Fingerpaintings ~ June 17 & 18, 2005

These fingerpaintings were completed during the time of my past journal entry of June 17/18, 2005 when my suicidal thoughts and my self-injury was/had spun out of control. Emotionally, it was a very turbulant time with lots of mixed emotions seeming to pull me in so many different directions. I wish that you could see the brightness of the colors, the movement and texture.

My fingerpaintings are abstract which also means there is no right or wrong answer in what they mean. For me, I can tell at the time what I am feeling, but today it may be different. Either way it is a way for me to express myself without harming myself. So, what you see is probably about yourself or something in me in which you identify. I hope that you see what is important to you and not my interpretation or meaning. Although, some are able to step back and look at it through my eyes.

This one feels like there is deep sadness at the core fully enclosed by rotaing pain and then there is a lot of terror moving and surrounding with hopelessness closing in.

I don't name my paintings, but this one reminds me of a hurricane and I think "Eye of the Storm." I'm in eye where it is calm and I can just be which means a tremendous amout of sadness and hopelessness surrounded by constanly moving pain, emptiness and terror.

That lavender hopeless blob, I think is me, with surrounded by tears and little bit of terror and pain (orange color is red). Then, if scared me so I crossed myself out with the terror and the pain...to not exist. Sadness and rage scare me, so when I see it in my paintings it really agitates me...got to get rid of it.

First of all, I hate pink so why I have this pink blob, which is probably me, in the middle makes no sense. What does make sense about it is my struggle with being female. Then, the whole picture is sad and tearful with bits of sadness, rage, pain, terror all over the tears. All feeling can move one to tears. Now, I feel a bit disturbed by this.

Fingerpainting ~ June 15, 2005

These were originally painted on June 15, 2005 and published on Clinically Clueless entry Entry: June 15, 2005 ~ 10:00 pm with the corresponding journal entry posted on June 2, 2008.

(What looks to be yellow is actually orange. Only red, blue, purple and orange are used in this painting)

(The color on the left top side is red and the bottom orange is streaked with red)

Surgery Update!!

I have been very peaceful throughout the process since I met the surgeon. Unusually, so. My Christian faith has a big roll in it, but I know it is also what you guys did. I really felt good to have so many people thinking about me.

The surgery went smoothly and the tumor was a lipoma which is a benign fatty tissue mass. Pain yes…Vicodin good, but last dose was on Friday. So a bit more pain, but tolerable. The most difficult part is that I am allergic to bandage adhesive, even the paper type. So, all around the perimeter of my underarm is this horrible redness with small blisters that opened and it itches like crazy!! I’ve never had such a bad reaction. It looks worse than the incision. I guess, the underarm skin is much more sensitive than the rest of the body, duh!!

My husband stayed home from Wednesday (surgery) through Friday, so today is the first day I’m at home alone. I let my husband pamper me. Surgery and my husband being home was a good distraction from my therapist being gone. I really miss him and that is normal and not bad. I see my psychiatrist tomorrow and then my therapist on Wednesday.

Over the weekend, I had my hair cut while I almost fell asleep due to medications. I’m not sure I like my haircut. I like it, but I keep wondering if I look like a boy. It is one of those boy-chic for girls look. My husband thinks I look cute with it…but he is biased!!

Other exciting things, I won flowers at the GO! Smell the Flowers site for my words of inspiration about the world heading into a recession. In case, you missed it I am a guest writer there and having a great time. So far, I’ve written two articles, one is GO! Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and the second is GO! Ask for Support . I’ll start writing at least one time per week beginning Wednesday. Please take a look because you will see a different side of me. Plus, it is a really, really good site, but you just have to jump in with your comments.

Time Out For...

I am having outpatient surgery Wednesday under general anesthesia to remove what is believed to be a lipoma which is benign, but there is a very slight chance that it will be something that is malignant. They won’t know until it is taken out and tested.

According to the MayoClinc website, “a lipoma is a slow-growing, fatty tumor situated between your skin and the underlying muscle layer. Often a lipoma is easy to identify because it moves readily with slight finger pressure. It's doughy to touch and usually not tender. You could have several that persist for years. Lipomas can occur at any age, but they're most often detected in middle age.”

Did they say middle age? I am not middle age…wait how old is that…oh, maybe I am. I digress and I warned you remember! The tumor is a bit large and deep, so it may be involved in my nerves and vascular system. It could take 15 minutes to a little over an hour. I like my surgeon and my physician of 18 years will be the admitting physician at the hospital where I have had four of my six surgeries which were mostly sinus related. So, I’m feeling good about who and the place.

I am feeling strangely peaceful about this which is not my normal style. I have been feeling this way since I saw the surgeon. I know some has to do with my faith in God, my husband and my support system. Also, that it most likely just needs to be removed. I’m not sure when I’ll be posting again it depends on how I recover and stop needing pain medications. If I’m up to it, I may read and post comments for which I am not responsible for anything I say due to the narcotic prescribed medications.

I will be back soon with a little less fat under my arm. :-)

June 4, 2008 ~ Feeling a bit of Rage for the first time.

PAST JOURNAL POST

I just returned from therapy today. I did a fingerpainting and feel a little better, at least, not as self-destructive and took a PRN, at the advice, of my therapist. It was a rough session and I feel like I need to share it.

