Color Therapy Follow Up

A few days ago Nichole at Through a Stronger Lens wrote about her experience trying out my color therapy self portrait. I was really touched by her post, and her husband's reaction to her drawing. Here's the link to her blog post, and here's the link to my original post. I also did another piece that I posted with my guest post on Red, White, and Grew that you can see here. I considered doing another one yesterday, when I was dealing with the emotions and memories and triggers of talks about suicide. (That blog post here.) But thankfully writing that out helped me enough, and having gotten it out of my system, I feel much better today than I would have if I had held it all in.

A special thanks to my husband who let me go through the emotions I was dealing with without trying to fix it or take offense at my attitude last night.

I promised I wouldn't let these posts take over my blog, and I'm not going to. Back to happy, cute pictures of the boys learning tomorrow, I promise.

If you have tried out the color therapy and are willing to share, I would love to see it. If you blog about it, I'll share it, or if you just want to leave a comment.

And if you're wondering how anyone who deals with depression can possibly homeschool, here's the blog post I wrote about that.

What's True In Our Minds Is True

*Trigger Warning*

The following was written inspired by the possible suicide of Robin Williams and a friend's post imploring mourners to reach out to others dealing with depression during this time so that maybe something good could come out of this tragedy. The following is about my own experience with this topic. 

 *Possible Trigger Warning*

Not that the warning is only a possibility; it's a reality. I'm just not sure if what I'm going to write on this post will be an emotional trigger or not, but I want to have the warning at the beginning of every post in this series anyway. Because I am assuming that just about every person who reads my blog is a parent or wants to be a parent some day and I'm going to be mentioning things that will hurt an empathetic parent's heart. If hearing about child abuse is an emotional trigger for you, you've been warned. I've read things with trigger warnings and sometimes I've stayed away and been grateful for the warning. These sad posts are not going to take over my blog. They're just something I need to get out, written down and thrown out into the universe so that I can get some distance from them. 

Guest Post at Red, White, & Grew

Pamela Price over at Red, White, and Grew graciously hosted a guest blog that I submitted to her a while back. (Here's the link.)

It has been more than a month since I wrote that, and I'm doing better with the anger about the misdiagnosis. Lately though, I've been feeling a lot of hurt. Back when the hurts occurred, I think I internalized them and tried to ignore them. Now I'm facing them and the feelings they create, trying to put words to my pain so I can get past the hurt.

I've been talking with a small group of people who have had a similar experience to mine. It really helped to realize that I wasn't alone in this; it happens a lot. I hope that sharing my story will help others, as I have been helped by the sharing of others.

Homeschooling with Depression

I've seen the question posed before on homeschooling forums: is it possible to homeschool when you're dealing with depression? I do, and here's how.

Self Portrait Color Therapy

I have been struggling so much lately. I don't want to get in to that right now, but it's been sucky. (Yes, Spell Check, "sucky" IS a word, I don't care if you don't like it. (Totally fangirl channeling The Bloggess))

Anyway, stuff has been more difficult to deal with lately so I did something I haven't done in a very long time. I made an abstract self portrait using what I call Color Therapy.

When I was in high school I read a book about color psychology. I don't remember the title, but some of it stuck with me, especially the emotions ascribed to different colors. A year later a new friend and I developed a rapport and worked together taking turns drawing what we saw in each other, based on the order of colored crayons the person chose. I also started doing abstract, geometric self portraits of myself, attempting to shut down my over-thinking and just feel what I was doing, and then once I was done analyzed the result to see if I was ignoring how I was feeling about something.

This week, almost 10 years later, I remembered that technique and purchased a 50 color set of colored pencils and some watercolor paper. (I prefer the texture.) This was the result of my first attempt:

The World Without, The World Within

I'm not sure how long it took (Principal Daddy was home and kept the kids happy so I could have the space and time to do this) but it was at least an hour. I've shared the result with a small group and they expressed interest in the process, so I thought I'd write it up here for anyone who would like to try something similar.

You do not have to be an expert on color psychology. What is most important is identifying what emotions each color makes you feel, and then using them to express what you're feeling.

When I go through all the colors/emotions, starting at on point in the spectrum and using all of the colors in the rainbow, I end up feeling more calm, centered, and balanced.

