Category: Emotions

Posted in Beads, Emotions, Photography, Sewing

Burnout? Or maybe not doing enough?

Posted on by debthumanblog

Some days, today being one, making art is difficult. I put beads in a row to make a necklace, and I hate every necklace I try to make. Nothing looks right. Aquamarine beads don’t look right coupled with any other variety of bead. I’ve got blue, teal, yellow and red tiger eye beads. None look right with any other variety of bead.  Swarovski crystals don’t add anything to a collection of beads. Neither do pearls. I just bought sparkly black opals. Even though I have severe bling addiction and love sparkle, I can’t come up with a design in which to use them.

I’m stuck.

I’ve got a pattern for pajama bottoms laid out, but I don’t feel like cutting it out and sewing the pieces together. I’ve got a pair of slacks almost done, but I don’t feel like doing the final chore: inserting elastic. I need a pair of white slacks and I’ve got some white linen/cotton blend. I don’t feel like laying out a pattern.

I’ve started writing a second novel, but don’t feel like writing it. Maybe it’s because of how I’ll feel while I’m writing it. I don’t write fluff. I write my guts. My guts take a lot out of me. The novel is about the hell I went through working at the Public Defender Department – a hell that nearly killed me.

I want to blame this malaise on external events. Except external events aren’t the cause of my malaise. My painting teacher said my work is self-taught folk art. Um….doesn’t taking art classes take my work out of the self-taught category? Folk art? What the fecal matter is folk art? Anna Robertson Moses created folk art. I like to think my work is more refined than Moses’ work – which isn’t taken seriously. If Anna Robertson Moses’ work were taken seriously, she wouldn’t be known as Grandma Moses.

Maybe the subject matter of my current work contributes to the malaise. I’m doing another painting about mass shooting. Painting about antisemitism during Passover and on Holocaust Remembrance Day is a strange experience. I paint while thinking about hatred, oppression, slavery. The two landscapes I’m working on aren’t enough of an emotional break. Worse, a third mass shooting painting is working itself through my mind.

I take photographs of the spring blooms in my yard, but I hate the photos. There’s no magic in them. There’s nothing in the photos which grabs my attention.

I love yucca flowers. I don’t love the photos of yucca flowers I’m taking.

I don’t think the problem is my photos. My photos are technically good, but they don’t give me joy.

Why am I not happy about the crisp detail in this photo?

Why am I not pleased with the playfulness of this composition? I can’t even imagine turning this into a fabric design – and I love designing fabric.

I’m stuck. How do I get unstuck?

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Posted in Depression, Emotions, PTSD

I Detest Christmas

Posted on by debthumanblog

Holidays growing up were horrible. The Drunk would pick a fight – usually with me – and wouldn’t stop until someone – usually me – was crying. My mother would be screaming, literally, that we didn’t spend enough time eating after she spent two days cooking. The Drunk would complain because my mother used boxed mashed potatoes and would tell her she had three daughters so there shouldn’t be boxed mashed potatoes. Notice that my brother, who could have crapped in the middle of the living room rug and it would have been okay, didn’t have to do anything. Many times, I got the flu a couple days before Christmas. Being too sick to notice the hell that was going on around me was good. Very, very good.

Every year, the deep, unrelenting depression and nightmares started the third week of November and lasted until New Year’s Day.

I was the odd kid out and I was 34 before I knew why my mother and The Drunk hated me. Turns out, while my younger brother, sisters and I have the same mother, I’ve got a different father. One Christmas eve, my younger brother said The Drunk’s advice to him was to have fun but be careful. I was appalled and said that kind of advice leads to someone knocking on your door 20 years later and says s/he is your daughter/son. The Drunk said, I mercifully forgot what, caught himself, and said that might happen to him. That’s when I knew I was someone else’s kid.

It’s not easy being someone else’s kid.

Finally, Jim and I decided a solution to the hell that is Christmas was to take a vacation and be gone at Christmas. We traveled to assorted places. Kentucky is closed for Christmas except one truck stop in Lexington that served the best biscuits I’ve ever had.  One year, we stayed at a resort in West Virginia and the resort restaurant, decent but not memorable food, was open. Another year, we stayed in Freeport, Maine. The only place open was LL Bean. No restaurants. Jim found a convenience store that was open for a few hours and bought us day-old sandwiches. We sat in our hotel room ate day-old sandwiches and watched A Christmas Story. I thought how pathetic it was that being in a hotel room eating not quite stale, forgettable sandwiches was far better than being with family.

