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| Drawing by Archimedes |
Eventually we will be talking about The Resistance (7) and their work with art therapy. For now we want to talk about the “art therapist” herself. We’ll call her Penny. Penny was only 28 years old and she was doing her practicum in art therapy when we started working with her. She knew virtually nothing about multiple personality. We worked for a period of 11 months altogether though the time was broken up when she was between semesters, and we worked in a very small room the Ministry had supplied her with. But what we did with her was monumental.
The Resistance did not want to talk about their abuse at all. Even though it was not rational or logical, they believed that something bad would happen if they talked about what happened to us in our adolescence. However, their pain and rage were so difficult to deal with and something had to be done. We had never tried art therapy before but when it was offered to us we said why not, it was worth a try.
Penny offered us huge sheets of paper and acrylic paint, pastels, coloured pencils, and crayons to work with. So we painted. And painted and painted. And talked while we painted. Sometimes Penny would ask us questions about things, other times she simply let us paint. Once we got going a new feeling began to emerge and an idea, that seemed almost too good to be true, surfaced. Although they felt they could not “speak” about the abuse, The Resistance wondered if they might be able to draw what happened to them. The answer was a resounding yes. At one point they even asked Penny if they could draw their rage. Would it bother her or was it inappropriate? She said no to both questions. She told us that room was a safety net for us to express all of our rage and pain about the abuse and so we did.
It felt incredible. We were “allowed” to go to those dark places within and put them on those big pieces of paper. And it felt so good. It was an immense release and relief. Someone could witness what had happened to us and they could see how much pain we were in. Penny was also really good at maintaining a safe environment for us. We remember one time when something began surfacing and it felt very scary. We were painting with our hands instead of brushes this time and what we were putting on paper began to frighten some of us. But very gently, Penny suggested we go together to the washroom and wash the paint off our hands. It was an amazing insight on her part to know that it made a big difference her going with us. She hadn’t banished us from the room to wash away the “dirt” but had gone with us. It made us feel so small but so firmly held and comforted.
Penny’s age also made a difference. We had quite a few teenagers out by then, some from The Resistance, but other teens from other groups as well. A number of them really liked Penny and felt she could understand them better than someone much older, such as Lyn who was only a year older than us. Some of the teens trusted Penny and came out to talk with her. But younger ones also came out and felt very safe with Penny too.
After the first few months of working with her, Christmas arrived, and Penny was off for a month. But we did not want to stop painting and drawing. We were on a roll. So she gave us paper to take home with us. And Lyn gave us money to buy acrylic paints (we couldn’t have afforded them ourself). For that month we painted and drew every day and we did at least 3 pieces a day. There was so much we wanted to communicate and express and it just came pouring out of us. It was almost out of our control. There were times too when some of us got scared by what was on those big sheets of paper. There were some very frightening images and what they told was sometimes terrifying. But we kept on doing it. As well, we added words quite often to go with the pictures. More like poems really.
Penny also understood our abandonment issues and our fear of ending with her, although it was inevitable. So she put out to us well ahead of time for us to think about how to “close” our work with her. One of the last things we did with her was to choose the most “important” pictures and hang them up in a room. With Penny, we looked at them all and talked about each one and its significance. The last session with her we made a picture together and it was fun.
Finally, our work with Penny was done and we felt very sad it was over. She had given us so much freedom to be all who we were, and had given us permission to speak about the abuse. She never flinched. She never got upset. She was always calm and kind and very well grounded. We would miss her tremendously.
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Hospitals were another thing altogether and for the most part, not very positive experiences. From the very first time we were admitted to a psychiatric ward to the last time we were in hospital, apart from one time, they were not really safe places to be. Some hospital staff were compassionate and kind. But many were either too busy or simply impatient with the inpatients (very funny). It was almost painful to ask for the simplest things like shampoo or an extra blanket. Many hospital staff made us feel like we were a nuisance to them and an annoying interruption to their work. The positive side were the other patients we struck up conversations with. There was the healing. We had sympathy and compassion for each other and we could bitch about the staff with one another. That helped a little.
