I could tell you my adventures...

"I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning, but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." -Alice



I'm no stranger to the impact that creativity and artistic expression can have on someones life. DUH. Why the F would I be going to school to become an art therapist if I didn't get that? Art can help relieve stress, build self-esteem, foster resilience, promote healing, and aid in forgiveness. Forgiveness, you say? Forgiveness, I say??

I'm currently enrolled in a course at school which is mandatory in our curriculum, and is essentially our own art therapy. How fitting! How lovely! How friggin' intense. They offer this course for the obvious reasons, and for the not-so-obvious reasons; we should be able to use the same language that we will be asking our client's to use: the nonverbal kind. We are expected to be well-versed in this secret, symbolic language that everyone is fluent in. Yes, I said everyone. It's just not everyone that chooses to communicate this way.

My initial enthusiasm for the class was probably because I've experienced first-hand the wonderful things that art can do for a person: Signing up for a pottery class in high school gave me a healthy outlet to vent typical teenage frustrations; it gave me a sense of accomplishment, helped to ease a rapidly growing battle with anxiety attacks, and was the only A on my report card aside from the ridiculous "child development" classes I took. Yeah- I wasn't even getting A's in gym! Ha! (Oh, and BTW- the modern-day feminist in me screams in horror at the idea that I signed up for a child development class- and yes, this was the kind of class that gave all of us sweet little Mommy's-to-be a cute little electronic baby, that cried (screeched) every time it was hungry (or every time you let it's head snap backwards--whoops!))

So I was super pumped for this class. Totally ready to be directed in my own personal growth via my artwork. Totally ready to be a model "client/student" in the class, and to create bangin' pieces of art while I was at it. Totally ready to be guided through the soothing, calming aspects of artistic expression that I have grown to love. Well, fuck me. I wasn't ready for A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Our latest assignment was given to us two weeks ago. We usually have three weeks to complete our finished pieces on the given topic of our professor's choice. The topic is one word. It's a simple word, an easy one on any spelling test. Only 4 letters to be honest with you. A word that I use flippantly in conversation on a daily basis, many of us do. It's a loaded word, casually mis-used for us all to sound more descriptive in the telling of our daily happenings:



Rage.



Oh, shit. We have been asked to remember a time that we have felt rage- not annoyance, not anger- actual, full-blown rage. The kind of memory that still makes our blood boil, our hearts beat faster, our breathing to speed up or stop completely. The kinds of memories we all would rather forget. Oh, shit.

I haven't begun my piece yet, and to be honest, I don't want to do it. It's not that I haven't felt rage before- unfortunately, many of us have. But the idea that I will have to channel the memories that usually just sneak up into my mind on bad days, the kind that I shake out of my skull because remembering makes me dizzy with a fury that is unrivaled...this makes me uncomfortable. This pisses me off. THIS enrages me. (Oh, irony.)

Why can't this emotion stay locked in it's sweet little box, gift-wrapped in my unconscious, to continually remain invisible until it pops up again and I need to remind myself to forget?

I'm confident in my choice to become a therapist. Some days, I feel like it's the only thing I'm confident about anymore. So, I understand on a basic level that in order to be a better therapist, (and dare I say, human?) I need to be on speaking-terms with feelings I have felt, and experiences I have experienced in the past, in order to be stronger in the future. How would I deal with a client who struggles with bouts of their own rage, if I had yet to tap into my own sources of inner rage? That wouldn't be good for my client, or for me.

So, I guess this is why they make you go to school before they send you out into the world all wide-eyed and naive, fully expecting all of your client's artwork to be beautiful pictures of smiling, shining faces and blooming flowers upon lush and vibrant landscapes.

No ones life is continuously filmed on a backdrop of a lush and vibrant landscape. But damn, I don't think I'm ready to give up drawing pretty pictures of blooming flowers just yet.