Then, I moved 2000 miles away and there was no more Christmas Hell.

I thought.

I was wrong. The misery of complex PTSD is that it’s hard to treat and the flashbacks last a lifetime. I’ve been married for 50 years and gone through nearly 20 years of therapy and if there was a way to stop the flashbacks, I’d have found it by now. The flashbacks are no longer debilitating, but now they come in clusters.

About 20 years ago, I discovered that my grandmother’s really bad German was actually Yiddish. And who spoke Yiddish in 1888 when the family left East Prussia and came to the US? Not German Lutherans which is the story the children and grandchildren were told. There’s an unbroken female line from my great-great-grandmother, who left East Prussia with her husband and 10-month old baby (my great-grandmother) to me. I am Jewish. Formal conversion, which I call reversion, was 11 years ago. I’ve celebrated Hanukkah ever since.

Still, the flashbacks come. Jim and I love to binge on baking contests. While I enjoy seeing different ways to make things, watching the Holiday Baking Championship can be painful. Sometimes, the contestants explain the inspiration for whatever they just made is a lovely family memory of Christmas past. Where do the producers find these people? Or are the contestants lying? Or do I have to live in a cave to avoid the flashbacks? I insist on having a normal life and not running from the triggers. I refuse to give the triggers the power to contract and constrict my life. That helps, but doesn’t cure cPTSD.

I detest Christmas.

Posted in Bigotry, Depression, Emotions, words

Define Attractive

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m 70. I’m no longer 22. Acne notwithstanding, I don’t look like I’m 22. Since then, I’ve put myself through college. I’ve put myself through law school. I’ve had a lifetime full of experiences. I’m not the person I was at 22 and don’t want to be that person.

So what’s the problem? The problem is what I think people expect. I watch TV and see anorexic women. I have to tell myself these women have eating disorders. They aren’t at a healthy weight. What they are doing to their bodies is going to catch up to them.

I watch TV and see women who have obvious facelifts that they deny having. Their faces will again fall. I see women who have had way too many facelifts and they look terrible. I see women who have obvious breast implants and lifts. I see Jamie Lee Curtis wearing a low cut dress, and her breasts jiggle just like mine. I see her gray hair and wonder why I am not that confident.

I was 25 when I started college and 30 when I graduated with degrees in biology and journalism. I started law school on my 38th birthday. I appeared before the US Supreme Court when I was 44. I moved 2000 miles across the country while Jim stayed behind to sell the house when I was 47. I argued the first of three times before the NM Supreme Court when I was 50. When I was 54, I began a nine-year fight to keep a job I loved. I retired when I was 63.

It took me a lifetime to achieve what I’ve achieved. Now, I look at my face in the mirror, and new lines form each day. I have lines across my forehead. I have weird lines going from my nose to my chin. I’ve considered botox, but I think I’d be even more upset when the lines come back – and they will come back – than I am now that they are arriving.

I’ve watched myself go through life changes. I was 38 when I realized my life is mine and no one else should run my life. When I was 39, I realized I could learn anything I wanted and my life was incredible. When I was 50, I went a little crazy and got my bellybutton pierced. When I was 60, I spent the next few years realizing my life is finite and worrying I wouldn’t get everything done that I wanted to get done before I died. I was 60 when a client told me I’m a kind woman. I had never thought of myself as kind. When I was 61, someone who is much younger than me found me sexually attractive. I turned 70 and suddenly, I can do anything, learn anything, achieve anything. It’s like how I felt when I was 40. A few weeks ago, I realized I’m almost finished writing the novel I started writing 8 years ago. I also realized that if the entire story can be told in 44,000 words, I would be foolish to try to turn a fast paced interesting story into an 80,000 word boring story.

It has taken me a long time for my hair to go gray. It’s still not gray, but there are more gray hairs than there used to be. Once, when I was about 53 and after dying my hair flaming red, someone told me that color was much better than the color I had before. The color I had before was my natural color. I decided if people wanted to think I dyed my hair, I’d dye my hair a color that doesn’t exist in nature. I’ve been a woman with flaming red hair ever since. Now, I dye my hair because I’m upset at the few but ever increasing number of gray hairs I see.

