Why Creating is Important (To Me)
July 28, 2016
When I was about seven years old I started therapy, these sessions with various people lasted until I was about twelve years old. One thing that they all seemed to pick up on rather quickly was that I wasn't going to talk, and so they began to work out new ways of making me say things without saying as much as I thought I was. The key way that they seemed to do this would be through art therapy; and simply giving me the ability to create for an hour a week seemed to be what I needed in order to open up. This post isn't going to be about what I was in therapy for or anything like that but more about why I feel as though I have such a strong connection and desire to create.
There are two forms of creating that I tend to stick to, art (painting/drawing) and writing. These are my self therapy and they help me to get whatever I may be feeling into something that is much less destructive than the alternatives that I have been known to turn to in the past. I am such a firm believer in turning your upset and heartbreak into something beautiful, whatever you may be feeling there is always a way of creating that seems perfect for the emotion.
Something that a therapist realised about me in year six was the love that I had for writing and the fascination I had with how words settled in my mind. This counsellor in-particular would give me abundances of notebooks and journals and tell me to write down whatever was on my mind, I would go back to her and ask for new books every few weeks that I could fill with abundances of drawings and pieces of writing. At that point I wasn't writing anything of substance, just general ramblings but it felt so good to get everything off my chest. Putting things to paper just made everything seem that little bit clearer than it would have seemed if it had stayed stuck in my mind.
However, after a while I stopped writing and creating, doing GCSE art in year nine seemed to knock a lot of the fun out of making stuff for myself because I never had time to do anything for myself. It was all for my coursework and because of this I lost the love that I had for making things.
Yet in year ten, after three months of struggling with a lot of personal issues my friends mum gave me a notebook and told me to write everything down. She told me how whenever she begins to struggle she gets out her journal and writes it all down, she pours all of her issues into it and then moves on. As though by putting them to paper she found peace with her mind and is able to go back to being the wonderful woman that she is. This was the first notebook that someone has intentionally given me for the sole purpose of writing out my feelings since year six and to have someone give me something that was so key in making me feel safe for such a long period of time all over again reminded me of the immense power that writing holds.
Since then I have poured my everything into the pages of notebooks, my poems, my thoughts, my writings. Everything that I am, everything that I write has come from one of those journals and has helped to shape me into the person that I am today. With each word I am able to create a world of my own and temporarily escape the whirlwind of thoughts in my mind.
Yet sometimes writing isn't enough and I need to create something using art, and although I turn to this method much less than writing it still helps me and it is still one of my biggest self therapy forms. If I'm in the mood to create art I will grab my watercolours and pencils and draw and paint until I feel okay again, this however, is more of a distraction than anything. It doesn't necessarily get everything out of my head but is more of a quick fix when I feel as though I could be wanting to do something destructive.
So many people that I know create for different reasons but those are mine. They help me to become okay again, even if it is just for a short period of time.
There are two forms of creating that I tend to stick to, art (painting/drawing) and writing. These are my self therapy and they help me to get whatever I may be feeling into something that is much less destructive than the alternatives that I have been known to turn to in the past. I am such a firm believer in turning your upset and heartbreak into something beautiful, whatever you may be feeling there is always a way of creating that seems perfect for the emotion.
Something that a therapist realised about me in year six was the love that I had for writing and the fascination I had with how words settled in my mind. This counsellor in-particular would give me abundances of notebooks and journals and tell me to write down whatever was on my mind, I would go back to her and ask for new books every few weeks that I could fill with abundances of drawings and pieces of writing. At that point I wasn't writing anything of substance, just general ramblings but it felt so good to get everything off my chest. Putting things to paper just made everything seem that little bit clearer than it would have seemed if it had stayed stuck in my mind.
However, after a while I stopped writing and creating, doing GCSE art in year nine seemed to knock a lot of the fun out of making stuff for myself because I never had time to do anything for myself. It was all for my coursework and because of this I lost the love that I had for making things.
Yet in year ten, after three months of struggling with a lot of personal issues my friends mum gave me a notebook and told me to write everything down. She told me how whenever she begins to struggle she gets out her journal and writes it all down, she pours all of her issues into it and then moves on. As though by putting them to paper she found peace with her mind and is able to go back to being the wonderful woman that she is. This was the first notebook that someone has intentionally given me for the sole purpose of writing out my feelings since year six and to have someone give me something that was so key in making me feel safe for such a long period of time all over again reminded me of the immense power that writing holds.
Since then I have poured my everything into the pages of notebooks, my poems, my thoughts, my writings. Everything that I am, everything that I write has come from one of those journals and has helped to shape me into the person that I am today. With each word I am able to create a world of my own and temporarily escape the whirlwind of thoughts in my mind.
Yet sometimes writing isn't enough and I need to create something using art, and although I turn to this method much less than writing it still helps me and it is still one of my biggest self therapy forms. If I'm in the mood to create art I will grab my watercolours and pencils and draw and paint until I feel okay again, this however, is more of a distraction than anything. It doesn't necessarily get everything out of my head but is more of a quick fix when I feel as though I could be wanting to do something destructive.
So many people that I know create for different reasons but those are mine. They help me to become okay again, even if it is just for a short period of time.
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