((acquiesce))

The image here is a Botticelli painting titled, "The return of Judith to Bethulia".

I haven't posted in the last couple of days because I haven't been feeling very well.

I'm looking forward to a project that a friend and I are going to do here on my blog: 18 days of drawings. We're each going to make one a day for 18 days and I'll post them together here. That will start on June 1st.

And tomorrow night I'm going to the ballet- so I'm excited about that.

now it doesn't matter at all how fast I can run

How the thoughts return (back into view).

Over the past several years I've come to see the pattern of how things emerge when I am (finally) able to allow myself to think about things I had been blocking out.  It usually takes a few days- at first there is a thought and then the thought kind of vanishes.  Then there will be another small piece or idea- then it be like I am starting to know what I am thinking.  It is hard to explain because it is a strange process.  But it is strange too to not know fully all of my own thoughts in one space and instead to have them 'compartmentalized'.  Weird too then is the uncompartmentalizing part of this work. I think the reason it takes a few days for me to fully form the thoughts is that there is a kind of 'sharing' happening in my brain and between the different streams of my thought.  And there is my dissociation and the difficulty of tolerating now things I'd not been able to tolerate in the past.

Anyway- I've become familiar with the pattern and so when it starts now- with just the flicker of an image or idea- instead of it taking a long time to become clear- sometimes now I am just like:  OH SHIT (closer to the start of the whole process).

Unless it's something really big.  In which case it still takes several days for me to understand what I am thinking and to be able to tolerate the thoughts at all.

This time it took a week.  It feels like it took the full 8.5 years of my therapy and then the past full week to communicate to myself a very painful memory/thought/feeling.

And oh what a week it's been... I wasn't just working out the idea in my mind either (unfortunately)- there was a 'performance aspect' to it as well.  By that I mean:  There was something I was actively doing in my daily life to try to describe the thing I was trying to describe to myself.  And it wasn't good- but I didn't hurt myself at all.  So it was painful- but I am ok.  (I feel like my previous post here was another sort of note to myself in which I was trying to remind and tell myself to stop trying to tell things by reenacting them).

And I'm actually doing really well because this enormous thought/feeling that I needed to say has been said (and aloud this morning in therapy).  And usually after something really large that I need to say is said there is A LOT OF RELIEF.  This time I was actually feeling the relief part before I even got to therapy- that has never happened like this before- this was a very big thing I needed to say.

So now I am feeling good.  And relieved.  And even when something feels 'off' or difficult.... I feel like I have this very different point of reference- a thing to remind myself of that pulls me back into reality and clarity- at the same time.  A new point of reference.  And the getting it out felt like it was going to KILL me.... but it didn't.  I do feel better.  A lot better.

I can't really write about the details here because it is too new and while good- very painful too.  I will though- I will write about it soon.  I'm working on it.  It too is a process.  Maybe I'm about halfway on this piece- I'd say I'm at about stage 3- bargaining.  ;-)  Because I sure do wish things could have been different...

Anyway- I am trying to write here more- so maybe this post is a bit of a mess or unclear- but it's what's going on- so I'm writing about it and in the best way I can.

Meanwhile... 4 more weeks until I leave for my artist residency- which I keep referring to as "summer camp".  Because it really does feel like a big, huge, delightful gift of art summer camp for adults and I am SO EXCITED!!!

Next Tuesday I'm going to see the Bolshoi at the Kennedy Center and I'm completely excited about that, too.

And I've really been into my tumblr blog and the looking at images and then putting certain ones together.  The images are down the left side of my blog here and the link to it is HERE.

More soon....  :)

Pour, mix.

Sometimes I question why I write on this blog.  It's often really hard for me to write here.  I guess it is most hard when I am afraid of what I have to say.  So then I think I should just say what I am scared of and that it will probably help me then.  And that is why I guess I keep this blog going.  Well that is a part of it.  It helps me to write/say things here and feel like I am not isolated with them (my thoughts) in my head.  I also like the idea that something good could come from my enormous struggle to recover from the abuse I survived and I like that this blog has become a big document of my healing process.