My face reflects my life. It has been a good life and I achieved more than I ever imagined I could achieve when I was 22. So why am I so upset about the lines on my face? Why do I think I’m no longer attractive just because I’m developing lines on my forehead?

What does it mean to be attractive? Is carrying my life on my face attractive? Interesting maybe, but I don’t know if I’m attractive.

Why the hell do I think lines on my face, gray hairs, and not being anorexic matter?

There’s a quilt in here somewhere and fuzzy ideas are forming in my brain.

Posted in Emotions, Sewing

The Queen Is Dead; Long Live The King And a Few Other Things

Posted on by debthumanblog

Elizabeth became queen the year I was born. Now, I feel as if a part of my past is gone. It feels odd to grieve the loss of someone I don’t know. The only other time I’ve experienced grief at the passing of someone I don’t know is when Pete Seeger died. I saw bits and pieces of the queen’s funeral this morning and wondered about so much pageantry. How does one practice for such an event? How does one even know what to do in such and event? How does one practice the events surrounding the death of a parent or grandparent? Yet they all seemed to know what to do and when to do it. The other reaction I had is the notion of a corpse hanging around for 10 days. You can’t have a body hang around too long. Bury it before it starts to stink.

I wish I could sew like the queen’s dressmaker.

I take a painting class and am utterly unable to walk into the painting studio without getting paint all over me. I need crappy clothes for this class. The only pair of jeans I have is falling apart. The rest of my slacks are dress slacks. Before I can sell my designs in my Spoonflower shop ttps://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman I have to have the designs proofed. I can put 42 6″ x 6″ designs on a yard of fabric. This has caused a pile of proof yards to accumulate. I needed something to do with all this fabric.

The paint doesn’t show on these pants. I’m working on a second pair. I wanted to make a top out of proofs, but I haven’t decided what I want to make. Scrub tops are comfortable and I wouldn’t have to wear a bra, but I don’t think I want to wander around looking like a psychedelic health care worker.

I’ve been working on small paintings for my painting class. I’m working with 8.5 x 11″ MDF. I thought this would be a series of small paintings showing what bipolar disorder looks like from the inside. Once I started painting, I realized I’m painting my autobiography.

These are some of the designs I made on my iPad but haven’t yet translated into paint.

I was going to explain these, but I’d rather hear how you interpret them.

These, so far, don’t have meaning.

I’ve been criticized for working intuitively and told I should plan out a piece before starting on it. This series defies planning. I think I’m working in one direction, and then I discover I’m working on something different. I’ve no idea when this series will be done or what, if anything, I want to do with the designs. Crit will be especially intriguing.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My online store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in Emotions, Fiber, Grief, Photography, Quilts, Suicide

Candlelight

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m taking a photography class at the local university. The class is being taught by a grad student. I’m the only one in the class who has worked with film. My first single lens reflex camera was a Valentine’s Day present in 1980. Canon – AT1, the last fully manual camera Canon made. I loved that camera, I still have it, and it’s older than everyone in my class. My current camera, a DSLR Canon 90D, was a Valentine’s Day gift in 2020.

We’re assigned to take a series of photos showing a sense of place, but not the usual chamber of commerce type shots.

These are studies for two photos.

Shabbat Shalom

Shabbat shalom means sabbath peace. I made the quilt after a terrorist armed with an assault rifle walked into the Tree of Life synagog in Pittsburgh and killed 11 people. When congregants were allowed back into the sanctuary, they saw blood spatter and brain matter on the walls. The blue in the middle is Chai, the Hebrew word meaning Life. On shabbat, two candles are lit to celebrate the beginning of shabbat. The candleholders – which can be elaborate or simple – are a ceramic pair I made specifically for shabbat candles. The final shot will be taken after dark and with the candles lit. I wanted to get as much of the shot as possible set up in advance.

Yahrzeit

Three years ago, someone I knew killed himself. Tonight begins his yahrzeit – the anniversary of his death. The quilt is one I made in an attempt to make sense of his suicide. I’ll be taking the formal shot after sundown and lighting the yahrzeit candle.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in bipolar disorder, Child abuse, Depression, Emotions, PTSD

In Honor Of The 49th Anniversary of Roe v Wade

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m alive because abortion was illegal in 1952.

