Part of my self-directed series for my Spring 2022 art class.
Emotions are something that I’ve never really been good at, like ever. I’ve always had trouble expressing and even understanding my emotions; putting my feelings into words always seemed to fall short of what was going on inside. It was like this concentrated ball of energy inside me, swirling with an immeasurable ratio of every emotion, and it would fluctuate in intensity. Unfortunately I had no control over when, how, or how much that energy would fluctuate. Sometimes it would come in very short bursts that would only last for a few seconds, other times it would burn for several minutes before finally extinguishing, but it nearly always hurt.
I don’t mean “hurt” in just a mental or emotional way, I mean that, to me, it physically hurt to feel my emotions. My heart and my head would ache something awful whenever it happened. It would actually feel like an explosion went off inside my chest and my brain would short out from the white-hot overstimulation, to the point where I felt compelled to inflict real physical damage to my body (please don’t do this, seek professional help if you are purposefully injuring yourself). At the time it was the only way I knew how to cope. I was at least able to distinguish if something felt good or bad to me, but these feelings didn’t always line up with the things they were normally associated with. Sometimes it felt bad to bask in the joy or excitement, sometimes it felt good to wallow in the darkness and misery. I think that’s part of the reason why I have issues identifying my feelings, because they’re all so entangled and associated with each other that I can’t pick one without bringing in the rest.
That’s why I’m now trying to use my art as more of an emotional outlet. I feel like I can vocalize a lot more about myself with a few brushstrokes than I can with a mouthful of words.