I haven't mentioned this on here recently (or maybe ever) but one of the things I do love about this blog is that it is mine and I can say whatever I want here.  I keep thinking lately how I like that (since I have the comments set to be moderated before they are posted) I never have to worry about what anyone will say back to me about something that I have written.  That is the thought I keep having but then I keep realizing that the one real cruel commenter I am actually fearing is: MYSELF.

I know the truth about what happened to me and I'm the one living my life now- healing and living.  And the healing part is really hard work and slow and messy and often rather unattractive.  One of my favorite things my doctor has ever said to me is, "It doesn't have to be graceful."  Thank god for that because healing from child sexual abuse and DID is about as far from graceful as could be.  Most of the time it has really been a hell of a mess.  I think though that it is (the process of healing) becoming slightly less hellishly sloppy.  Maybe.

Anyway- all of that said... I continue to struggle on.  But then I feel like that isn't really about having survived abuse or living with DID.  The struggling on thing seems just more like an issue of being human.  Isn't almost everyone struggling within their lives?  Anyway- I surely am and this is the place where I write about all of it- my messy glory of being alive and real.  And I'm trying to remember to write and live both the struggle and the joyful parts and all of the million things between in the most real way that I can.

It's been just over two weeks since school ended for the year and I am still feeling like:  HALLELUJAH I'VE MADE IT HALF WAY THROUGH GRADUATE SCHOOL.  Oh, and I got all A's.  ;-)  I was SO AFRAID that I would fuck it up.  I was afraid I would get really overwhelmed with school and memories and therapy and my mind and that I'd end up somehow not getting through the year.  But I did.  So I'm still feeling good about that.  It was a really big accomplishment for me.  It was difficult- but I did it.

At the very end of the school year I found out that I had been given a scholarship to a summer art residency.  It is a seven week program and I'll be writing more about that here soon- I'm really excited about it.

Right now I feel like I am struggling the most with how much I've gotten better.  That seems like an odd sentence... but this is what I mean:  I grew up a certain way, with a certain set of beliefs about the world and myself and myself in the world.  And the beliefs that I grew up with were actually pretty awful (hence the 8.5 years and counting of therapy to recover).  The thing is... I've had to go back and question basically every aspect of my life and mind.  And I've had to take a ton of experiences I blocked out which were too painful to know about at the time they happened and pour them into the hundreds and hundreds of deep holes in my mind which I had learned to devote my life to carefully walking around and never falling into.  Now I have to go into the spaces that before seemed like "empty holes"  and figure out what is really there or what was there that I had to move and shift to some other place so I could not see or find it within my own mind.  So I've had to question everything and relearn and learn so many things- and it continues- the work of trying to better understand my own mind.

One of the hardest things is that I keep wanting to repeat old patterns.  That is what I mean when I say I am struggling with how much I have gotten better- I have gotten better and I've learned that I can and NEED to stop avoiding the black holes/patches in my mind.... but I avoided most of my own thinking for most of my life.... So it's a rather hard habit to break.  And then there is my response to pain...  In the past when I hurt- I would often hurt myself more to cover it up.  That was a pattern I began when I was very very young.  And the pattern just grew and expanded over the years that the abuse went on and after it even.

Now I've been working for a very long time to stop repeating the pattern of creating more pain when I hurt- it used to cover my hurt when I was being abused so I would not know about the abuse.  Instead of knowing about my father having sex with me I could focus on the fact that I burned and cut myself, had a lot of dangerous sex, that I drank a lot- and all of that provided distraction which was a cover for not knowing about the abuse.  So I've had to learn to stop trying to cover the feelings of my hurt.  And it is still hard.  When I feel pain over the past I still want to do something in the present to change it- but that is an impossible wish.  And now I am safe and no longer being abused- which I have to keep reminding myself of.  And just like I am afraid of receiving a mean or cruel comment here- I often feel afraid of being abused more or again.  But as I said before:  I am the cruel commenter that I fear now and the last person who really abused me has been myself.