My mother was a violent, drunken narcissist who was single when I was born. Four years later, she married a violent drunk. Although he adopted me, something I didn’t know until I was 34, he never forgot I was someone else’s kid. I’m told to be grateful The Drunk gave me a name – the same name of a Nazi war criminal who was tried and executed by the British. The Drunk and the Nazi were related – both by blood and by hateful ideology.

My mother and The Drunk had three children – none of which my mother wanted and she made sure we knew we were unwanted. By the time I was 10, I had myself and three siblings to raise. I didn’t do a very good job; children aren’t capable of raising children. Don’t tell me to be grateful for a childhood in hell.

I endured 16 years of child abuse hell which resulted in bipolar disorder. The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 11. The last of six suicidal episodes was the fall of 2019. I live in terror that there will be another episode and eventually, an episode will kill me. Don’t tell me to be grateful.

When I was 25, I put myself through college and earned degrees in journalism and biology – even though I wasn’t allowed to take any math or science classes in high school. When I was 38, I put myself through law school.

50 years after marrying and leaving a home run by a pair of violent drunks, I still have complex PTSD. I still have flashbacks. After many years of therapy, the flashbacks are annoying rather than debilitating as they were 50 years ago. There is no cure for complex PTSD and I will have flashbacks as long as I live. Don’t tell me to be grateful for a lifetime of internal hell.

I’d have been better off if my mother had had an abortion.

Think about that the next time you want to condemn a pregnant woman to motherhood.

Posted in anxiety, Beads, Child abuse, Emotions, Jewelry, PTSD

Dealing With Anxiety By Making Art

Posted on by debthumanblog

As I write this, I’m awaiting the results of my covid-19 test. Jim called Thursday morning and said his work study student called in sick and it might be strep throat. There’s an overlap between strep throat and covid-19.The phone call triggered a massive anxiety attack. I was scheduled to model on Thursday, but the class got cancelled. Covid-19 has to be taken seriously. Covid-19 kills.  

The first appointment I could get for a Covid-19 test was yesterday, Saturday, morning. The PRC test is the most accurate, but there’s no way to know how long it will take to get the results and I’m scheduled to model on Tuesday. I need the results before Tuesday morning. The least accurate test results are theoretically available in an hour. I chose the Rapid Response test. Although it’s not as accurate as the PRC test, I can get the results in 24 hours. Except I can’t It’s been 27 hours and I don’t have results. I’m scared. Although I was vaccinated in March, it’s possible, albeit unlikely, to have a breakthrough infection. The vaccine gives me the best chance of staying out of the hospital and living. I waited in line for 45 minutes to get tested. I had to stick a swab as far up my nose as I could and move the swab around. It felt weird and I kept wanting to sneeze. I have no symptoms but that doesn’t mean the test will be negative. It’s possible to be asymptomatic and shedding virus for several days before having symptoms. I’m still having that massive anxiety attack. 

The best way for me to stay calm is to make art. I have lots, and lots, and lots, of beads. And now I have seven new necklaces. I haven’t decided if they will go in my store or if I’ll take them to the farmers and craft market to sell. I also haven’t figured out a price for each necklace. Prices are based on time, cost of materials, multiplied by the number of times I have to swear at the beads and adding the square of the number of times I have to go on a search and recovery mission to retrieve the beads I dropped on the floor. 

I’ve been working with my dwindling supply of Swarovski crystals. Someone at Swarovski decided to dump the bead line and concentrate on unimaginative jewelry, tacky knickknacks and rhinestone cellphone covers. That’s it. There are no other products. Then one of the honchos stated the bead line should have been dumped years ago. It’s a horrible insult being told the honcho considers me not worth the trouble regardless of how many beads I buy. 

I’ve also got a good supply of semi-precious stones. 

The blue beads at the center of the necklace are K2. The stones are granite – an igneous mineral. What makes these granite stones special is they come from the base of K2 – the second tallest mountain in the world. The mine is in a remote spot so the beads are expensive. 

Carved amazonite in the center.

Dumorterite, mosaic shell, and shell pears. Shell pearls are made from ground up shell and compressed into spheres. Nicer than glass pearls but not as expensive as cultured pearls.

I like ladder pendants and this one is lepidolite. I like this shade of purple and I like the sparkles in the stones.

Smoky quartz and rutilated quartz, tiger eye, assorted other semi-precious stones.

