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  • The Artist Messenger: Clairvoyance Made Visible

Art and People: Part 2 of The Ultimate in Soul Work; The Culmination of All Experiences 

3/18/2013

4 Comments

 
How do we learn to fear being vulnerable? When do we learn to hide our feelings? One of the first times I remember something like that happening, I was playing with little neighbor kids. They were a little snooty, I was 5 or 6. I think I had mosquito bites and bruises all over my legs (being a tomboy) and they picked on me about it. Unrelenting in the torment, I went home crying.

That didn't change me, it didn't bother me that much: what stuck with me the longest was when I wrote them a note telling them how it effected me, my Mom telling me to stop crying and to tear up the note. It was the look on her face and the message "don't give them the satisfaction" and then something deeper... "how can she be so weak?"

My Mom is a strong woman who had a hard life. She cries for no one while they are alive and the only times I've seen her cry was for a pet, her brother and my Dad when they died. She has the hardest time crying (when she does) and her whole body shakes as if in a panic attack. So this is evident in her fear response towards anyone else's vulnerability. Cry if you fall down, sure, but the rest? Suck it up.

I'm not alone and neither are parents in these messages, given or received. So, that is how life went for me for 30 years. I never could understand why someone just couldn't be honest with their perspectives and perceptions and so I was completely conscious of keeping "it" all in. My art was the only release for the real me underneath so much so that I forgot how to talk about it. I had a realization something about me felt different from how everyone else appeared... and I wanted something unintelligible. Life felt like it had been inhabited by hard-shelled hostile entities, but I didn't know why. I felt de-skinned, ultra sensitive and exposed. 

Fast forward. Not only had I been dealing with invisible constraints and saw them in other people, I had also been dealing with a mild to moderate depression since graduation in '03, in '05 Katrina hit. The depression until then had taken the form of anxiety and agitated depression also known as mixed state or mixed episode (a very dangerous kind that infiltrates your thoughts, behaviors but with an anger and anxiety that makes one very scared of one's own capabilities. Most depressed people would kill themselves if they had the motivation, with mixed episodes, you have the energy, PLUS rage.)

Anyway, after Katrina, the need struck everyone everywhere and I couldn't help. People died, families were without anything, children didn't have homes, food, toys, anything. (I cannot stand suffering and have to do something.) At the time, I had JUST gotten into therapy. My father had just had a quintuple bypass (yes, quintuple. 5 arteries!!) and had lost everything in his home that had gotten 4-5 feet of storm surge.

The stress was too much to bear. One day, my Dad walked up to me in the kitchen while I was cooking chili for my whole family and instantly a tape played in front of my eyes in my mind of a scene of him with that expression, and I, when I was 3 years old. Front to back in complete clarity of me trying to talk him out of killing himself and trying to talk him into living. The "movie" included the sights, smells, sounds and emotions of that time. I was three, helpless, had no idea that the world existed outside my front door and that my dad's life--- and mine- were about to crumble.

That, my dear, is a flashback. And not the post-acid induced kind (which I never took, btw) or the fluffy, fuzzy flashbacks of romance movies. Its also symptom of PTSD.

For the first time since my teen years, I had been put in the position to care for my father. The first time was an unhealthy, parasitic version of exploitation in which I cared for his emotional health when I was only 3... the second was a natural progression of his own age and mortality, but the similarity was there enough to trigger the flashback.

I caught my breath, said nothing and finished dinner. It wasn't easy, but i did it. Throughout life in other areas, things had gotten progressively worse. People don't know that depression filters EVERYTHING that comes through your senses into your thoughts and heart and then filters everything that comes out of you into the world. It is like a black filter.

Something as simple as walking down a dock can be turned into an Alfred Hitchcock scene. As I was walking down a dock (we were looking at hurricane devastation), we encountered some fishermen on what was left of the dock. (what the hell???)

Instantly, I had the painting of Edvard Munch's The Scream flash before my eyes-- and I understood what he felt like. The people looked hostile (probably dealing with depression on their own, too, from Katrina) and had no friendly expression whatsoever. I got home and painted "Velveteen Scream". It was the pictoral expression of what vulnerability, and the lack of, feels like. Disconnection. Click the picture for more information on the painting and its symbolism.    
Picture
Edvard Munch's The Scream
Picture
Linda Hill's Velveteen Scream
4 Comments
Sandy link
3/23/2013 11:39:23 am

Linda, what a beautiful blog!! I wandered over here from Pinterest because I pinned the art therapy shoes that you created.....I will definitely be browsing through your posts and please visit my blog, if you like: www.anotherplaceinthesun.blogspot.com....and God bless you!

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Linda link
3/24/2013 12:19:15 pm

Hi there, Sandy! Thank you for checking out my blog; I think you are the first person besides me and a twitter friend :) This one is a second part of another post that isn't even published yet, lol. I haven't had time to finish it.

I would love to look at your blog... I went there and saw you had more than one, which is your favorite?

God bless you, too!

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Sandy link
3/25/2013 04:52:54 am

Thanks for visiting my blog, Linda! And I feel honored to be one of the few visiting your blog....the blog of mine that you visited, 'A Place in the Sun', is my favorite....I started it in 2007!!! In 2010 and 2011, I focused on blogging only about gratefulness, so I would try to post something that I was grateful for each day....it really opened my eyes and changed the way I think about my life....I am so blessed !! In February of this year, I decided to choose a monthly theme to post about, this month's theme is happiness!
Unfortunately, I have sort of neglected my other blog 'The Beauty of Nature'...I may try sometime in the future to start posting on that one again....thanks for your interest, and take care!!!

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Linda link
3/28/2013 06:44:01 pm

hi Sandy! I took a day or two off to paint, sorry it took so long to get back with you. You are so welcome for me visiting, I loved it. Happy birthday to your husband :)

I kept a gratitude journal, too, for years and years. I love gratitude :) Have you read Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach? If not, you would LOVE LOVE it. I may pick it back up now on this blog. I used to write so much that I got hand cramps, ha ha!

I just blogged about authenticity and how this doctor's talk on vulnerability, courage and authenticity reminded me of the paintings from depression/anxiety period I had a few years ago. Her name is Brene Brown, she is amazing!

Look those two up if you hadn't yet, they are wonderful authors.

Thank you again and thanks for looking at it :)

Blessings,

Linda

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    Linda Hill

    I am a life long artist, divorced from a 20 year marriage and a Mommy to a gorgeous little boy  for  3 years.

    I love God Consciousness, love to give and love the human spirit in all its forms. Nothing separates us, separation is an illusion.

    Its taken me a long time to feel comfortable in my own skin, scars and all. A past of neglect and sometimes abuse gave me issues I have to work through, sometimes here.

    What helped me most is to truly love and help others. You can't give what you don't have, but by giving, you will find that you already have all that you could ever wish for.

    My art, blog and life has been about "owning" myself along with all the mixed blessings that come with this thing we call life.

    Like the Velveteen Rabbit, I have become REAL.




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