't checked either one yet because I just can't do it by myself. I think I need to press the 'No' button while I'm in therapy tomorrow because I think it's going to be hard to fight the child's voice without someone to support me.

Really?!

I was working on a drawing. And then I accidentally tore it right up the middle. Ugh. I liked the idea behind it but I was actually a little bit unhappy with how it was coming out so maybe it will be a good thing to start over. And that's my excuse for still not having any art to post.

I've noticed that there has been a very obvious and direct link between allowing myself to experience feelings and the emotions associated with the trauma and not feeling like I want to give in to urges to hurt myself. Now, when I get those urges, instead of immediately trying to figure out how to get rid of the uncomfortableness, I try to relax and take down my wall and feel angry or sad or whatever it is that I need to be feeling. It really really sucks. But it's really really really worth it. I spent about 20 minutes crying for 8-year-old-me because I got triggered by something. It felt so horrible... but then it felt so much better. The feeling eventually lessened in intensity and I still felt OK about myself because I didn't do anything to hurt myself and I felt a little bit of catharsis after letting all those tears out. Yay me!

Of course, while I've been experiencing all of this sadness and anger and EMOTION-craziness for the past few weeks or so, NOW is the time that a past abuser chooses to try to add me as a friend on Facebook. Really? My first reaction was just a horrible feeling in my stomach, which was all of the anxiety. Then I started having a lot of sensory memories, which are still going on... I swear I can smell him and I want to vomit. But now I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't such bad timing for this to happen - I'm feeling really angry and upset at him. Before, I would have pushed everything down and turned all of the feelings into a self-hate thing instead of turning them toward the deserving party. It's confusing though, because my brain is still trying to do that because that's the way it has always done things. However, I'm aware of it now and I'm not letting it take over so I almost have two different reactions going on at once. The part of me that is learning to be more assertive is just like, "What the fuck? How dare he try to intrude into any part of my life! He needs to go rot in hell." I guess now I just have to decide whether to ignore, decline or block that shitbag.