Triggers Journal

A few pages from my "Triggers" journal (for lack of better name). I have been experiencing a lot of triggers related to childhood/teenage trauma. These days it feels like I'm constantly tiptoeing through a mine field, waiting for the world to explode.

The four pillars of health (Sleep, Nutrition, Movement & Connection) help keep the bipolar mood swings in check, but the triggers are different... The cleaner I get in my lifestyle, the more triggers emerge, as I have been self medicating trauma for a very long time...

I decided to create a "Triggers" journal - a book in which I can sketch my emotions. Technique and skill are NOT the focus of these art and writing pieces. The point of this journal is to loosen up and allow myself to create straight from my heart and imagination.

Amazingly, it helps! These five sketches have been a good reminder that I'm the author of my life and I can choose whether my character swims or drowns.

I can't change the trauma (what's already been written), yet each new page is an opportunity to change the ending.

The boat is pulled out to sea... There's no choice. Clear skies or storms, the boat must sail.

In this picture there's a soul drowning in the waves. The caption reads: "But the storm didn't come to destroy. It came to shake the air in the sky and cause the waves to grow. It came to displace the boat. In the chaos, it was hard to see if land would ever again be reached..."

When I was a baby I was put in isolation due to an unknown illness that they worried was contagious. My therapist said I was at a developmental age when babies are learning attachment. Apparently, this was quite a traumatizing experience for baby Amy, which prompted this illustration... The caption reads: "The baby screamed, the baby cried, "I'm all alone! I'm going to die!" ...and no one came, although they cared, they didn't know that she was scared."

"The storm, it ended. The sun, it rose, but the baby was still left alone. Mother sea had empathy, resting the child on rock and sand, as the storm had brought her to the land." I can always change my inner narrative... This is something within my power.

"The sun, it set. The days did pass. She was new here yet she knew the path." I do know the path to healing and this was a reminder of that.