comfort eating

Monograms M and G

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Yesterday was a day where I was out of sorts for some unspecified reason. Drawing little, intricate bits of art was the only thing that helped to soothe me and calm me. Along with comfort eating, which was not good way to cope.

I get days like this. I have no idea what triggered this response. It may have been a visit to my accountant on Tuesday and the tax bill to pay – I have absolutely nothing to worry about with either, but dealing with finances is a trigger for the anxiety and depression that are part of my cPTSD.

I know I was on edge about the meeting, even though I knew there would be nothing to worry about. The anxiety had been gradually growing through the previous few days. This anxiety provoked the warning signs of an incipient migraine/stress headache on Tuesday morning. Luckily I caught it in time with painkillers so that it didn’t develop into a full blown migraine and after the meeting I was left tired but feeling more at ease.

Yesterday, the anxiety ramped up again as I went to get the paperwork and bank card to make the payments. So, yesterday I needed to manage my anxiety and tiny, intricate drawings were what was needed.

Today, I know I have to do these things, and I will. I don’t have the anxiety I had about them yesterday. I think yesterday was just too close to a few days of spiralling anxiety as accounts day approached closer and closer.

cPTSD can make doing the simple things in life far more difficult to do. I do get things done, though I do have to be kind to myself at times, making sure I have plenty of time before the deadline.

I used fountain pens on white paper to draw the designs. The M is on paper that is around 4″ x 4″, the G is a little narrower than 4″ for some reason.

After scanning them in, I did a bit of digital wizardry to fill the letters with a gold foil texture, just to see what it would look like, and they look OK to me. I’m not too keen on the black line around the G though. I do like the contrast of the golden letters and the black and white designs around them.

Today, I have to colour the cover for my next book for Dover Publications Creative Haven series. And keep warm and safe. I woke up to a lovely sunrise with a frosty world – everything was covered with white. I know the temperature was down to -3ºC last night as I came home around 10:30 pm, and it would only have got colder as the skies were clear and starry. It’s beginning to go now, but clouds have covered the sky.

The frost is beginning to disappear now, but clouds have covered the blue skies. Snow is forecast for a bit later on today. I like to see snow. I like the way the world falls silent in heavy snow as it seems to muffle the usual background noise of modern times. I’m wise enough to know that for me to go out in snow is never a wise idea; I tend to slip and slide and fall and hurt myself. So, as I have nothing pressing that requires me to leave home, I’ll be staying safe and warm indoors! Once the cover is coloured, my attention will go to February’s templates for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group. Someone there has asked for some simpler templates like my dangle designs, so I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do!

Half-term at last…pheweee!

Angela PorterLeave a comment

It’s been a long half-term at school; eight weeks to be precise.  In that time there’s been two training days, a twilight training session. a memorial walk to raise money for school funds and the Senghenydd Mining Disaster Memorial, almost daily incidents of poor behaviour/attitude to deal with, lessons observations, book reviews (as in how well and regularly work is being marked), a consultation with my union representative, a stress-meltdown and hopefully the end of three year period of what feels like persecution/bullying in a particular situation at work (culminating in the union consultation and the stress meltdown).

I still have a pupil to be dealt with who has been making threats to physically attack me because I apparently ‘start on him’ by asking him to do his work.  How shocking is that, that I should request he stop shouting around the class, distracting others and to do his work?

Oh the joys of being a teacher.

Having said that, there are joys.  The shared smiles and laughter with pupils enjoying the lessons.  The ones whose faces light up when they see me and who never exhibit poor behaviour in my class, even though they may do in other lessons), the shared laughter with colleagues, morning breakfast with ‘the girls’, the helpfulness of the lab tech, the enthusiasm and questioning of pupils because they are interested in something, their kindness and thoughtfulness.  And so much more that it’s a shame it can become dominated by the negative things that occur and dominate my ruminating, over-analysing, over-thinking brain.

It’s been really busy for me with having to prepare work for a new course I’m running with my special needs classes, as well as teaching mainstream classes that I’ve not done for years.  It’s meant late nights at work and even bringing work home – something I avoid doing as I do not want to go down the route of being a workaholic as I was in the first decade or so of my teaching career.

This busy-ness has really eaten into my creative time.  Little art has been done, and I’m am doing my best to settle back into it in this half-term, especially as I have two contracts to create artwork for two books, though I have been waiting for direction for what the artwork is to be for a long while now.

I’ve barely stopped in the first four day so of the half-term.  I seem to be running away from time with myself.  I can struggle with being alone, feeling lonely and end up keeping moving, moving, moving to avoid it.  Today I am remaining at home and trying to get things out of the way so that I will settle to some arty pursuits, or de-stressing after the last half-term.

I do seem to be a lot more resilient than I was a year ago.  Though things can get to me (such as loneliness, lack of a sense of belonging, the constant worry I’m doing things wrong that have precipitated the situation at work that led to a stress-meltdown), I often find there’s a content ‘centre’ in me that I can access when I do things of a creative nature or things that focus my mind away from it’s rumination and negative thinking.  It’s a little easier to spot when this is happening, though I don’t always catch it in time to stop the tears, the self-loathing and the comfort eating.

I rejoined a choir I’ve been a member of since I was in school myself.  Sadly, I had to leave again once the stress levels rose as my voice was, and still is, affected by the stress.

Out of all of this, and at odd times during the last couple of months, I have managed to do some arty things.  Here’s two mandalas of mine.