So I am trying to stop my self injury and self abuse and it has gotten a lot better.  But it is hard to go beyond that.  It is one thing to be able to stop actively harming myself with the afore mentioned list and it is something else ENTIRELY to say:  What do you really want to do now, Jenny Sawle?

Because for a very long time a lot of my energy was almost completely consumed by ACTIVELY TRYING TO NOT KNOW ABOUT THE ABUSE.  And it was like a job I was working at 24/7 for the majority of my life.  I started to be able to accept the truth about what happened to me and the truth about how my mind is divided and how it works.... but now I am at this weird place.... where I am like:  Now what?  This is the part where I am successful?  This is the part where I get to do whatever I really want?  This is the part where I finally learn and understand that I am not actually a body just set on this earth to be hurt (fucked).  And all of that- the change- the massive massive change in all of my thinking... well, it's difficult to say the least.

And I have parts of my mind that are more on board with the idea of all of this than others- but I also think that is how I am tolerating all of this change.  In the past I knew very little about my own mind and I learned to know more and tolerate bits and pieces of it slowly.  I think I am learning to tolerate these changes for the better slowly.  And parts of me want to scream:  HURRY UP but that is a problem because other parts of me are all:  I AM GOING AS FAST AS I CAN.  So it is a mix- like it always really has been- but the scales are definitely tipping.  That is the good news.  That is the really great news- the scales are definitely tipping.  And again- it is slow and hard and a lot of work- but as they say at Survivors of Incest Anonymous:  It works if you work it so work it cause you're worth it.

So I'm trying to work it.  And I am trying to step more towards taking better care of myself and doing the things I really love.  This is great but it also makes me know in the most clear way ever just how long I spent unable to not really do either of those things very much at all.  So there is a lot of sadness even in all this great progress.

But it is ok.  I am working and learning to tolerate my own feelings more and to accept them.  So I work to accept my sadness.  I'll be out jogging or listening to music and I'll just start to cry and sometimes I just can't tell if it's sadness over the past or relief that I survived it all and am finally starting to feel free now.  I think it is probably a mix.

about Don't you touch me

Sunday morning New York Times, homemade dress, drawing on a wall, 400 mile bike ride idea, how to start thinking of myself as more than a dead body for sex.  What to do with me and limbs and memories and hurt and laughing so much my throat starts to hurt.  I was scared to leave my house because I was terrified of my mind and now I can't stay in anywhere.  Or in anything.

A painting by Otto Dix.

Note to self: That thing you think you can't do; you probably can.

Today I was really overwhelmed. My first day back in DC after my trip and so much happened and I left the day after I was done with school. I was overwhelmed and needed to process things and decompress. And I had therapy at ten AM today- so it was like: Welcome back to Washington and UGH!!!

But it's ok. Therapy is so hard; knowing my own thoughts is still so hard. But I'm doing it. It's not just the memories now- it's the very fragmented memory of the life I'd thought I'd had which was full of black holes and gaps and now the filling in of those spaces. There is all of this weaving together of this memory and the meaning of that thing I was doing and the feeling I kept having there... And it is good- it is exactly what I have been working for- but it is sad and painful and very difficult and I so often still want to go into denial. But I am getting better with it. It takes practice. It takes a lot of practice to sit with the hurt and the feelings of sadness- but it's possible and I'm much happier for it.