For the past several weeks, I've been returning to this flashback...now, I don't want to write it. Here goes...my step-father and his father used to tie me down to the ping-pong table unclothed in their garage with some sort of thing that raised my legs. Sometimes, two of their friends would just hold my legs up. Then, while laughing and seeming like they were at a party, James and his father would alternately beat me on the buttocks and the back of my thighs with a belt and a piece of wood. James would always use his belt and his father in this flashback used a piece of wood. They would hit so hard and so fast that it felt like I could never recover from one blow to the next. I'm not sure if I disassociated or was unconscious, at times, from the pain or both.

Today, I felt like I let myself off the hook a little bit. I've always thought it was because I wanted attention and that I trusted them which made it my fault. I needed attention because I wasn't given it and I felt guilty because they treated me nicely by purchasing things for me and taking me to amusement parks. Now, I realize that they were trying to gain my trust, so that they could abuse me. I know from a clinical stand point I knew it wasn't true, but this is one of those clueless things. I also know that they were really had severe personality disorder.

I am feeling so enraged that they would gain my trust and then abuse me in the way that they did. And, it is sinking in more that there was absolutely nothing that a four or five year old can do to fight back with four men, two being very large. It was like I didn't exist to them...I was just a toy. I hate them so much right now I just want to go hurt someone. I hate that I had no control and that I was unclothed and tied down and held down and beaten for their amusement. I am feeling so much rage which is quite unusual for me. And there is a part of me that wants comfort, but doesn't trust it.

I am also going back and forth between wanting to hurt someone and really wanting to hurt myself especially bruise and hit myself to the point where I break a bone. I am sooooo angry. Which side am I going to stay on today. I don't want to hurt myself, but it feels like I need to punish myself or get some anger out by hurting myself. I think, I'll need another PRN. I've never quite felt like this before and I don't like it. I am having a rough time.

So, that was my session and the aftermath. Here is the painting I completed...the paint is still wet and I felt like I could only do one because it was starting to escalate my feelings at the end. Only red, orange, purple and blue were used in this painting.

Color Legend:

Red=pain/anger
Orange=rage
Purple=terror
Blue/light bluish/lavender/grey=sadness, crying, tears

Black=depression, hopelessness, despair

Addendum: I just woke up from a nap and now I feel like I just want to die. I've said too much. No one is going to believe me...I don't want to believe me. Physically feeling the pain. My head hurts like I can't take it in...I don't want to take it in. I just need to die.

"Little Girl Lost" ~ Mary G. from Nippercat's Home

LITTLE GIRL LOST

I was that little girl
Who was so very lost,
Stuck in an adult world you see
It was me he did accost.

I shouldn't have known these awful things
That were so strange and bad,
So much sadness on my face
But I didn't know how to get mad.

He wanted me to like it
But what was there to like,
It made my stomach turn in knots
I was just a little tyke.

I felt so lost and empty
I kept everything buried inside,
So deep within my memory
My thoughts I had to hide.

You took away my innocence
You took away my soul,
I have to face the nightmares still
My happiness you stole.

My inner self is broken
My mind can't comprehend,
The vulgar ways you touched me
And the message you did send.

So yes I was that little girl
Who was so very lost,
And even in my adult self
My life is what's at cost.

written by Mary G.

@ Nippercat's Home

Fingerpainting ~ June 10, 2005

These fingerpaints and journal entry were originally posted on Clinically Clueless on May 27, 2008. Please visit Clinically Clueless to read the journal portion.

Fingerpaints ~ June 8, 2005

These fingerpaints and journal entry were originally posted on Clinically Clueless on May 26, 2008. Please visit Clinically Clueless to read the journal portion. You may also recognize the painting as part of my header for the Clinically Clueless blog. I have a picture of it with the painting for the header of Courageous Steps on the right side bar.

The colors in this one are actually darker. Looking at it today. I read it left to right and see a solid base of terror. Then, hopelessness and a bit of sadness with a lot of tears beginning to move out of it. There is also pain starting in the terror and disappearing as it moves through the picture. I don't think it is disappearing as much as it is hidden by the other emotions.

This is your brain on drugs!! No, just kidding, but that is what was jokingly going through my head. I'd rather joke then tell you what I really see. First off, the orange is actually red with only a small amount of orange in the lower right corner. I think that little funny looking thing in the middle is me curled up full of fear and sadness and surrounded first by sadness that is completely surrounded by terror with protrusions of rage, pain and terror. There seems to be a lot of movement and intense feeling in this one. I still feel unsettled by it now.

This one scares me the most because it is the most intense and filled with terror, deep sadness/emptiness, loss, pain, rage, death, dying and hopelessness. Which matches the way I've been acting out, my bruising. Acting out meaning telling you what I feel or think through my behavior instead of other means, telling you behaviorally. All behavior is a way that someone communicates a thought or a feeling, usually feeling. Speaking of that. This one feels a bit out of control and all over the place which would match how I was feeling then as indicated in both my behavior and journal entries.

The lighter orange is actually red. I think the last one scared me so much that this one became more subdued and structured. It seems like a reaction to the other one. Just more of the same feelings. I think the last one represented the most of how I was feeling at the time. In this particular case, this was one of the times that finger painting increased my anxiety and thoughts, so did not help in preventing me from bruising. (Bruising to the point of drawing blood. I have to call it bruising, for now. Just as I am having difficulty accepting my self injury, I am having difficulty accepting my painting and the feelings that I am still trying to integrate now.)