Calmly Does It © Angela Porter 2013

Autumn Splendour ©Angela Porter 2013d

Arty busy I have been

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Arty times

I really have been kind of busy with art during my long summer holiday from the madness that is teaching.  I have two more weeks until I return to that craziness, and working out how to juggle creating artworks for two books with the demands of teaching and a little bit of a social life too.  I’m sure I’ll manage it; art will be my solace at the end of a crazy day as it always has been, this time with the impetus to create to fulfil a contract too (which won’t take away my passion for my art).

Here are some of my creations over the past few weeks.

ImageTo Remember © Angela Porter 2013

 

You Are Amazing © Angela Porter 2013

 

I Love Myself Mandala © Angela Porter 2013

 

Change your thoughts © Angela Porter 2013

 

Be careful how you talk to your self © Angela Porter 2013

 

And there’s more of these at Artwyrd at deviantART.

I’ve also been busy with mandala type things too.

August Mandala 3 © Angela Porter 2013

 

August Mandala 2 © Angela Porter 2013

 

Again, there are more at Artwyrd at deviantART, as well as other pieces of art I’ve done.

Other things

I turned 50 last week.  I spent the day with a friend at the West Somerset Railway.  All too often in my life I have spent special days alone; days like birthdays, Yuletide/Christmas, New Year and so on.  This year I plucked up enough courage to ask him to join me knowing he also likes steam trains.

Yes, it took a LOT of courage.  I have a big problem in asking people to join me or help me.  I don’t like to be the centre of attention nor do I wish to be a burden to others, and I definitely don’t like the sting of rejection either.

All of that is a bit bizarre as I will help others, accompany them, accept invitations and so on if I am at all able to do so.

Yes, I have problems with self-esteem, self-image, self-confidence and a lack of social skills that others take for granted and it takes a LOT for me to do little things to learn and break down barriers that limit me in my life.

I am learning.  I am finding the courage.  Little by little.

Small chages © Angela Porter 2013

And that quote is quite apt for how life is being for me at this time.  Lots of little changes and challenges (well one rather big challenge).

All these little quotes are going into an A6 sketchbook which is for me to carry with me to remind me of the little things (or not so little things) I need to do or remember to help me change my view of myself and to change my life.

Well, that’s the plan anyway.  In itself, the writing of the little messages and the decoration of them is a pleasure.  I hope the work helps to cement them in my subconscious and to reprogramme the faulty thinking I still have, a lot of which stretches back to childhood.

I have finally found a self-help book that makes sense to me.  It’s Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns.  In the book he makes the point that it’s your thoughts that create your feelings and not the other way around.  Many thoughts we have we aren’t even faintly conscious of, yet they still have enormous power over the way we feel, which then feed back to the thoughts producing still more feelings.  We all have inner critics, negative automatic thoughts, and we can learn to change them, or at least reduce the power they have over us.

I’ve come across this idea in counselling in the past, but it’s never made as much sense to me as it does now.  I think the counselling I had helped me heal some aspects of myself, understand others, gave me strength to continue teaching, but, more importantly, it laid some of the foundations for me continuing to heal the mis-conceptions I have about myself and the resulting limits they place upon my life (or rather the limits I allow them to place upon my life).

I have noticed a difference in myself lately.  One big difference was me inviting someone to join me.  

A second difference was the way I accepted the offer to create the artwork for two books; I did this almost unhesitatingly.  The hesitation was about the number of art works needed and the time given to do them in.  Surprisingly, the hesitation wasn’t about my ability, my self-doubt, and that was a big step forward for me too.

Yet another is that I’ve noticed I’m a lot more at ease around people.  At one time I would be fidgety and eager to keep moving to move along to the next thing. Now, I can relax.  On my darker days, the days when I’m low and in tears I do tend still to be on the move constantly, running away from myself quite figuratively, not happy to spend time in my own company.  In the past this would have involved a lot of money being spent on pointless things, trying to buy a sense of ‘value’ of myself, or trying to show others I’m valuable as a person because of these things I have.

The truth is spend, spend, spend was only ever an Elastoplast over the wound called a huge lack of self-worth.

Comfort eating is a behaviour I still indulge in.  I comfort-eating to fill the gaping wound that is a lack of people and love/affection in my life on a consistent basis.  Oddly, the days I’ve spent with friends and the day or so afterwards are days where I have no overwhelming appetite, no need to stuff myself stupid to fill the hole, to hide the emptiness inside.  Other days, I often don’t consciously realise what I’m doing until it’s done.  I then feel stuffed full, and sick.  Sick of myself, of how it makes me feel fatter than I am (I am overweight, how much so I don’t know as my inner-mirror is warped and I see myself as huge as blue whale), ugly (well if you’re overweight, you are ugly, and not just ugly on the outside but on the inside too), useless, no one will want to be my friend…these phrases are often heard in the strident, bitchy, sarcastic tones of my mother’s voice.

I’m getting better at finding evidence to refute these erroneous beliefs about myself, to understand that beauty isn’t a dress size or an age.  I haven’t quite found the key to fit the lock to allow me to change these thoughts on a consistent basis.

Creating the quote artwork has been one tool in an increasingly large toolbox to help me find or forge the key that will dis-empower the negative automatic thoughts and allow me to believe I am the good, nice, beautiful person that others seem to think I am and that I deserve more good in my life.