Writing about the hard times

Discussion in 'Journaling and Storytelling' started by MrsGaramer, Jul 23, 2017.

  1. Serena

    Serena Squishy soul poet who loves Walter Hunt

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    @bestcee I'm still dying giggling at that "are you doing it right" comment. Are there OTHER ways?! Maybe, just maybe, we actually DON'T know, C!! What if, this whole time, we've been doing it wrong?!?!! ohemgee. I'm giggling so hard I have tears!
     
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  2. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    [​IMG]
    Well, apparently I've been doing waterslides wrong.....:giggle
     
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  3. Serena

    Serena Squishy soul poet who loves Walter Hunt

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    @bestcee I will never be as cool as that guy.... #goals
     
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  4. BevG

    BevG If I can't remember it, it didn't happen

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    I find art journaling pages really help me process my feelings. Some of my best pages started with one idea and ended with another as I used the AJ to explore them. I have posted a few here, but most are in an album and maybe some day I will print them.

    Long ago, I used to journal. That was also helpful in sorting things out.

    BTW - I could make a Q/A page for the weird/inappropriate questions we got around our adoption. They were quite frequent when she was little and she didn't "understand" (or so they thought) what they were asking. In some of the adoption groups, people made up snarky answers to them.

    "Do you know who her real parents are?" Duh, am I un-real or something?
     
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  5. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    The page I shared on the first page of the thread? I just realized as I was looking at it, there is a bunch of journaling under that paint with the Q&A on top of it. I look forward to Tangie's class so I can explore more like you said!

    And I still think my favorite adoption conversation:
    Pregnant friend: You have no idea how much it costs to have a baby. You are lucky you are adopting, it's cheaper.
    Me: Dumbfounded. Then I proceeded to fill her in. She was shocked. I don't usually call out stupid in conversations, but that one? Yeah. Couldn't help myself.
     
  6. Serena

    Serena Squishy soul poet who loves Walter Hunt

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    @BevG I don't remember where I read it, but my favorite adoption story was about a girl getting picked on by a boy for being adopted and her retort was "At least MY parents WANTED me."
     
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  7. MrsGaramer

    MrsGaramer Using my imagination

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    That's a great idea!!
     
  8. MrsGaramer

    MrsGaramer Using my imagination

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    @Serena your earlier post really spoke to me. I struggle with some things as well and I'd love to journal about them so that my kids might one day understand why I do some of the things I do. I think I'm just going to take a more honest approach with myself this year and let that be ok.
     
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  9. Aerobigirl

    Aerobigirl Well-Known Member

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    This has been a really cool thread to read. I especially like the idea of writing out journaling and then painting on top of it, for the therapeutic aspect but not necessarily the public aspect.

    I scrapbook nearly everything. Some of my pages pull no punches about how I felt about difficult topics and in a few cases, people. I have about a dozen really sad / angry / hopeless pages. At the time I made each one of them, I made it the way I felt I needed to make it so I could work through those feelings. The audience for those pages is different than my regular audience, though; those pages don't typically get posted online, and none of the digital ones have been printed in the books that our family sees. If it just involves me, it might get posted or printed. The ones about direct hurt caused by a family member, I might need to destroy.

    @bestcee and @Serena, I had a laugh with your conversation-within-a-conversation about infertility. I've been there! I can laugh about it now, but I heard some pretty crazy, insensitive, rude and surprising things.
     
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  10. Cherylndesigns

    Cherylndesigns All glasses should be bigger than 1.5 oz

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    I used to keep lots of journals. I had some very personal and private stuff in some of them. One night I started reading and being afraid that someday somebody would be reading them, I started shredding them. Now, if I do journal at all, it's in shorthand, because I know that nobody would be able to transcribe it. I write in shorthand a lot and have since I first learned it. (As I'm sitting here, I'm looking at my notepad and I have notes to myself in shorthand.) Art Journaling has been a huge release for me and allows me to work through a lot of my feelings and probably nobody but me would know the true meaning of what I create.
     
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  11. meggersjm

    meggersjm bunny ears, bunny ears, playing by a tree

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    I have done it both ways. I've vented on paper before, then ripped it up into tiny shreds because once it was out, I was ok and it would never benefit anyone to see those words (and probably not me in the future either). So when I need to scrap something like that, I either duplicate the text and then flip it and place it back over top of it, or simply create something on top, or clip it to a mask or something to make it unreadable. I try to make it part of the creative process. I'm not a huge fan of flat out blurring as I don't like the way it looks.

    If I think I will want to look back at it, or it may help someone else, I will leave it legible. Most I will post, but some simply stay on my hard drive, and that's ok too!
     
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  12. paula kesselring

    paula kesselring Designer

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    Really interesting thread to read! I don't always add texts to my pages - I love to do them more graaphics, but I made some with a journalig telling about the problem.
    In this I made my journal talking about the bullying that my daughter suffer on her first school years and only stopped when I told to the school that I was calling the police because I had so much pics from the physical attacks and a mother from one of the bullers atacked my daughter in front of the school director that they had to take providences!!!!
    paulakesselring_Dare324_bullying.jpg
    using Old and Damaged - elements and background - on sale! and by Kim Jensen - Damaged Goods, flair - Creepy Crawlies {Elements}
     
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  13. paula kesselring

    paula kesselring Designer

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    I'm SO sorry for your loss! I think scrap about this is an amazing therapy.... I used to be shamed to show the "bad side" of my life until I made this page about my mother (who was terrible mother - lots of physical beatings and psychological abuse)...I have a little shame until today to talk about this but I need to put this out to try to deal with my feelings and after documented this on a page i felt much better. Even I didn't mede a real journaling about the subject I think the conversation is enought to summarize the problem.

    badmother.jpg
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2018
  14. Cherylndesigns

    Cherylndesigns All glasses should be bigger than 1.5 oz

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    Those are some powerful layouts, Paula! I'm so sorry about the bullying - that's such a terrible thing to have happen to kids today! I think it has always gone on, it's just with social media and everybody taking pictures and videos of everything - that it's been elevated to such a horrible degree!! @paula kesselring
     
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  15. paula kesselring

    paula kesselring Designer

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    Thanks!!!hat's so true! I think we need to make sure that our kids know that they are not alone! They need to talk to a parent, teacher, or another adult you trust. Adults need to know when bad things happen so they can help them!!!!!
    That's why I could help Gabriella with this! She always told me everything about her life! Even the "teenager's" things!!!! :helpy
     
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  16. jesskab

    jesskab Watch me sizzle & twizzle

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    I was really hurting last week. It just helped to start putting pieces on a page. They started coming together & I was able to put in picture how I felt. It's a constant struggle in my life that I never feel good enough. I'm not looking for people to tell I am, it's just something I have to work with on my own. By acknowledging I have this problem, it helps me to get over the situation.
    [​IMG]
     
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