Losing my creativity

[Chicken]

Hello All!

Now that I am on the road to recovery, I am beginning to worry about losing the part of myself that I like.  I have a huge fear that I may lose my creative urge/drive too.  I think my creativity, is directly linked to the pain that I feel.  I think the pain fuels my need to paint, draw, write and other creative outlets.  It seems to help relieve that pain.  I love the feeling after I have accomplished a good piece of work.  My mother was a writer and was unhappy and unfulfilled in her marriage with my Father.  She wrote constantly throughout and that was her escape.  My Father died and she never wrote again.  I worry about healing and losing that very important part of myself.  When I think of it, I want to stay with the pain so I can keep my gift.

Does anyone relate?

[Sallying Forth]

Wow Selkie, do I ever!

I've struggled with this for so long.

I also found that when I got into the depths of my pain my creative abilities fell off for sometime. It was several years before I began to get back into them and even try new things. I believe it is a phase that I had to go through, temporarily losing my talents and abilities and gifts, then regaining them. I am using them in different ways now as well. Although I have not completed this leg of my journey I know that my creative talents, abilities and gifts will take on new direction once I begin the next leg of my journey.

In reality I never lost them. They simply were placed on the back burner on simmer for a time. Now they are on the front burner and the fire is on medium. Eventually the fire will be on high. I know that time will come. I am trusting the process and trusting myself.

[daylily]

Hi Selkie:

I've struggled with this, too:  If I'm OK, will I have anything to say?  And the answer is an unequivocal YES!  For many years, I wrote in an effort to explain what I was feeling.  Writing was my primary method of compensating myself for what was missing in my life.  And then things got to the point where I even denied myself that outlet; I didn't write at all for about ten years.  I thought that part of my life was over.  I entered therapy for what I thought were other, more pressing reasons, but I know now that what I really wanted out of the process was to get my creative self back.

And it happened.  I started writing again, and have continued.  Though I still use my past as a source of material and inspiration, it doesn't control my creativity.  In other words, I'm not writing entirely as a reaction to the past.  I can honestly say that I have moved on to what interests and moves me, not what I feel I have to "get out" in order to stay afloat.

I think you may be going through a transition in why and how you create, but please don't stop thinking of yourself as a creative person.  Perhaps your job in all this is to keep the juices flowing, even if it feels forced--do exercises, visit museums, read books that are far from your "usual" choices.  Keep yourself open to inspiration, and I'm pretty sure it will come. 

For me, when art seems to be far away, I enjoy craft.  Generally, I cook, since I can't really do anything else very well.  There's tremendous satisfaction in making something good, and it occupies your mind wholly.  Sometimes that's a tremendously freeing experience; you just don't have the mental space to worry about anything else.  And in that calm interlude, sometimes an idea can take root.  I've started many poems over the stove.

I know this post probably sounds more optimistic than you feel at the moment.  I'm only trying to offer my experience, because it seems relevant.  It has been okay for me, and I believe that if you leave yourself open, it will do the same for you.

best,
daylily

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hiya Selkie

I feel that it may be because you believe your mother lost her talent when your father died, that you feel you will lose yours, however I feel that this is something which is up to you.  At present I feel, you are going from an unconscious thought that you learnt from your mum.

I feel that maybe part of the healing process for you is to find new inspiration, whatever that may be, which will allow you to continue to use your talents.  Your talents are you, not the pain and I feel sure you will have many happy years of talent yet to come.

Best wishes

H&H xx

[Hopalong]

A story for you, Selkie. I was getting my Master's in poetry in the 70s. I also had my first ragingly enormous panic attack (which included a literal premonition of Anne Sexton's death). I was terrified enough to go talk to the wonderful old poet who headed our program. I stammered, I was...just a little...wondering if I need a therapist, but I'm worried more about something else...I'm afraid it would take away my poetry! I am really, really afraid that analysing this, doing therapy, will make me lose the gift, the impetus, the whatever it is that helps me write.

