Art therapy

[NarcKiddo]

I've been experimenting a bit with my own version of art therapy. I've posted my output here. I wrote about the first one in a journal here. The second I just did yesterday.

The basic idea is to see if I can allow my inner child to express things. Trauma is often held in the right brain (especially pre-verbal experiences) according to my research, so art is a good way to try to access that. But apparently the topic needs to be a bit vague. For example, if you say 'draw a person' the left brain says 'oh, I know what a person looks like' and you just draw that. It's one of the reasons why adults can find themselves drawing in the same style they did when they were about ten, when the left brain has fully kicked in and likes to run the show. So the brief I set for the first one was 'draw anger'. The result speaks for itself as my child experience of my mother's rage.

My T commented that it was interesting I drew my M's rage rather than my own anger and suggested maybe also trying to tap into my own emotions a bit more.

I had another go yesterday. This time I made myself draw the whole thing with my left (non-dominant) hand. Drawing or writing with the non-dominant hand apparently can help one tap into the inner child more, because the relative lack of dexterity feels more like the young child experience. Plus, if the non-dominant hand is the left hand then it will more easily connect with the right brain, which is what you want. I've chosen to use chalks because that is a familiar medium for a young child.

This time I asked little NK 'what was it like being a child back then?'. I very quickly decided to depict myself as a snail and that I would depict the feeling of danger as being my mother's boot about to squash me. I have not had time to discuss with my T yet. What immediately struck me was that little NK was insistent on a pretty shell. When I was much older M would doll me up, put make up on me, do my hair etc but when younger I was never allowed to look pretty. Little NK also wanted to be among pretty flowers - even though M's boot is clearly going to squash those too. M's socks are of the type she wears to this day with every outfit, by the way. And I was going to add hobnails to the boots, but I think that was adult NK interfering because little NK didn't want them. M could do enough damage with the boot alone - why would she bother with hobnails?

It has felt good to draw these pictures, although a bit uncomfortable in the immediate aftermath. Actually doing them has absorbed me fully in the way adult NK gets absorbed by doing art. But I am confident that there is a large element of little NK in there, as opposed to adult NK trying to draw a childish picture. The experience of doing it feels similar, but the output is radically different. Without wanting to denigrate Little NK's efforts at all, or toot my own horn, I am capable of producing much more accomplished pieces than these when working as adult NK. That's not the point here, obviously.

Any and all comments or questions are welcome - on the process, or the outcome, or thoughts on what any of it might mean.

Pictures will be in the following post, once Kizzie has had time to approve them.

[NarcKiddo]

[Hope67]

Wow NarcKiddo,  I am impressed by the work you're doing tackling some Art Therapy in that way - and Little NK's Art work - I appreciate very much that you shared this. 

I wanted to share my reaction to the bottom picture - not really thought out, just literally a reaction - but it's that the pretty snail shell and the carefully arranged flowers (also pretty) look as if they're protecting little NK in that shell - and there's a distance between the boot above - it shows me (in my own reaction) that 'How could someone knowingly damage something so special and pretty' - and I hope that it doesn't happen - i.e. that somehow something/someone comes along to protect Little NK.

The top picture - it looks very scary.  A scary face. 

Also, it intrigues me that your M dressed you in make-up etc when you were older, but kept you plain when you were younger.  I feel like I was allowed to be prettier when I was a smaller girl, but then made to look plain when I was a teenager - e.g. that my M made me cut my hair very short when I was 16 years of age.  I hated that.  You mentioning what happened to you made me think of my own experience.

What annoys me/angers me is that a M should have that level of control.  It impacts so much on a young child/girl.

Sending you a hug 

[Kizzie]

Wow NK, these really do demonstrate the power of art and tapping into one's inner child.    I noticed there is a lot of colour which suggests you were a bright little being back then BUT oh the threat of that boot!

That you see and feel things so vividly - it sounds like she was not able to crush you when you were younger and did not have any power, that there was a small ember that was you. Maybe that's why young you insisted on a pretty shell surrounded by flowers, you were always in there but it was that boot that held you back.

I'll be interested to see if in your art young you grows in size like the child she was meant to be and maybe your NM shrinks or something along those lines.

I remember doing a exercise with a T in which I wrote with my non-dominate hand and was shocked to find young me in there and needing so much to tell me what she wanted.  It's powerful!

[SenseOrgan]

What a skillful way to give space to little NK! It's literally non-verbal, and very expressive (recalling the drawings from when they were up).

It's most likely me being triggered, but I think your T may have missed that the one who drew those drawings expressed her own experience, despite her M's rage being center stage in the drawings. Looking at them gives me an almost visceral understanding of what it must have been like to be in your shoes. Perhaps that's more obvious for a fellow survivor and introvert. Perhaps this is the way of expressing that best suits you in general, or perhaps at this moment? Or does your T's suggestion resonate?

I'm tempted to say that rushing to interpretations skips over the value of the process itself. You are expressing something important. The act of expressing itself may be even more important than the meaning our cortex craves so much. Wasn't it the point to let another part speak for a change? Anyway, I think it's great what you're doing! 

[NarcKiddo]

I don't understand why the pictures have gone. I didn't do anything. I've tried editing the post in case that makes them show up again.

Hope - it's interesting how we had our experiences of our mothers allowing us to be pretty the other way around. I had (in my M's view) physical faults that could not be hidden under clothing. For instance, I needed to wear spectacles from early childhood, and I had an obvious squint. So I think she felt drawing any attention to me whatsoever would also draw attention to the faults. Or that I would look stupid in a pretty dress because I was not pretty. She said as much when I was a slightly older child.

Kizzie - thank you. I've still got some thinking to do about the shell, but I do agree that I was always in there somewhere.

SO - I was fine with my T's comment about M's rage. One of the things I am working on is trying to feel my own emotions, name them etc. I was always made to take on M's. So expressing the childhood experience of little NK was great in terms of giving her a voice, but my T felt it might be helpful to see if I could at some stage tap into the personal emotional experience. It may be that little NK simply dissociated out of the lot but I'm happy to keep exploring and see where we get. Even the snail and boot picture are of little NK's experience rather than her emotions, I think. What is nice is that the picture of the boot feels historical. I asked little NK what it was like and she told me. But there was no feeling in that picture that her experience now is of that boot. A few years back it would have been but she's much more trusting of adult NK these days and I think she knows I would not allow that boot anywhere near her.

It has been very helpful to give little NK an opportunity to express things. In the moment it feels quite absorbing but immediately afterwards it feels quite disruptive and scary. I think it is just because little NK has never had an opportunity to say these things before and is maybe scared it will backfire somehow. I'm guessing if I do it enough she will realise it is quite safe.

I would advise anyone having a go at this sort of thing without access to any sort of T to be a little bit careful and gentle with themselves. It goes deeper than you might think. At least, that is my experience.

[Hope67]

Hi NarcKiddo,
I think it's so great that little NK is more trusting of adult NK, and that she knows that you would not allow that boot anywhere near her. 

I feel angry towards your M that she wasn't able to recognise the beauty in her daughter.  Also, to think that M's feel they can decide when a daughter is allowed to be pretty and when she's not.  It's not right.

I hope that little NK will feel safer and safer over time, and it's so great that she's able to express some things.