I understand that the crisis of style and of self-confidence and questioning my art and its value/inherent worthlessness is super normal,
but I also am starting to understand that the circumstances around how I developed a sense/lack of self-worth and competence is not normal
So the initial feeling is super normal -- but maybe the intensity of the reaction and how I understand it is not. I was raised understanding that when I’m not competent by very arbitrary means (because you do not understand these things when you are 7 years old, and i probably didn’t start to get that it wasn’t me who was inherently wrong until 17-18), I get beaten or threatened with life-ending things. This was most dire with my first exposure to art -- violin -- and who I was emotionally/personality wise. I have gotten a lot of support since high school that emotionally/personality-wise that helped undo the worst of the damage, but I didn’t receive that same support in context of being an artist, and I could not bridge the healthier self-perception I developed about my emotional self/personality to myself as an artist. That’s nobody’s fault; it’s just an unfortunate problem of circumstance. I can work every day to make that better, but it’s not going to be as simple as “get better!” since this is another leg of recovery.
I intellectually understand that things have changed, and the most dire physical responses have mostly caught up, but it’s okay that they haven’t entirely emotionally/mentally. I think I understand every piece that doesn’t adhere to arbitrary standards of competence as “literally, this will cause my life to completely end” with the kind of stakes I grew up hearing/experiencing, which included bodily harm, extreme humiliation, public shaming, death threats, and other threats that would lead to death or a loss of future, i.e. being sold into slavery. It is only natural that would scar in a lasting, deeply embedded, and visceral way, and it is OK that I’m still unlearning that, and it is OK if I need help with that, and it is OK that I unlearn this at the pace I do. I also imagine (’mind read’ in distorted thinking terms) others’ responses as dramatically negative as I was raised on during a very formative period. This helped create room for things I’ve been looking up lately to develop, i.e. a shame-based identity, C-PTSD symptoms, the combined symptoms that resemble BD/BPD/NPD, etc. It’s not a sign that I’m weak that this happened. None of what happened is proof that I am weak.
It’s okay that I am still in recovery, and it’s okay to ask for help and encouragement as long as I’m not using episodes as fishing opportunities. Asking for help has to be about asking for a life preserver or a hand when I’m drowning. Ultimately, I still have to be the one who swims to shore; it’s more about getting pulled out of a hydraulic or getting help when I’m super tired or being reminded I know how to swim.
It’s okay that not everything is healed. It doesn’t matter how much time comes between the formation of these problems and now; recovery and pain don’t follow a nice linear path. It’s okay that I’m still learning how not to perceive everything in my environment as a very dire threat, and it’s okay that’s been expressing itself in my art, how I make art, how I look at art, and how I look at others’ art. I just have to move forward however I can, and it will get to a point where things are okay.
It’s okay. This was not your fault, but you can take control and seize your wellness back.