Hospital stays, for the most part, were about the staff keeping us all under control. That was most often done with medication. But some of them showed their irritation with us quite readily and that made for an unsafe environment as well. We hid most of us well Inside, away from perceived danger. However, one time at the UBC (University of British Columbia) hospital was a positive experience. It was our first time in hospital after 5 years of staying out of them and we went to sort of detox ourself. We had been taking a lot of the sedative Ativan. Too much. And we wanted to stop it somehow. We thought checking in for a few days might help.
We think the fact that we were clear why we were there helped a lot. But the fact that UBC was a teaching hospital is probably the biggest reason why they were much nicer to us. When we told them we were multiple they asked us if they might ask us questions about it. They were also quite willing to say that they had little expertise in it. Wow. That was humble of them.
They gave us a room. Often when people were first admitted they were put in a single room. So we had a room all to ourself with a desk, and a wonderful view of trees on the Endowment Lands. They pretty much left us alone too. There was a room where a big tv was and you could lounge around there. There were books and magazines to read or you could go to the pool on campus. Sometimes a staff member would be available to just go for a walk with you. And the food ...? Well you chose from a limited menu what you wanted for your meals. And the food was decent. VGH and St Paul’s were not good in that department.
We stayed for three days and then checked out. How helpful it was is hard to say really because this was the end of 1996 and we were on the verge of discovering The Codes (6mf) and all that that would entail. Still, it was a positive experience and gave us some comfort at least.
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One of the “alternative” therapies we tried was with a woman who called her work Reiki, although she said it wasn’t exactly the right name. It was more like spiritual channelling as well as a bit of acupressure and healing with crystals and gems. May sound flaky to some of you but it didn’t matter that much what she did or what she called it. It was what we did in the sessions that was the most important thing. The “therapist’s” name was Mary. In the beginning of a session she would have us seated in a chair and would massage mostly our neck and shoulders and upper back. Often it was very painful as she dug deeply but we went with it because it helped release some pent up emotions.
Once Mary had done that part she then had us lie on a massage table, on our back. She placed some crystals on our stomach and placed her hands on different parts of our body at different times. She always had candles and incense lit and had on the most wonderful music. While she went into trance-like states we would turn inwards and begin having the most amazing visual images and emotions.
These sessions were incredible. The images always involved some, if not all, of us. And each session seemed to have its own story. After a number of sessions with Mary we realized there was a pattern emerging. Our stories/images seemed to always start with how we were feeling in the present. Then different things would happen until eventually we ended up seeing a sort of future. It was as if our subconscious was telling us this is what you need to do next in order to heal.
We had many emotional visualizations in those sessions. Some were extremely profound and helped all of us Inside bond even more. We grew to care more and more about each other through these images and stories. We would almost always leave sessions changed in some way. Sometimes we simply needed to get home and take a hot bath or rest. Sometimes we were exhausted. Other times we felt refreshed and rejuvenated.
We always talked with Mary after the session because she also had images and stories going on in her mind. We would tell her all that had been going on and she would give feedback with her own perceptions of things. There were times when it was almost spooky as she would echo something that had been going on in our mind. One time we had been thinking about buying a vest for ourself and had been looking in secondhand stores for one. After a session with Mary at this time, she mentioned she had something for us and presented us with (you guessed it) a vest. But not just any ordinary vest. It was wool and was made of many colours. She said she had been waiting to give it to someone and after the Reiki session she realized she wanted to give it to us. Talk about synchronicity.
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That’s all for today. Hopefully tomorrow we will write about the dance therapy a bit and about the video we got to make of some of us. But we won’t guarantee it as we may not be in the mood for any work tomorrow. We plan to have an evening sleep and then get up about 11:00 pm to watch a momentous event – The Royal Wedding. Yup. We’re a bit of a sucker for some royal romance. Most of all, we don’t want to miss an event that millions of people around the world will be watching. We hate getting left out of things like that. So we may be a little too tired tomorrow.
Talk to you soon.
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