The black voice of death

The black voice in my mind...

People who are creative have more in common with people who are bipolar than they do with “normal” people, but the commonalities lie not so much in the mood disturbances as in idiosyncratic thinking patterns, enthusiasm and passion for their art, how easily they can produce new and strange ideas and connections.

The black voice behind the art…

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.  It is a disease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being.  … the very great artists are able to be ordinary men—men like Shakespeare or Browning.  There are many real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or violence or fear.  But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that is cannot produce any art. 

Sometimes I feel like there are two voices in my head, The one that keeps telling me its hopeless. Nothing will ever come from this. Why do you keep trying? You’re useless, no one wants your work. You have no value.
It is a continual battle to keep going. To keep on fighting for my passion.
Generally, I can overcome the emotion and voice. It is a voice that has been with me all y life. The voice of the parent or authority figure that kept showing me that I have no value

I have no rights. 

I was wondering why I continually struggle with this issue of value? Logically and spiritually I understand the impact and point of view, but why is it still influencing my thought? I’ve also been reading “The Artists Way”

Part of the journey and task is to explore your inner voices. So, I decided to sit down and write down the specific words, and then try to associate each negative with a specific instance or situation. 

 

The effect of negative language on a child

Abusive and hurtful words that a parent or parents use affect all the areas of children’s lives. They grow up with feelings of ‘not being perfect’. They feel inadequate and blame themselves for being the cause of parent’s frequent reprimands and negative communication. They feel that they are constantly being watched with a critical lens. There is a feeling of being judged all the time.

These children grow up to be harsh on themselves. It can even make them demanding of others and set very high expectations for themselves as well as for others. They become sensitive about negative comments and there is a tremendous amount of guilt. Children with verbally abusive parents can even get into substance abuse or commit suicide.

What is childhood emotional neglect?

Childhood emotional neglect occurs when a child’s parent or parents fail to respond adequately to their child’s emotional needs. Emotional neglect is not necessarily childhood emotional abuse. Abuse is often intentional; it’s a purposeful choice to act in a way that is harmful. While emotional neglect can be an intentional or non-intentional disregard for a child’s feelings, it can also be a failure to act or notice a child’s emotional needs. Parents who emotionally neglect their children may still provide care and necessities. 

How does childhood neglect affect adults?

People who are emotionally neglected as children grow up to be adults who must deal with the consequences. Because their emotional needs weren’t validated as children, they may not know how to deal with their emotions when they occur.

The most common effects of childhood neglect in adulthood include:

  • post-traumatic stress disorder
  • depression
  • emotional unavailability
  • the increasing likelihood for an eating disorder
  • shunning intimacy
  • feeling deeply, personally flawed
  • feeling empty
  • poor self-discipline
  • guilt and shame
  • anger and aggressive behaviours
  • difficulty trusting others or relying upon anyone else

These adults have never having learned the importance of their own emotions, and have difficulty identifying their own feelings.

Now…I’m definitely one of these adults. Apart from emotional neglect I also suffered from severe sexual and emotional abuse. (But that is a story for another time). In order to help myself, (and others), I have been using this Emotional Chart to identify what is going on inside my heart. 

Sometimes I despair, and I wish God was a Fairy God-mother with a magic wand. Just magicking it all away. But unfortunately, He doesn’t. He leads us into deeper waters so that we can learn to trust Him in the Storm.

Storms of Anger

I am Brave but I Bleed.

This is my Story: Part 2.

I’m trying to answer the age old question of: Why did you paint this? 

Storms of anger.

All my physical needs were met, but no spiritual or emotional needs.

I grew up in a lake of bitterness and despair, with waves of resentment and storms of anger.

Learned early on that I had to be strong and courageous as no one else was going to protect me. No one would stand up and ransom me. I had to be brave

Much later in life, I learned that each person’s name has a meaning. We are not named randomly. Every person’s name describes their calling.

For example, Robert means, Bright Fame. Gary means Bold Spear. Niel means, Champion or cloud, and my name meant…

Leonie, lioness and little girl with a brave and courageous heart.

My mother also came from a dysfunctional  background.

Her father was a violent alcoholic. She grew up being given too much responsibility at a very young age. At the age of six, she stood on a chair, in front of a cole-stove cooking breakfast for her younger siblings.

She also had a very bad stutter and because of the stutter, she was sent to a special school. She did not have the opportunity to finish school but had to go work to support her family. (She was also a brave girl)

At this point, my grandmother had already divorced her first husband due to his violence and drinking.

Take into account that this was during the depression, and a single divorced woman was an outcast. My mother felt responsible for her family, giving her whole income to my grandmother to help feed the rest of the family. At this point, she was staying with her family in Parrow, a suburb in Cape Town, and working as a nurse at Tygerberg Hospital, also in Belville.

When we have alcoholic parents, we became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfil our sick abandonment needs.

The Laundry List.

14 Traits of an Adult Child.

  1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
  2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
  3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
  4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
  5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
  6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
  7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
  8. We became addicted to excitement.
  9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
  10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
  11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
  12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
  13. Alcoholism* is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics** and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
  14. Para-alcoholics** are reactors rather than actors.

Adultchildren.org

A Family of Orphans

The story behind this painting.

This painting is still a work in progress. You are allowed a sneak peak into my heart and mind.

I’m trying to answer the age old question of: Why did you paint this? 

I see light in the darkness

I was born an orphan in a house full of orphans.

According to Wikipedia, an orphan is; someone whose parents have died, are unknown, or have permanently or emotionally (sometimes unintentionally) abandoned them.

The Bible calls it; A person who has been deprived of parents. 

Lamentations 5:3: “We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers like widows.” 

My father lost his mother at the age of 10 when he found her dead on the floor. Both he and his younger brother were brought up by their grandmother and various aunts and uncles.

My dad was an extremely clever man with a very high IQ, very sensitive and never had the opportunity or counseling to deal with his loss. He started drinking at a very early age and was already a highly functional alcoholic in his twenties.

During his life, he was very successful at his work but was constantly in and out of rehab.

I have no doubt, that he did the best he knew to do. He did not grow up with a father figure and had no one to tell him how to be a husband and a father.

They call it ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics

How did it affect me?

They call it ACA…Children of Alcoholics.
If you grew up in an alcoholic home, you never know what to expect from one day to the next. When one or both parents struggle with addiction, the home environment is predictably unpredictable.

Arguments, inconsistency, unreliability, and chaos tend to run rampant. Children of alcoholics don’t get many of their emotional needs met due to these challenges, often leading to skewed behaviors and difficulties in properly caring for themselves and their feelings later in life.

The website, Very Well Mind mentioned 13 characteristics of ACA Children…and I had all of them.

If you were never given the attention and emotional support you needed during a key developmental time in your youth and instead were preoccupied with the dysfunctional behavior of a parent, it may certainly be hard (or perhaps impossible) to know how to get your needs met as an adult. Furthermore, if you lacked positive foundational relationships, it may be difficult to develop healthy, trusting interpersonal relationships later on.

Children of alcoholics often have to deny their feelings of sadness, fear, and anger in order to survive. And since unresolved feelings will always surface eventually, they often manifest during adulthood. 

In my life, it manifested in distrust and hatred of both my parents and seeking affirmation in the wrong places. I was drowning in my own bitterness.

Look out for Part Two: Storms of Anger

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