When I updated the operating system for my MacBook Pro, the update played hell with my email accounts. I’m now unable to access my Facebook account. Facebook has no tech support. No support chat. No number to call. It appears Zuckerberg is too busy selling ads to dubious and sometimes fraudulent advertisers to consider the people who use Facebook. 

I think I’ve finally processed my reactions and emotions from September 11, 2001. I couldn’t express my feelings at the time and my reactions seemed to be about a week behind everyone else’s reactions. As they were recovering, I was starting to feel something other than numb. This year, I read everything I could find abut 9/11. I cried. I watched documentaries. I cried. I felt the edge of fury. I felt the edge of outrage. Maybe someday I’ll be able to feel the fury and outrage in their entirety. I’ve healed to the extent I’m able to heal right nowI’m having flashbacks of the crap that happened to me as I grew up. As I raised myself and three siblings and listened to my drunken, violent, narcissistic mother tell me I was lazy and selfish. If I were gone for a bit, I’d come home and be told by her how peaceful it was while I was gone. I hate that woman although I haven’t felt the extent of my hatred for her. PTSD is an emotional landmine and there’s no telling when a trigger will step on one of those landmines. I rarely cry anymore when I have a flashback. I used to cry uncontrollably when the flashbacks first started 49 years ago. Now, the flashbacks are a nuisance. Unwelcome. A pain in the emotional ass. I’ve given up thinking I’ll ever be free of PTSD. It gets tolerable – I can’t remember the last time I had a nightmare – but PTSD never gets gone. 

Armed with a coupon and about $43 Spoon Dollars I put together a 42 cheater square yard featuring the best 42 designs from what I’ve been creating lately.  I also splurged on five yards of fabric to make myself a dress that will double as a robe when I model nude. I will be the best dressed nude model in the art department. But only if my test results are negative. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My Spoonflower store is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in Clay, Depression, Emotions, Fiber, Mental Illness, Quilts

Where Did My Happiness Go? Did I Ever Have Happiness?

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m not sure when this happened. Used to be, my quilts were pictorial. Now, they are emotional. Apparently, I haven’t been in a happy emotional place in more than four years. During those years, my quilts were about suicide, frustration with neurologists who refused to listen to me, isolation, depression and sexual assault. 

Fury. 

It’s hard to get everything in one photo. The quilt says: If you touch this without my permission, I will break your fucking arm.

Suicide. 

Depression. 

Isolation. 

Mass shooting.

My quilts went from having beads, buttons, couched fancy threads to unadorned, stark quilts. The one exception is the quilt I made for human physiology.

Lots of beads and lots of whimsy on that quilt. The quilt is about my biology journey starting as an undergrad in 1977 and continuing during the last fall semester.

One happy quilt didn’t stave off a massive, all-encompassing depressive episode that left me so desperate, I considered electric shock treatments which I know are barbaric. During the last three years, my writing has become increasingly depressing. I write about suicide. I write impassioned pieces, which will never be shared while I’m alive, that are an attempt to calm the emotional roiling inside me. I write about the frustrations of having a mental illness in a world that still stigmatizes mental illness – an attitude that should have been dumped at the end of the Dark Ages. 

Dark subjects started appearing in my work in 2007. I was going through hell at work – a hell caused by a lunatic supervisor who kept trying to force me to quit. Around that time, I started making dark ceramic art. Bowls with words written on them: I’m a nice person, why don’t they like me? If I stay small and quiet, maybe they won’t hit me. A ceramics classmate looked at the bowls, said they were pretty. Then she looked at what was written on the bowls. And walked away. 

Self-portrait ceramic sculpture entitled: Fuck You, I’m Still Alive. Complete with bullet holes.

I tell people that art is a snapshot of a tiny piece of the artist at the time the art was created. Depression, isolation and suicide don’t seem to be tiny pieces of me. I knew that depression was a constant emotion while I was growing up. I didn’t realize, because I chose not to look, how overwhelming depression is now. 

I tell people that I frequently don’t understand what I’m feeling until the feelings come out of my hands. When are those feelings going to be happy again? Or were those feelings never happy?

My on-line store, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower store is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com 

Posted in bipolar disorder, Brady, Depression, Emotions, Jewelry, Peripheral neuropathy, Photography

Shattered Pieces of My Brain

Posted on by debthumanblog

I intended to shoot several necklaces so I could list the necklaces in my store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com. I shot just one necklace before my lower back started to hurt. I’m getting better, but I’m still having to push a walker to get around. Yesterday, I intended to do some cleaning in the sewing room so I’d have a larger space in which to work. I picked up something that was too heavy and I hurt my lower back. Having a neuropathy flare up rounds out the physical miseries. 