And he scratched his chin and said (in his late 70s): NO my dear girl! Don't be afraid! Why I have a man down on Cathedral Street I still go talk to when it is all too much for me. Therapy didn't take away my poetry, I promise you. It gave it back!

And he was right.
Love,
Hopapoem

[Cadbury]

Well, it may be that your gifts change. It is far healthier to be happy and find ways to express yourself through happiness. Maybe you won't need to paint/write etc as a release anymore... maybe it will be purely a pleasure. I can understand the worries you have, but I am also wondering if at some level you are using these worries as a way of prolonging your healing. Is there any reason (other than your gifts ) that you would be afraid of moving on? Just wondering....

Take care Selkie

[Marta]

Selkie,

I think that peeling layers will get you deeper into your craft. For example, if so far you thought of yourself as someone who constantly ended up in bad relationships, then as a writer now you will have a new nuance to add to it, as to why it happened. If you become a richer person, then your craft becomes richer. Rilke even believed that becoming a poet meant emptying out the self, so that one can become a vehicle for the spiritual.

One danger I felt about psychotherapy is that I began viewing everything under the backdrop of psych concepts and began consciously interfering with my genuine feelings. If I was angry, was I projecting, introjecting, or whatever? It sounds like nothing, but this was a severe block I have had to struggle with. So don't let therapy color the way you view the world. Don't lose your passion for the world and aintain your connection with the trees, the waves, the beggars, and you will be fine.

As for painting and drawing, in my experience freeness of imagination and ability to concentrate matter far more than intensity of pain. Your art will reflect the changes in you as a person, and it will be a pleasure to see yourself unfold and revealed in new ways.

As for your mother, it sounds like she did not heal, she simply lost her feelings. At least when your dad was alive, if pain was all she was feeling, she was still feeling. If after his death, she did not really move on, if she did not feel the joy that this world is capable of bringing to us, then she became stuck. You are on a different journey than her.
 
Could this fear be what kept you from therapy so far?

[Chicken]

Thank you for your responses Daylily, hopalong, H&H, sallying forth...

Cadbury said: "I am also wondering if at some level you are using these worries as a way of prolonging your healing. Is there any reason (other than your gifts ) that you would be afraid of moving on? Just wondering...."

Hi Cadbury, It a very interesting point you got there, when I read it earlier I reacted to it in a way that made me think there could be a grain of truth in it.  I cannot see or imagine why I would want to prolong my healing other than the fact that I am scared.  When you are in fear you create all sorts of obstacles and excuses, don't you? 

Maybe this is what I am doing. 

I am afraid I will be a calm, well balanced person.  I am happy having raw emotions.  I am happy feeling stuff.  I am afraid my recovery will make me numb and all my feelings will go away.  I am happy being a sensitive person.  I am happy crying when I feel sad.  God!  I'm doing it again!  Why am I freaking out?  I am really scared now

Just for the record, I am not a writer.  I am in the creative industry however and I do have a huge fear I will lose the edge that I feel brings something special and unique to my work.  This fear is very real and I am getting more nervous by the day about it, the fear of losing it is giving me the edge for now anyway!  ha ha!

Marta said: "I think that peeling layers will get you deeper into your craft"

God I hope so.  I would like to develop more confidence.  That's the only thing I would like to change.

Marta also said: As for your mother, it sounds like she did not heal, she simply lost her feelings. At least when your dad was alive, if pain was all she was feeling, she was still feeling. If after his death, she did not really move on, if she did not feel the joy that this world is capable of bringing to us, then she became stuck. You are on a different journey than her

You hit the nail on the head there Marta and thanks for pointing that out.  My Mother did not heal at all.  I feel a mixture of pain, pity and guilt when i think of her.  She is not the type to help herself, she has a strange mixture of selflessness and selfishness that I don't think I will ever be able to figure out.  Her situation is my worst nightmare.  She thinks she is happy, but i think she is lonely and she avoids her children (me, and my brothers and sisters) like the plague.  She always seems to be running away.   But yeah, her journey is different, and i am not her and will not turn out like her.

