My Monster Has A Name

Trigger Scale: (0/5)

During a session on August 08, 2007 I created this drawing in response to my therapist asking me to draw the anxiety process:

The Anxiety Process – can also be viewed in the In Session Gallery

Following is an outline of the six different parts of this drawing. These pieces are in order of how anxiety usually unravels for me:

1. Black-centered explosion – feelings in my stomach. The black oval is the black hole that leads to depression
2. Spiky tangled scarfs – tensed muscles
3. Mountain/shoulder symbol, lips and sweat – this symbol represents many things, in this instance my shoulders. It also represents mountains, i.e. Arizona to me. The mouth represents me chewing on my lower lip, which I do when I am anxious or concentrating
4. Yellow head with thought bubble – thoughts; usually about what ever is causing me anxiety. Sometimes, at other times, unconscious thoughts that either help to calm me or exasperate the situation
5. Tangled scarfs – untwisting muscles
6. Loose scarf – I told my therapist, “ I become like a scarf,” meaning that my muscles then relax, completing a return to my ‘normal’ state

I was not thinking much, as usual, when I did this drawing. I think this helps me to reach a sub-conscious part of my brain, which I guess is the point of art therapy, right? This process also demonstrates how an anxiety/panic attack develops for me as well.

1. Session Splash – May 5, 2009*****
2. Session Splash – May 21, 2009**
3. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****
4. Movie about Abuse – 8mm*
5. Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 1*

Trigger Scale: (1/5)

During a session on January 05, 2009 I created this drawing:

Unreality – can also be viewed in the In Session Gallery

This was a response to my therapist asking me to draw the “unreality” that I had been having trouble with at the time. I had explained to her that I sometimes did not feel alive, or real. I would say now that at these moments I feel like a marionette doll or like a Sim controlled by somebody else. This was especially happening while driving. All of a sudden I would get this feeling and then become very afraid that I was going to crash, so I would pull over to calm down, and the feeling would pass. Sometimes it would pass before I could pull over. But it happens others times to, such as when I am taking a shower.

For some reason, and especially when I am having trouble with memory flooding and flashbacks, it is triggered for me to take a shower (I know why, I just have not gotten to the abuse memories associated with it yet). It happens almost everyday now, for the last two weeks. I just feel like I am watching myself and there is a broken tape in my head repeating, “This is not happening, this did not/could not happen.” I eventually recover and ’snap back’ to reality and move on with my day.

It is a feeling of being disconnected from myself, from my mind and body. ‘I feel’ is not really the right term either, more accurate would be that I DON’T feel at these times. I sometimes think that ‘I’ am dead or that I have died.

So that is the background behind the unreality I was trying to represent in the picture above. I felt like there was a spotlight on my brain that is run by my memories. I also mixed into the picture how I try to solve problems, or maybe the problem of the unreality, which is represented by the A, B, C purple path and the grey/brown square symbols. I explained to my therapist that the grey/brown squares were like binary computer information.

On the back of the drawing my therapist wrote the following notes:

1. The path – I noted some was connected and some not, she insisted that it was connected. There would be loops, but she didn’t want it to look that way.
2. She drew her own circle, even though I offered!
3. List of words:

• Hypnotize
• Path
• Brain
• Sun
• Archaic

The first note frustrates me because I tried to explain that the path only looked like it was not connected, but that was only because it went into the “hypnotize” area.

However, I still am not sure what this drawing says, expect that I feel it is related to dissociation. It did help to calm me down to create it at the time.

1. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****
2. Session Splash – May 5, 2009*****
3. The Anxiety Process
4. I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!***
5. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Timeline**