The PTSD Dance

September 12, 2011

Childhood Fears

After I did the happy memory piece of art, it brought up some other memories of being anxious during the same time period so I decided to do a little series of some of my weird childhood anxieties and fears.

July 18, 2011

Anxiety at the Cape

While I was drawing the joy that I used to feel when I went on vacation as a kid I also thought of the nights on vacation when I couldn't sleep and I didn't know how to cope with any of the feelings that would come up. I would lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and count to ten over and over again as fast as I could. And I would count how many times I counted to ten by tens... My goal was to count to a billion. That definitely did not happen but I did get to thirty-something thousand before I got sick of it and it was stressing me out more than helping me.

Alcatraz

July 24, 2011

So when I was five, we went to California and we took a tour of Alcatraz. Aaaand it freaked me the fuck out. There's a photo of me with my brother behind bars where I look completely miserable... being in that cell haunted me for a long time. I had this absurd fear for a while afterwards that I was actually stuck in Alcatraz and that I was dreaming my real life. I was a weird kid. But it sort of reflects how I felt a year later when the abuse started - completely trapped while still living my life.

July 25, 2011

Always Watched

One of my weird anxieties that resulted from the abuse was a fear of being secretly videotaped in private places, like when I was in the shower or going to the bathroom. (Never watch 'The Truman Show' if you already have that fear...) I still always look around in public restrooms to see if there's somewhere a camera could be hidden even though I know how unlikely it is. I tried to represent that fear with a giant ugly eyeball that's watching and hanging over me all the time.

September 10, 2011

Happy Art!

Another parent influenced piece of art... This time it was my dad's suggestion to draw a good memory instead of all of the dark stuff I usually do. So I believe (though I'm not entirely sure) that this drawing is their favorite. However, it's actually a lot harder for me to draw something that expresses joy rather than painful feelings, so this is the only drawing so far that I have like that.

July 16, 2011

Happiness on the Cape

Some of the best memories of my childhood that I have are from being on vacation with my family. I would get incredibly excited for vacations because 1) it was a VACATION! and 2) for me, it meant being safe for a while. So being at the beach with my parents and brother are my favorite and most vividly happy childhood memories.

September 9, 2011

Something a Little Bit Different

At one point I was complaining a lot about how I was running out of pastels and I wanted to buy more but I was being too lazy to go out and find some. My mother very kindly bought me some in order to surprise me. However, she mistook a box of soft pastels for oil pastels, and those are actually very different. But I tried them out anyways and this is the product of that attempt...

July 14, 2011

Longest River

It's simple since it was my first time drawing with soft pastels. The river represents the long journey of dealing with PTSD and how it's like swimming against the current in painful red water. The sky is ominous and dark, which represents how easy it is to lose hope because it's hard to see clearly and it's especially hard to see the end of the journey.

September 7, 2011

Up for Interpretation

I kind of started branching out on the style of my drawings so the following two are a little more bold and controlled looking than what I had been doing before. They are also mostly up for your own interpretation - even to me they represent many different things.

July 2011

Shattered

While drawing this I was mainly attempting to create lightening-bolt cracks coming out from a bunch of ugly emotions and disgusting feelings and how everything can shatter from that. But I'm not really sure what it ended up being and I think I like it better not being able to explain it.

July 7, 2011

A Punch in the Stomach

I swear that all I was trying to draw here was the sense of being punched in the stomach as a visceral reaction to having intrusive memories... however there are some very obvious sexual "undertones" going on, but I'm just going to leave it at that.

September 5, 2011

A Little Bit of Chaos

July 4, 2011

Temporary Release

I scribbled this picture out when I was feeling frustrated. You can see some anger in red underneath. But then I covered it all up and hid it under black scribbles since anger makes me feel uncomfortable.

Windy Seas

July 4, 2011

I didn't like this picture that much when I first drew it, but it's grown on me a little bit since then. I was trying to draw the sea in strong winds since I had just gone on a trip where I experienced that on a boat. I feel like it also represents the chaos of emotions that I was feeling on that trip and how strongly those feelings are whipped around inside of me and how they make me feel like I don't have much control over them.

September 3, 2011

Keeping Things In

To make up for posting some art that I don't like on Thursday, I'm going to post some that I like today. The second one is one of my favorites - it's one of the few times a drawing has come out like I had pictured it beforehand.

Cave

This drawing represents the cave where I keep all of the shame and humiliation stored away. I keep it hidden deep inside so that no one can see it. There's so much humiliation and disgust that it's dripping from the ceiling.

Pressure

This is the pressure that builds up inside of me from keeping everything in. All of the feelings grow and grow until there's too much pressure and the walls start to break and everything starts to fly out and creates an overwhelming whirlwind.

September 1, 2011

Sardonicism

I am 79.6% sure that life is just fucking with me right now. So, going with today's general theme of shit, I'm going to post a few pictures that I don't really like all that much but I feel that I can't just leave them out of the blog.

Implosion