I can’t photograph yucca blooms because I can’t push a walker uphill through sand. I can’t sew because I can’t remove the clutter from the room. I can’t walk Brady because I can’t walk far without my walker. Brady doesn’t understand why she can’t run and play if I’m holding her leash. 

Brady is going through a growth spurt. Suddenly, her legs are too long for her body. She’s also faster than the speeding shutter. 

My brain is dark. After my only ketamine treatment, my brain felt full and bright. Now, two and a half months later, my brain is dark again. So. Do I ask for another ketamine treatment? Do I ask to be a participant in a clinical trial for LSD or MDMA? Or do I just go forward and hope for the best? I don’t remember what happy feels like. I’ve been depressed for more than 60 years. Which is depressing. I’m not suicidal. I’m not happy. Right now, I feel like my life is all broken pieces. Pick up a piece, have pain, drop a piece. 

I’ve got 42 new fabric designs in my Spoonflower shop. https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Spoonflower had a sale, I had Spoon Dollars – commission on fabric designs that have been sold – and I needed underwear. Soon, five 1-yard pieces of fabric I designed will arrive at my door. Yes, I will post photos of the finished underwear. No, I will not be modeling the underwear. You’re welcome.

I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Posted in Child abuse, Emotions

Celebrating Swimming Against The Current

Posted on by debthumanblog

I detest Mother’s Day. I grew up in a house run by a violent, drunken narcissist and her violent drunken husband. My mother had four children she didn’t want and made sure we knew she didn’t want us. We used to go camping when I was a kid. As we would pull into a campground, we’d be asked if we have any pets. “No, just four rotten kids.” She thought she was funny. Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Later, my narcissistic mother would tell my siblings if I were invited to the party, christening, First Communion, or other family functions, she wouldn’t come. My siblings, who have oatmeal where their backbones should be, always acquiesced. 

Once, I made the mistake of asking my mother and the drunk to go with me to my psychologist. 
During my session, my mother told me, “No one likes you and you know that’s true.” 

I cannot honor a mother who hated me. 

I’ve never wanted children and I made sure I never got pregnant. I cringe when clerks and servers wish me a happy mother’s day. Why do these people assume I have children? 

I cannot participate in a day where I’m constantly reminded I didn’t buy into the Feminine Mystique. The undercurrent of their wishes is that I’m somehow not normal.  

 I’ll spend tomorrow being grateful that my email box will no longer be filled with ads for mother’s day. I’ll be grateful that the ugly memories can be safely put away for another year. I’ll rejoice that I had the courage to swim upstream. 

Posted in bipolar disorder, Depression, Emotions, Suicide

Open The Door, Shut Your Mouth, and Listen

Posted on by debthumanblog

What I’d like to say: Listen you stupid motherfucker…… except that wouldn’t be productive. I offered to do a talk about suicide complete with a power point of my quilts about suicide. I got a return email saying that given the situation with covid, talking about suicide wouldn’t be a good idea but are there other quilts I’d like to talk about.

No, asshole – it would be a wonderful idea. New Mexico has the highest suicide rate in the country and part of the reason for that is no one wants to talk about suicide. Then they all crap their pants and wonder what went wrong when they have to bury a loved one who just blew his brains out. Someone I knew would likely be alive today if people had talked about suicide. If people admitted depression isn’t a moral failure. If people admitted asking for help isn’t indicative of weakness. It’s been two years since his suicide, and I’m still torn apart inside.

My quilts have been pretty dark the last three years. They have been about suicide, mass shooting, and isolation. Art is how I understand my dark emotions. None of my quilts are cheery topics. Life isn’t always cheery and anyone who expects life to be cheery is going to be disappointed. I rarely make pretty quilts. You want pretty? Go to Walmart. Lots of unoffensive, unthought provoking, sofa matching art there.

It isn’t easy being mentally ill. It’s even harder when people refuse to listen. But what do I know? I’m just the crazy woman and I need to be treated like a two-year-old. If I were smart, I wouldn’t be bipolar. Maybe the proper response really is: Listen you stupid motherfucker….

