Hi. JUMP!

Ok... I know I have shown images of part of this 'book' before... But here is the cover of it, COMPLETED and with my feet in the picture. And if you have DID you can probably appreciate why I appreciate having my feet in this photo and if you do not have DID well then... yeah. Anyway... So here are a couple of images- the cover and one page from inside the book. The REALLY REALLY REALLY exciting part of/about the book I am not going to post images of here on my blog right now because I am just not ready for that. I did take photos and emailed them to my doctor. Anyway- the GREAT news today is this: I STARTED WRITING AND IN/FROM ALL OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF BEING ME AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF DIFFERENT THOUGHTS AND IT IS ALL MESSY AND PAINFUL BUT THE POINT IS THIS:
I AM GOING FORWARD! JUMP! BOOK OF JUMP! BOOK OF JUMP!

I have been struggling and feeling bad for so long and then really a lot over the past several weeks, months, years... lol. Anyway- I took medicine for a lot of years and then I just went off of almost all of it and then SO MUCH stuff in my mind started moving and then I have been super totally overwhelmed (Note to self/selves: I think when I use expressions like 'super totally' I can be 'super totally' sure that I am speaking from a "teen aged way of being me".) Anyway... I am starting to work on recognizing/knowing/tolerating/meeting/greeting/helping/caring for... etc etc etc... the different ways of being me. TODAY I GOT REALLY EVEN MORE DEPRESSED THAN I HAVE DEPRESSEDLY BEEN FOR QUITE SOME TIMES NOW and I FINALLY started (JUMP!) to write (JUMP!) into (JUMP!) this book that I started making a couple of weeks ago. Anyway... so this is good good news. I am going to keep doing this work. I let/made/brought/carried myself to write three or four big pages of a whole huge mix O' stuff here today and this is PROGRESS. And it is great news because I am HEALING. AND: YIPPEE.
LIGHT AT THE OTHER END OF THE TUNNEL THANK GOD WHAT A RELIEF AND WHEN I SAY I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE IT I DO MEAN IT REALLY DID FEEL LIKE "NEVER".
Yes. This post has been a cooperative writing by/from/with many/the/some ways of my/the/my thinking.

YEAH.

Also... one other thing. I wanted to mention this blog post today because it was really great, I love this blog, I read it almost every day and every time I read it it helps me and today it made me cry it was so so so so good. Here: today on Parasites of the Mind. Thank you Michele!

A lot of things. (And a view from the kitchen window.)

Last line of an email to my doctor from today:
I AM NOT SLEEPY. I AM JUST SCARED OF BEING AWAKE.

From the desk of.... (Say it twice.)

Last line from an email to my doctor today: "It is just that so much of me does not want it to be about my dad.... so much of me does not want it to be that he ever even hurt me not even not even once."

The not delicious metaphors.

I keep binging and overeating on food. BECAUSE I WOULD RATHER HURT MY MOUTH AND BODY AND STOMACH NOW THAT OWN UP TO FULLY KNOWING ABOUT ALL OF THE TIMES MY MOUTH AND BODY AND STOMACH HURT IN THE PAST BECAUSE I WAS BEING RAPED BY MY DAD. Wait... Didn't I just admit here that I know about it? FULLY. NOT FULLY.
HEALING IS PAINFUL. I have not been writing here because I have nothing nice to say. And because I am hurting.

When all of the pieces start to be together.

'Ok' post.

I just wanted to write a quick post to say I am ok. I have been busy writing, drawing, reading, cooking, walking, teaching myself to crochet and also TRYING TO LIVE WITH DID. I will write more soon. And post some pictures.

Drawing from today and not.

The above is something I am working on today and the image below is a drawing I made more than 2 months ago. Dr. C asked me if I could make a drawing about why I was overeating- binging on food- what the feelings were behind why I was doing it and the drawing below was my response to the question of 'why'.

Looking from a different angle.

"Looking the part"

Today.