[Sallying Forth]

I wrote you an private message Selkie.

I'll share some of it here. What you described about your mother is the "Lost Child" role a child takes in a dysfunctional family. This is the False Self. This excerpt below explains this further.


It is important to note that we adapt the roles that are best suited to our personalities.  We are, of course, born with a certain personality.  What happens with the roles we adapt in our family dynamic is that we get a twisted, distorted view of who we are as a result of our personality melding with the roles. This is dysfunctional because it causes us to not be able to see ourselves clearly.  As long as we are still reacting to our childhood wounding and old tapes then we cannot get in touch clearly with who we really are.

The false self that we develop to survive is never totally false - there is always some Truth in it.  For example, people who go into the helping professions do truly care and are not doing what they do simply out of Codependence.  Nothing is black and white - everything in life involves various shades of gray.  Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves and finding some balance in our life.   Recovery is about seeing ourselves more clearly and honestly so that we can start being True to who we really are instead of to who are parents wanted us to be.  (Reacting to the other extreme by rebelling against who they wanted us to be is still living life in reaction to our childhoods. It is still giving power over how we live our life to the past instead of seeing clearly so that we can own our choices today.) The clearer we can see our self the easier it becomes to find some balance in our life - to find some happiness, fulfillment, and serenity.

[Chicken]

She is indeed the lost child as you mention. 

I don't understand why she turns her back on us even today.  We have never had a falling out, we never had any kind of disagreement, she just let me slip away.  I lived away from home since I turned 18.  Over the years, the phone calls stopped.  Now we never talk on the phone.  She sends me texts now and then.  She can only communicate by text.  She doesn't know what part of the city I live in...  She didn't come to my graduation.  I graduated alone.  She forgets the name of the college I went to.  She doesn't know anything about my life.  I can let weeks go by without contacting her and it won't be an issue.  I have come to accept it.  When I do go back home to visit, I usually don't see her as she is at her new hobby.  She doesn't even break away from it to see her own daughter, even if she hasn't seen me for a year!  I don't get angry at her as I don't want what I never had with her.  For me it's too late.  I never wanted love from her and i would be too wierded out by it now.  My only fear is that I too run from intimacy... 

Her sister whom she was closest in the world to, was on her death bed and my Mother only visited her once.  When she did my Mother's sister said "I'm sure you have more important things to be doing than sitting here wasting time with me, why don't you do what you need to do, don't worry about me" that pretty much sums up my Mothers family.  They are all so self less.

My Mother wouldn't let anyone fuss over her, or give her anything, she wants to shrink into the background and not be noticed...  this is where she is happiest.  My Mother doesn't feel comfortable being hugged.  I don't think she ever experienced love, as my Father was very selfish and neglected her.  That was the perfect arrangement for my Mother.  Being in a neglectful marraige was just another way to avoid intimacy.  She was a very hurt child and there was no way she was ever going to let anyone get close enough to hurt her again.  She is in her 60's now and she is receiving a lot of abuse from my brothers and sisters for not being there and for doing her own thing.  It's a vicious cycle.  She just ignores the abuse, she's used to it anyway.  She won't win either way.  I don't feel angry towards her in the slightest because I can see what's going on sooooooo clearly.  My heart goes out to her lonely old soul but I can never touch her as neither of us will ever get to meet at that level.  Not in this lifetime anyway.  I know she is a beautiful person and i will be destroyed when she passes away because it's such a tragedy.

This has been a bit of a rant for me...  I am coming into a new phase and that is my Mother and how we are so very similar

P.S Sallying Forth, is there an online site that you know about, that i can learn some more about this?

x Selkie x

[Sallying Forth]

Hi Selkie,
This is the web site I went to:

http://joy2meu.com/DysfunctionalFamilies.htm

Several authors have written about dysfunctional family roles.