Posted in anxiety, bipolar disorder, Depression, Emotions, Fiber, Psych meds, Quilts

Muted Colors

Posted on by debthumanblog

This week wasn’t easy for anyone watching news out of Washington DC. It’s less easy for someone with bipolar disorder. 

On Tuesday, I was severely depressed. I know why, but it’s not something I’m comfortable writing about. I took an extra antidepressant. My doctor knows I do this when the depression gets severe and I get close to being suicidal. 

On Wednesday, I made the mistake of watching some of the news about a mob storming the Capitol Building. Seeing the horror triggered severe mania and severe anxiety. Working on a quilt helped a bit. I considered taking an extra mood stabilizer but wasn’t sure if that would help. 

On Thursday, I was severely depressed after being rejected by a someone who breeds labradoodles. The breeder refuses to sell a puppy to someone who has never had a puppy. That’s like saying you can’t eat green beans because you’ve never eaten green beans. The plan was, work with a trainer on puppy training – don’t pee on the rug, don’t eat the furniture, the cats aren’t chew toys, how to walk on a leash – and when the dog is 18-24 months old, work with the trainer to train the dog to be a psychiatric service dog for me. I have adult cats and they’re not going to accept an adult dog. I think it would be far easier for them to accept a puppy – especially after learning the puppy won’t eat cat food. 

Today, I feel….kind of neutral. I don’t feel at center, but I also don’t feel manic or depressed. More like feeling subdued or like being a muted color. I don’t feel energy flows although I know energy flows exist. I see energy flows as colors. Today, muted colors. 

Rapid cycling is defined as four or more episodes within a year. I had three major episodes in three days. Maybe my energy is a muted color because I’ve had the emotional equivalent of running a three-day marathon.

I’m at another stopping point with the isolation quilt. I figured out I wanted to do wavy lines that echoed one another. Now, I’m left with bits of unquilted space. I was going to do meandering free motion quilting, but I forgot how to attach that foot to my machine. When frustration, mania, and anxiety reach terminal velocity, it’s time for me to take a break and do something else. I’m considering leaving the empty spaces empty. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Posted in Depression, Emotions

Why I Hate Christmas

Posted on by debthumanblog

Used to be, I’d go into a major depression about the second week of November and it would last until New Year’s Day. Nightmares. Malaise. Dread. The hell that was Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

I hate Christmas. 

I grew up in a violent, drunken household run by a violent, narcissistic drunk who hated me and her violent drunken husband. I’m someone else’s kid. It’s not easy being on the outside looking in. Someone else’s kid is never real. Never a real sibling. Never a real daughter. Never a real part of the family. 

Holidays started with name calling, insults, the drunk trying – and succeeding – to start a fight. The screaming. The crying. And that was just the first hour. The next hour featured my mother screaming that we didn’t spend enough time eating the meal she spent two days cooking. As the drunks drank more, they got nastier and louder. Behaving badly and making others miserable was our holiday tradition. 

We lived in Western New York where the roads weren’t plowed from about December 20 until January 2. We had to drive through an unplowed swamp to get to the in-laws. In the dark. It always snowed huge, fat, mesmerizing flakes. It was nearly impossible to see the edges of the road. The in-laws screamed and fought almost as horribly as my family. I have two happy memories: the Thanksgiving when I had the flu and was too sick to care and the Christmas when dime-store, caroler shaped candles were lit. They melted into a huge puddle covering the bottom of the foil pie pan.

One year, after driving 20 miles on icy roads, my grandmother asked if we would drive another 20 miles to pick up her sister. Fortunately, her sister declined the invitation. That was 40 years ago. I’m still pissed that she had the nerve to expect us to drive all over hell’s unplowed half acre. 

Eventually, Jim and I decided to go on vacation over Christmas. This ended the family hell and the in-law hell. One year, we discovered the entire state of Maine, with the exception of LL Bean and one gas station, shuts down on Christmas. We sat in a hotel room eating stale sandwiches from the only gas station that was open while watching A Christmas Story. It was a pleasant Christmas. A far better Christmas than could be had with either my family or the in-laws.

There’s a truck stop in Lexington, Kentucky that’s open on Christmas. They have the best biscuits. They are also the only place that’s open. We drove around Kentucky eating Chex Mix and clementines while looking for an open restroom. One year, we went to West Virginia and stayed at a resort. At least the restaurant was open, the restroom was open, the food was decent, and they stocked The Washington Post. 