Today I have just about exercised myself into the ground. When I start really trying to face the truth about both the past and who I am and where I am and how things are in the present... it starts to become not just mental, but physical (LIKE THE PAST). I have been writing, drawing, working a little on learning Italian, cooking and walking A LOT. This afternoon I was at the grocery store and I bought a couple of cans of soup to lift as weights... so I did that a bunch too. I feel anxious; when I start to be honest about the past. I also feel: mad and hurt and depressed and in a rage and... my thinking 'changes'/'switches' A LOT. More tomorrow...

Photo from yesterday

Day.

Gifts.

I am healing. It seemed for so long like it was never going to happen or was impossible... but it is happening and I while I know it has been happening for a long while now- I am taking some big steps now and I have some larger moments of feeling/knowing I am safe and free and ok. I having been drawing a little, writing a little more and letting myself put together some thoughts that I usually do not put together. And I started to read my own blog tonight. After TWO YEARS OF writing and posting images here I am FINALLY STARTING TO READ WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN! HA! I AM GETTING BETTER!!!!!!! :-) I had been so worried it was not really possible... :-)

Apple.

Today has been _____. Here is a picture of Apple; because she is cute and because I want to draw right now instead of try to organize my thoughts into any sort of worded logicalness.

The rest of my 'drawing on clothing' project.

This was one of the final t-shirts that I drew on. I just uploaded the final images from my 'drawing on clothing project'. The last seven images here are new.

It still hurts. A LOT.

I spent the last couple of days unpacking my suitcases, doing laundry and starting to draw (a little bit). This morning I thought to myself, "I can probably finish unpacking today." And my next thought after that one was: "Uh-oh." And 'uh-oh' because I am ALWAYS looking for distraction- from both the pain from/of my past and from the pain that comes pouring out when I draw. So.... now I have finished unpacking and tonight I have therapy and this afternoon I am feeling bad. I feel sad, depressed, sometimes I start to feel a little mad, but anger requires so much acknowledgement of the truth about so much SHIT that I STILL wish was not true... it is easier to keep myself in a depressed/sad mode than in a hurt/angry/crazy-rage-feeling state of mind. Except I am wearing tired of the 'tired' feeling and of the 'trying to keep all of my mind from knowing' (the truth about the past). It is just that (Yes, I am going to write this for the 1000th time here...) it is just that the past was SO HORRIBLE.... I STILL WISH IT WAS NOT TRUE. It is really painful that even getting better hurts so incredibly much.
On the last days that I drew on the wall in Venice, I cut a few large holes into it. I was worried at first that I had made a mistake- that I had 'damaged it beyond repair' or that I had 'destroyed it and ruined it'. I realized almost immediately that neither of those things were true, that both were statements about how I feel about myself and I also quickly figured out that in the end- the very LARGE hole that I made in the center of the wall- the one that felt like the 'BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER'... was in fact a perfect representation of just exactly how I feel. That big hole in the middle of the wall (which is also right in the BELLY of the last self portrait I drew onto the wall) that image of me with a huge hole in my middle is just exactly how I feel most days. And I have spent years and years and years of my life trying to use food and a few other unhealthy things to try to fill that big hole. I feel like the hole that I feel exists in me and the one that the one in the wall represents... I feel like it represents what I have lost and what was taken. All of those years of rape and abuse and losing two babies and then my whole family... It is still so hard even when I can not be close to them because of all of the sickness and unhealthiness of it all. I am still struggling with food- overeating when I feel bad... but I can stop myself if I just choose to face what is really bothering me. And I am not really able to totally use food now like I used to in the past because I can feel my own body a lot more/better than I have ever been able to... and even if I start over eating or trying to- in some attempt to hurt myself in some other way or give myself something to focus on and be upset about other than the great big painful FUCKING truth... even when I start I can not sit so unaware as I once was able to. And it is really weird to be able to make a CHOICE- because of course in the past that is exactly what I did not have- choices. Now I can make all of the choices.... I can decide what and how and when I do things... and all of that is great and sun-shiny and wonderful of course, but it also creates a GREAT BIG MIRROR IN WHICH I CAN SEE ALL THE MORE CLEARLY THE PAST AND HOW IT WAS THE TOTAL OPPOSITE OF A LIFE WITH CHOICES. Getting better and/or working on getting better- DECIDING to get better- it is a bit like if you lived your whole life in a cave and then one day just walked right out of the cave and for the very first time you saw the sun shining. Except the sun would hurt. Hurt your eyes and skin because you were used to being in the cave. I am crying too much to keep typing now. I am going to go cry into Lloyd's fur now and I will write again soon. Hopefully tomorrow. Let me just add this one thing... imagine if when you walked out of the cave you were not only in the sun but also on a beach. And in Italy. THAT WOULD BE GREAT. WONDERFUL EVEN. BUT IT WOULD STILL HURT A LOT AND MY EYES ARE BURNING.
Jenny