I always start with the profile/outline. Sometimes it's a split face for conflicting emotions, sometimes, like here, it shows the contrast between how I'm feeling on the inside and how I perceive the world. Sometimes I am unhappy with the first attempts at the shape. I don't try for accuracy, rather a representation outline that I am happy with. With this attempt I used a white colored pencil and once I had what worked for me, went over it several times to make a deep indent.

I did not always put recognizable facial features on the portraits I did ten years ago. Those looked more like Picasso wannabes. But this time I felt very drawn to include an eye. Nothing else; just an eye. I knew that I intended to use a range of non-realistic colors with this project, but I felt compelled to make the eye as realistic as my meager skills were capable of. Honestly, I'm quite shocked at how well it turned out. I've never done such a good job before, and I'll probably never be able to replicate it.

Work in Progress

Then I colored in the face, expressing how I felt inside. Half way thorough I had the idea for what I wanted for the outside. Once I finished the whole work I realized that that muted, gray, slightly fuzzy/bland feeling inside meant I was/am depressed. I'd suspected earlier that week, but I didn't really recognize it as such until after I stood back and looked at what I had made.

So to recap, to do this yourself;

1. Assign emotions to each of the 6 basic colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple/violet.
2. Find some time when you won't be disturbed. (I consider this to be very important.)
3. Draw an outline or profile. Make several, if you need to, until you are happy with what you have.
4. Try to turn off your brain as much as possible and use intuition/what you feel drawing you.
5. Color. Try to eventually get through all the colors if you are looking for balance. If you're just looking for expression and more discovery, only use what feels comfortable. 
6. Step back, take a minute, and then use your brain to analyze what you're created.

The tide is rising
higher and higher

It ebbs, it flows
but still it comes
stronger and stronger

Tied up and bound
there's no escaping

Help me.

A king couldn't stop it
and I'm just a girl

The tide is coming
and I'm drowning

I can't stop the wave
it's overpowering

You tell me it's not a force of nature;
I don't believe you

You say it's not the tide
but I don't have the faith of a mustard seed

I am captive to its power
it's inevitable

no stopping
no escape

higher and higher
stronger and stronger

under water
drowning
gone

Constant Building Anxiety

drowning
swallowed up
the tide keeps rising
   and I can't halt it

powerless
no escape
   there is no where to run

I can't breath
it hurts to try
all I want to do it cry
   but I can't let myself

no end in sight
it's so unfair
this was done to me
   and it's still happening

shaking now
what am I supposed to do?

Parenting Through the Triggers: Part 1

*Possible Trigger Warning*

Not that the warning is only a possibility; it's a reality. I'm just not sure if what I'm going to write on this post will be an emotional trigger or not, but I want to have the warning at the beginning of every post in this series anyway. Because I am assuming that just about every person who reads my blog is a parent or wants to be a parent some day and I'm going to be mentioning things that will hurt an empathetic parent's heart. If hearing about child abuse is an emotional trigger for you, you've been warned. I've read things with trigger warnings and sometimes I've stayed away and been grateful for the warning. As I stated last week, these sad posts are not going to take over my blog. They're just something I need to get out, written down and thrown out into the universe so that I can get some distance from them. Okay, enough stalling...

New Series Introduction

Being a mother to a daughter is more different for me from being a mother to sons than I thought it would be.

When I found out with my first pregnancy I was carrying a boy I wondered, "What do I do with a boy?" I thought, having been a girl, I would have no problems with raising a girl; that I would know what to do. But raising a boy was a foreign concept to me.

But now that I have a daughter, some emotions and memories have been coming to my mind frequently. Unhappy memories; upsetting feelings. Feelings that I do not want to be connected in my mind with my sweet baby girl.

I am writing things out in an attempt to process and heal in a healthy way. I am going to be sharing part of it as a series on my blog because I am hoping that it might help someone else to read it.

I will only be posting the series on the weekend, and they will be clearly marked with trigger warnings for those who would be upset by it. I do not intend for this series to interfere with or replace my homeschooling posts. But as this is affecting my parenting, I think it applies.

I will be trying to be a bit vague because this is not just my story. There are a lot of other people who have been hurt by events in the past that are affecting me now. I do not wish to tell their story, only mine, and how it is affecting me.

For those of you who pray, I would appreciate your prayers as I work through this. I am also seeking professional help.