After discovering my German Lutheran family were really Polish Jews, I gave up on Christmas. I was no longer tied to a pagan holiday. I could celebrate Hanukkah. I made my raku menorah. I left the Christmas decorations packed away somewhere in the garage. I had a holiday that came with no horrid memories, no screaming, no fighting, no crying, and best of all, no extended family. 

Posted in Emotions, Fiber, Photography

Working My Way Back To Center

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’ve been working out a design for a quilt about how I feel isolated. Frequently, I don’t understand what’s going on inside of me until the feelings come out my hands. Sometimes, art is the only way I can communicate.

I bought a copy of Step-by-Step Texture Quilting by Christina Cameli and it arrived on Saturday. I’ve been doing some skimming and I now have some ideas about how to quilt the suicide quilt and how to quilt the isolation quilt after I finish working out the design and turn it into fabric.

This is the original photo. I was working with my macro lens and saw a feather on the ground. I thought it would be an interesting subject for manipulation.

Here’s one of the manipulations:

And here’s the one I used for a fabric design:

I haven’t proofed the design so it’s not for sale in my Spoonflower store yet. I’ve got a coupon for 25% off, and I’m working on getting together a huge order.

Fall in the desert is…..interesting. Several years ago, I decided I wanted to make a quilt using fall colors. I’m from western New York where fall is wildly colorful. When I finished the quilt, it didn’t look right. I had yellow and purple, but I thought I had too much green. How we design quilts and the colors we choose is strongly influenced by what we see around us.

In the desert, we get most of the annual rainfall in July and August. In the fall, the brown desert turns …

These are Dona Ana Mountains behind my home. One of these days, I want to hike these mountains. Alas, the pandemic has caused restrooms in the parks an on trails to be closed. I’m not adverse to relieving myself al fresco, but I don’t want half the town watching me while I do so.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My store, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower store is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Posted in Depression, Emotions, Fiber, Grief, Pain, PTSD

Turn Away. There’s Nothing Here To See.

Posted on by debthumanblog

Art is a fleeting look at a moment of the artist’s life. 

I make emotional art. The kind of art no one wants to look at. The kind of art that shows the ugliness in my life. Maybe, if I’m very lucky, it’s the kind of art that will unlock past trauma and let me feel the feelings I’ve refused to feel for so long. 

I’m not responsible for the trauma. I am responsible for allowing or not allowing myself to feel things I couldn’t feel during the trauma because releasing those feelings at the time of trauma wasn’t safe. 

I’m in the process of recovering from my last blog post. I put in that post things I’ve never told anyone. Things I was ashamed of. Things that, at the time of the trauma, seemed not exactly normal but also not unusual or special. Didn’t everyone hate their siblings as we were taught to hate each other? Didn’t everyone have parents who hated and beat them? Didn’t everyone stagger through hell while denying they were in hell? 

I couldn’t feel anything growing up because it wasn’t safe to feel anything. At one point, I convinced myself that I didn’t have emotions. Prozac without the prescription. Now, it’s safe to feel what I couldn’t feel before. Except now I can’t feel those feelings. I can’t access them. I don’t know where to find them. I don’t know how to let the feelings out. Maybe that’s why I can’t find the feelings. Those feelings are buried under raw terror. 

What would happen if I allowed the pain from neglect, emotional abuse and physical abuse to release? Would I explode? Would the feelings be horrifying? Would the feelings hurt? That’s the one that terrifies me. The feelings would hurt.  I’d have to relive a hell I’ve buried. 

More than anything, I want to heal. I want to be normal. I want to be able to make friends. I want to attend services at my temple without wanting to be by myself curled up in a corner. 

I don’t’ know how. I don’t’ know how to be normal. I don’t know what to do with people. I don’t know how to be part of a group. I go through life believing I’m all I’ve got, all I’ve ever had, and all I ever will have. What does it feel like to be normal? What does it feel like to be happy? What does it feel like to feel? To be fully alive? 

Lose a tooth and find myself.

I don’t recommend it. 

I’ve sketched a couple designs that may become quilts. I’m not sure. I’ve tried drawing my trauma, but it has never seemed to be accurate. I think I’m coming closer to drawing what’s hidden inside of me. It’s emotional art. I’m not sure I want to look at it. 

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.debthumanart.com

My Spoonflower store is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com