Today.

New apartment. (Every place has SOME flaw.)

Yesterday Stefano and I woke up at 4 AM (not such a big deal since I hardly slept about an hour because I was SO anxious) and the normally three minute walk from my apartment to the Rialto vaporetto (water boat-bus) stop took us about 20 minutes. We were each carrying: a backpack, a HUGE suitcase, two or three smaller bags and a cat. Lol... It was terrible, but we made it. Lloyd and Winston survived the trip too and they are both fine but neither of them are speaking to us yet. So we got back to Stefano's town (and mine now too!) around 11:30 AM yesterday and came directly to our new apartment. Stefano found this place while I was in Venice, so it was the first time I had seen it. He had told me it was about 20 steps away from the sea, so I was not terribly worried about what the inside looked like. :-) But it was a real treat to find such a nice place waiting for us. Stefano and I have lived in three different apartments together and this one is by far the best (and not just because I can SEE THE SEA FROM THE BEDROOM). Everything has just been redone so everything is nice and clean and new and yesterday we put clean sheets on the bed and last night I slept like a baby. But even though this is the nicest apartment we have had every place always has SOME problem. For example: This apartment has no kitchen table. Crazy. I know. But I do not mind so much because there is a huge white table which I am already using for drawing on! Which is great! So anyway... after I stole the kitchen table and claimed it as a drawing table, I started thinking it was going to be difficult for Stefano and I to eat spaghetti off of our knees tonight. I resolved the whole 'no kitchen table' problem by putting a table cloth over the ironing board and setting it in front of the kitchen window. Stefano never irons anyway- so I am sure it will not be a problem. :-) More tomorrow... :-)

I made it I made it!!! (Me and my traveling cats.) :-)

So today was the last day of my artist residency. :-) I drew a lot in the last few days... I will upload the images soon. Right now I am about to go out to dinner with a group of people from the foundation and Stefano is on a train and will be here in just a few hours. Tomorrow we will pack up my stuff and very early on Sunday morning we will take Lloyd and Winston to our new apartment. I am both happy and sad that my residency is over. It was wonderful but also difficult. Right now I am really obsessed with Art21- I had just started watching a lot of short clips from it on YouTube and then the first season was just added to iTunes... so now I can watch the full episodes. Some are better than others... last night I watched a really great one- four good and interesting artists. It was the 'stories' episode, from season one. My favorite part was with Kiki Smith, but I enjoyed the whole thing and it made me like more the work of Kara Walker. I will upload the last images from my 'drawing on clothes' project soon and I will be sure to give a travel report after Lloyd and Winston stop cursing at me for dragging them all over with me. :-)

Two more days of my artist residency here.

I took this photo today. Stefano brought me the flowers last week when he came for the open studio and I wanted some pictures of them. I only have two days left of my residency- tomorrow and Friday. Today I drew a lot...
I have pretty mixed feelings about.. almost everything. I do know I want to draw more now than ever though and I also want to draw larger images. Stefano and I are moving my things and Lloyd and Winston back to his town on Sunday. I will start drawing again there as soon as I get just a little bit settled. I think I am going to work on fabric or large paper and sew and/or glue the images together- so that I can keep working in a larger format.

5 shirts and a skirt.