Today I drew, biked and ran. I keep doing these five or six mile runs and feel good afterward- maybe I will run a marathon one day. There is no marathon to bring awareness to child sexual abuse. Maybe I'll create one. And I would surely run in that. :-)

Night sky flight

Messy realness. :-)

For a long time I thought my biggest work to recover from my trauma was to accept the truth about the abuse and that it happened.  But then I really didn't want to deal with all of my feelings about it.  The good and bad and sad and hurt and a ton of other feelings.  The shame.  Oh the shame.  Anyway- I have had all of these feelings and memories and then body memories and I wanted it ALL TO JUST DISAPPEAR.  And it was like I was willing to accept the abuse in a certain way... I just didn't want to have any feelings about it then.
But that was like me saying:  I accept that I am real and alive... but I am too scared to live.  And I have been.  But I feel like I have been starting to live more and I know that is just going to continue to happen.  I have been healing, I have been growing and it is going to continue.  It's painful.  Putting together all of my own stories with my own thoughts and feelings and really feeling and being real... it is hard.  I've lived most of my life NOT FEELING and actively working to BLOCK OUT FEELINGS.

But I really don't want to block out the feelings anymore.  I understand that I can't have just the good feelings without the sad feelings.  And in order to free myself from the pain of my past I need to start going back and asking myself:  Which way of being me was there for this experience or that one?  How did I feel?  How did I feel at other times?  How do I feel now?

In the house I grew up in there wasn't really space for feelings.  We all just did what my dad said.  We all behaved the way he wanted us too.  And after I was away from him I kept behaving in the same way because that is what I knew.

Having feelings is messy.  My parents wanted a black and white household and that was not real at all.  There was NO SPACE there for feelings.  They wanted everything to look pretty and be ok but things were neither pretty nor ok.

So it is a mess to have real feelings and to live a real life.  I feel hurt, I cry, I'm ashamed, I hate myself, I hate my body, the way I look, the things I do or say- I have to ask why and what does it mean and what is this really about?

And it is kind of a mess.  It's messy to live.  But at least it is real and so am I.

I am going to start listening to more music.  My friend sent me this yesterday.  :-)

message

Healing. :-)

This is a photo of me with my good friend Heather.  We are together today.  It's Mother's Day and I was worried I would be miserable and swamped in a heap of unhappiness.  I'm not.  I just cried at Heather's kitchen table, but we both talked and drew and now I am writing this while Heather is making some vegan brownies.  I'm sorry I've not been writing here more recently- it was a lot to finish school for this year and then I was pretty overwhelmed.  But I wanted to write this to say a few things quick...  Good friends are always better than unhealthy family, it is hard work but it is possible to heal from the wounds of child sexual abuse and here is my favorite thing today... I've realized I'm not going to hate myself forever.  Not the way I am or look or anything.  Hating myself has been a way to hide my hurt and the massive fog of self-hatred is starting to lift.  I'm ok.  I survived the abuse, I'm doing great.  I have a lot of great people in my life that I love a lot and I am loved by many.  :-)

Today we are going to bike and draw.  That makes me really happy.  I'll try to post more soon.  xoxo

MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Art) ;-)

And the crowd goes wild.

There was a small crowd cheering at the finish line of the "Race to stop the silence and stop child sexual abuse" which I ran in on Sunday.  As my friend and I got closer we could hear them yelling for people; I was excited and proud of myself.  The friend I was running with is in the process of training for a marathon which 30,000 people will run in.  I turned to him and said, "I'm sure when you cross the finish line at the marathon the cheering will be much louder; but in my head this is just as big."

Today was my last day of school for this year.  I'm halfway through the MFA program.  My critique was yesterday and it went well.  Today there were more critiques and now... SUMMER BREAK.

I'm glad the school year is done.  Tomorrow I leave for Minnesota.  I'm completely excited to be there with some of the people I love most.

The first time I went to an SIA meeting (Survivors of Incest Anonymous) I sort of laughed under my breath when everyone held hands at the end and said, "Keep coming back, it works if you work it, so work it cause you're worth it."  But it is true.  It is possible to heal from trauma and from the trauma of child sexual abuse.  I am the proof.  And I'm more than that too.

I'll write more soon and post images while in MN.

xoxo

This is a photo of me when I was seven.  I'm feeling slightly sentimental today.  My final critique is tomorrow.  Today I'm working on finishing a few details of the works I am going to show.