Usually people who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse or other forms of addictive behaviors come from a background of abuse or neglect or have experienced some kind of trauma when they were younger. Being in these situations, a child and/or a young person can experience various painful feelings such as fear, helplessness, shame, guilt, sadness and eventually hopelessness. Becoming overwhelmed by these emotions and not having anybody to help them and validate their feelings may lead to them learning to run away and avoid such feelings to protect against pain or become consumed by those feelings and act upon them impulsively. Later in life, they may use substances or engage in addictive and destructive activities to numb those painful feelings. Despite their effort in avoiding these emotions, they are stored implicitly in a deeper level of the brain and will be triggered more often than they may have expected.

These emotions that have been stored in a less conscious part of the brain may not be accessible verbally, but can be found symbolically in images that the person creates. Therefore, the goal of art therapy is to access these hidden and avoided emotions that once had the purpose of protecting the individual, but either have been denied or exaggerated and lost its purpose to rediscover their adaptive qualities.

Images in an art therapy session can simply be composed of a few lines, colors or pictures from a magazine to more elaborate drawings, clay sculptures and other forms of creativity. These images will give an expert art therapist the opportunity to help the recovering person uncover meanings behind the symbolic images, discover more information about oneself than just talking and open many deep thoughts and emotions. Participants in art therapy don’t need to have any skills in art.

Talking about feelings can be very frightening and painful for a person who has been avoiding them for a long time. This person may not even be able to verbally express him/herself, but may be able to express thoughts and feelings about past and present events and situations non=verbally through lines, shapes and pictures. Creating them can become a new form of communication which is less threatening and safer for the recovering person.

Individuals struggling with addiction are usually very judgmental of themselves and are flooded with shame and guilt. Creating art can give them a tangible, concrete perception of their feelings and thoughts and give them the opportunity to observe themselves from a distance which can help them gain a new, less judgmental and more compassionate understanding of self.

Recovering individuals may engage in a simple art project whenever they feel overwhelmed or have an urge to take drugs/alcohol or engage in an addictive activity to distract and sooth themselves. Creating can give them a sense of control over the situation and a tool to accept and manage overwhelming feelings. Using their hands while using art materials such as colored pencils, markers, crayons, clay, paper and scissors can help them release some of their avoided feelings such as anger and lower its intensity, and to sooth and calm themselves when they are anxious.

In general, in art therapy sessions, the recovering person will be given permission and opportunity to experience and express those feelings that he/she has been running away from and avoiding for a long time in a safe and supporting atmosphere, with the presence of an empathic professional psychotherapist /art therapist who will help him/her understand and make sense of those painful feelings, acknowledge and accept them with compassion, reduce their intensity and tolerate them, and finally use them effectively to fulfill their needs and goals.

Is it abonormal that whenever I gain interest in a certain show or game that all of a sudden I drop literally all my other interests and focus mainly on one character in that series/game. It gets so bad that I'll actually imagine myself being in a relationship with them and also adopt most of not all of their traits and pretend I've always acted like that when in reality I was different before hand. But then again that could've been another character. I've been doing this for near 10 years so I don't even know who I am anymore. It's frustrating and I'm honestly concerned as it's nearly ended friendships in the past. In order to stop it, I've tryed asking myself am I doing this as me or as the character. This has proved unsuccessful as it just makes me paranoid that I'm being a character when I do something the same way I'd imagine the character doing something. It could be the most mundane task ever and I'll still be paranoid that I'm not me but someone else.

Only read this post if you didn’t read my other one. This is a shorter version of it. Help me, please! I at least need some kind of comfort or advice, or someone to understand my problem! Ever since I was a baby, I’ve had these weird delusional obsessions. I only talked to myself in my imagination and never really had any contact with the outside world. I called it “non-exposure” and I never exposed anything. It always had to do with cartoons. Just cartoon characters- I was so obsessed with them, and they filled my brain for my entire life- I am not kidding. Every day, 24/7, I would try and picture them in my mind, either trying to picture these kids dressed up as their favorite ones, or just thinking about my favorite ones dating other characters. I was not only obsessed with them, but I was attracted to a lot of them as well. This went on from elementary school to middle school, to high school. I’m 16 years old in my junior year now. I couldn’t stop. It was the only thing that made me happy. I never told anyone about it because I never thought it would be a problem until now- I always thought of it as just a hobby that I liked to do. But now I know it was a waste of time. Now that I’m a junior, I’m supposed to be focusing on college and even more work. But because I lived inside my imagination for such a long time, I suffer consequences now. I’m not able to do the things I used to do. I can’t read, I can’t even focus on real life without zoning out. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t tell anybody- not my mom because she would be devastated, and not anyone else because they would just think I’m weird, and they would be upset, too. I can’t picture anything else in my mind besides these cartoons, and what I see on TV. I’ll never know what it’s like to be an actual person, living a normal human life. I can’t stare straight forward without zoning out, getting dizzy, or getting tired. I hate what I did to my life. I think school lessons are interesting, but they’re hard for me now! I try to focus on school but find it hard to do my work. I could have been a great person. But now I have no skills, and I can’t do anything. I don’t think I can function in this world. I don't think I'll be able to graduate high school, or function in college. I am not an attention whore, but I really want somebody to comment on this soon, because I am lonely and need at least some kind of company...