Here's another web site with one author's name, John Bradshaw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysfunctional_family

Here are John Bradshaw's books and tv series:
Bibliography:
Bradshaw On: The Family - 1986
Bradshaw On: Healing the Shame that Binds You - 1988
Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child - 1990
Creating Love - 1992
Family Secrets - 1995
Bradshaw On: The Family (Revised) - 1996

PBS television (partial):
The Eight Stages of Man : eight part series
Bradshaw On Homecoming : ten-part series
Creating Love  : ten-part series
Eating Disorders  : three-part series
Bradshaw On: Family Secrets  : six-part series
Where Are You Father : one-hour program
Healing the Shame that Binds You : one-hour program
Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families : two-hour program
Surviving Divorce : ninety-minute program

I read the original Bradshaw On: The Family and all the different family roles are described in it. I've also read Bradshaw On: Healing the Shame that Binds You and Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child both are excellent.

[Marta]

I never wanted love from her

Selkie, how CAN this possibly be true? How? May be not now, but NEVER? Sorry, I find that hard to belive.

They are all so self less.

I would not use the label selfless for the scenario you described. Tragic, dysfunctional, yes. Selfless, no.

From what you describe of her, yes, she sounds like a beautiful, lonely person. I too want to put my arms around her and wish she could be helped, but alas, your prognosis may be right, you may never be able to meet her at that level. What a tragedy.

From what I have heard from you, it does not sound to me like you are anything like her, in terms of locking yourself up in iconic self-imposed exile from the wolrd i mean. You are out there, out here, alive and kicking, reaching out to others and letting yourself be touched, if only in the cyberspace. You are not your mother. You are different.

[Chicken]

hey Marta,
I don't remember ever ever wanting love from either of my parents.  I would run a mile.  I hated them when i was growing up.  I spend all my days in the neighbours house, so much so that the neighbours used to have to force me to go home.  I was an independent kid, never needed anybody then. 

[longtire]

hey Marta,
I don't remember ever ever wanting love from either of my parents.  I would run a mile.  I hated them when i was growing up.  I spend all my days in the neighbours house, so much so that the neighbours used to have to force me to go home.  I was an independent kid, never needed anybody then. 

Selkie, if you are healed will you *need* people then?  Does that scare you?

Creativity is part of your makeup.  You can't get rid of it, and it will not just dry up and blow away.  It can't be separated from *you* any more than mixing Coke and Pepsi can be separated.  You may have used your strengths (including creativity) to express your pain, but the pain never caused you to put on a cloak of creativity.  My personal experience is that I have never been so in-tune and so easily able to honor and express my creativity.  And I have less pain now than I can remember or ever thought possible.  I still remember the pain and can pull on those memories, but I am no longer submerged in pain, that got in the way of being open and creative.

[Chicken]

Hey Longtire,

You bet it scares me!!!! ...my need.  My neediness has emerged in relationships in the past and is so HUGE that it has scared people away!  I didn't know how to handle it.  Mega Yeuck! Super Yeuck! Puke! ick! 

I'm a big needy monster!  The need monster!  However, when i meet likewise needy monsters, I run a mile...  we are such a stifling bunch of monsters...

As for creativity...

(apologies to you Sallying Forth -if you are reading this- as I am going to repeat a lot of what I said in my private message to you)

...  I have been pondering on what everyone has said regarding creativity and I am 100% sure and 100% optimistic that healing will aid rather than sap my creativity. 

I feel like my issues get in the way of my creativity.  I lack confidence in myself.  I never think my work "is good enough" even though it really is.  If someone compliments me, I start to falter as I feel like I can't live up to their compliment anymore.  If someone gives me constructive criticism I let it affect my confidence rather than use it to explore..  either way I put myself in to a trap where i can't move forward.  I have too many insecurities lurking in myself that there is little room for enjoyment.  There is not a lot of enjoyment in it.  It's a kind of bitter sweet enjoyment.  A kind of a struggle.  Hard work. 

I am struggling so hard to prove my self and my ability to myself.  I am so harsh on myself that this is almost impossible.  I cannot believe i have come this far carrying so much weight.  I have backed my self into a corner and healing is the only thing that will allow me to come forward and take my place in the creative industry...  where i belong.