About me and how I need help psychologically...

So this page is all about me, myself and my book of wild thoughts. Obviously my name is not Bookof!! I’m intending to keep anonymity at least for now; that’s because I’m a bit ashamed of what I write! I did not even link it to my own personal Facebook profile, I preferred to create a different entity, and this is being applied onto all my self-owned social network profiles. Besides, it’s in my constitutional rights to do so and if anybody’s got a problem with that, well…. Door’s open, please go !!

So what is book of wild thoughts all about, I can hear you mumbling… As said above, this book is all about me and my personality and how I’m intending, with the help of all my readers, to achieve in linking them harmoniously. There are other areas I’m looking forward to improve as well: my own English writing style, some books and stories I wanted to publish. So this website is all about gathering enough courage in me to really do what I always wanted !!

I’ll probably add some more text in the future for that’s all I feel like writing at the moment; my wife’s nearly finished with cooking dinner and it’s about time to wrap the napkin around the closet, oops sorry! I meant around the neck;

Just to let you know how it took me days before I started to lay my hands on my own personal blog, I even threw up out of eating whatever came in, I think it’s the stress LOL ! I don’t know why such a reaction would occur to me, maybe I got too lazy to start working on it… So you can guess by now, or I can already hear you screaming, “How am I supposed to know that?? Ain’t you old enough to know it (oh, btw, how rude of me, I’m male, thirties, and married. Where were my manners!?) yourself why are you asking me??”

So here we go: my answer is exactly your question, I don’t know myself enough and this has caused me (and is still causing me) tremendous trouble in whatever I do, whoever I lived with, in all what you can think of! This lack of personality, of self-esteem has brought me to where I am at present, a lousy web developer after 10 years in the field and writing this blog! Of course, I managed to get a nice girl to fall in love with, a little plot of land I managed to get on a good opportunity, but ‘all’ this achievement (LOL) seems so small as compared to the $#%^ I brought to my family, my wife and luckily no kids so far! Imagine the disaster, for my wife: 2 stubborn kids in the house!

So many of my friends have excelled in the field, they took courage, had the balls still have, and grabbed life with firm hands to build their dreams and be happy with their life now. It would have sounded so selfish if I had ended this sentence with “except me”!! I have a great family, wonderful parents whom I never blame for where I’m standing now, a wonderful wife who has accepted to bear me for three years now and a nice work atmosphere, what more could I want? What more would a man need to start flying on his own ship and start his business ‘happily ever after’ ??

So all these lines of thought, these wild thoughts (I’ve got more, don’t worry!!) have led me to share my life and my own thoughts into a small book which I’ll update online of course, from time to time. I’ll be pretty close with it, since I’m intending to use it anywhere I’ll be, using my mobile phone; yes, even when I’m taking a $#%^ !

That’s because it’s better to be writing something than doing anything else #######5, how about that !?

Thanks for reading my article down to here and hope I can get to read your comments very soon!

I unfriended my depressed friend. She was very demanding and refused to accept criticisms, but she tried to be a friend, and that's what makes me feel guilty. She has depression and anxiety, but I'm not the kind of person who's patient and understanding enough to deal with someone who gets angry at constructive criticisms and isn't willing to help herself. She asked me if I only befriended her out of pity, and I said "yeah a little" because I'm a very straightforward person and I'm not a very "empathetic" person per say, and yes that's a horrible thing to say, but I wanted out of the friendship that made me so anxious and unhappy all the time. Our friendship lasted for about 2 years, which was rather long considering that I only befriended her out of pity. It ended unhappily, with her telling me that I was selfish, but I know I couldn't put up a fake front anymore and I feel more liberated than sorry. Can someone tell me if what I did was right? Ending the friendship? I wanted to be a more understanding friend as well and attempted to make it last, but she really made me lose my head, any advice on that?