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.

So this is my first ever post out into the deep dark internet, but there's an issue I'm my life and my relationship that I honestly don't feel I can talk to about with anyone, like not him.. none of my friends.. so here I am turning to complete strangers.

So me and my boyfriend have been together 6 months now, we met on tinder and we hit it off like a house on fire straight away! He is one of the best people I have ever met, I'm super attracted to him and he actually wants to spend all his time with me which is more than I can say for any of my exes and we have had a great relationship thus far, except for one thing... So I have felt increasingly upset about this as time has gone on, like when we first got together we were exploring each other emotionally and also sexually, and with him being 9 years older than myself, he had a lot more sexual experience than me and he has introduced me to some new areas such an anal and general bum play which I have loved! So the first bit of our relationship, sexually this has been amazing.. but over the last couple of months he has become more tired and less interested in having sex with me, he has never been one to kiss me lots but again in the last couple of months this has diminished into giving me a peck in the morning before he goes to work.. and unless we are actually having sex, I don't get kisses off him.. he doesn't ever just snog me, and this hurts. Whenever I talk to him about it I just get 'I'm not a lovey dovey kind of person' or 'I'm not a snoggy type of person' which is ok, well its not ok.. because from where I'm standing I literally just crave so much more! Since loosing 6-7 stone over the past year I feel my sex drive has sky rocketed and I find myself wanting sex all the time, whenever I'm with him I just want to ###$ him and him do bad things to me, and when I'm alone.. I touch myself. When I'm alone and when I'm not busy I am constantly masturbating, I make myself cum sometimes 3-4 times a day when I have that chance. And so when I'm with this man who makes me so happy and who I am sexually attracted to immensely, I just want him.. and I feel that he doesn't want me as hard as I want him. When we get into bed and he makes his excuses, bats my hand away from him and tells me he's tired, I cant help but feel gutted.. I feel deflated, it kills me inside and I have to pretend like its okay and roll over and go to sleep when in fact I'm so hurt. Now, please understand when I say we do have quite regular sex, sometimes we can go a few times in a day, but on average I would say about 4 times a week.. sometimes a lot more? Now, this is where I think I have a slight addiction.. because it doesn't seem to be enough, I want to feel that intimacy so much more, maybe its because I don't get the little kisses throughout the day or even that passionate snog in the car before we go for dinner.. He is not the romantic type and unfortunately this massively shows, he never tells me I'm beautiful or says romantic things to me, or does anything romantic, and well 6 months in and he hasn't told me he loves me. I understand people go at different paces but due to this, I'm left wanting more.. and I'm having wondering thoughts, I'm lusting after anyone at the moment and I hate myself because actually the one person I want the absolute most is my boyfriend. I have tried talking to him, and I just don't seem to get anywhere.. He doesn't have much to say and just comes back with the normal 'I'm just not the romantic type' and 'I'm just so tired from work'. I feel like he isn't fully into me? Only apart from the fact he actually wants to see me all the time and literally does anything for me, he looks after me and makes me feel safe, and happy.. But where is my romance? I am a woman, with an incredibly high sex drive who just wants my man to have sex with me all the time and tell me I'm ######6 beautiful!

I am Bipolar 1 and a paranoid schizophrenic. I take Depakote, zyprexa, hydroxizene, citalopram and medforim. I have gained 50 pounds in two months. Because of this I have been taking around 15 laxatives a day. I haven't tried overdosing on medication since I was sixteen and I am thirty seven now. Here's the but... I don't think I want to die but it's all I can think about. The thrill of taking as much as I can and feeling as physically sick as possible but not going to go get my stomach pumped seems to be the plan. The medications I've been planning are all past scripts and current ones. I know this is simply crazy I have a good doctor but the phone weighs a thousand pounds this Saturday morning. Hospital is out. I just seem to want to suffer. If you were me and did call, what would you say and exactly what results would you want anyway?

Hello everyone!
Some bad things happened in my life lately, and i really don't know what to do anymore. And i can't tell anyone and i really need help... Please help me.
I'm a 16 year old girl. I have an older sister who is 20 years old, but lives in another country. I also had an older brother but he died and i'm the youngest kid of my family. My parents were always good to my siblings, but they always abuse me physcially and mentally. My parents divorced when i was 11 and i started to live with my father. But he was always beating me up, throwing me stuff and yelling at me, saying bad stuff to me and i was really depressed. And everyone was bullying me in school because of my look and it was making me really upset and make me hate myself.
When i turned 13, i started to live with my mom and she got married last year. But she changed a lot after she got married. She started abuse me, she was always talking about how ugly and stupid and lazy i am etc. Then she started to hitting me.
One day my mom and stepdad went out for drinking (they are drunk most of the time already so...) and they came home at like 3 am. And my stepdad tried to rape me. Then i called police, they took him to police station but he didn't go to jail...
After that day, he started to hit me too and my mom wasn't saying anything. I had a lot of scars and bruises on my face and body.
And then they kicked me out from the house because they said they can't take stand me anymore and my dad said he doesn't want me in his home so i'm staying at my friends home for now.
I feel really bad. I wanna run away from all of this and I wanna die. Nobody really cares about me, even my parents. I want to talk to my mom but I can't do it. I don't know what to do.
Btw i'm sorry for my bad English because my first language isn't English and i'm still learning. Thank you so much for reading..

*Trigger* This is a long story but I will try to be as brief as possible. I am very new to forums and anything I say is without judgement of any form of disorder, as I am all to aware of the impact it has on all parties and how the sufferer is impacted. Please do not take any offence as I'm still trying to understand, accept and work with its far reaching concsecuences and would ask all posters to remain non-judgementa. Thank you.

My wife and I have been in a relationship for 16years, married for 4 and have 3 year old Daughter together.

Most of the revelations from the events of the past two months have made me realise that in hindsight my wonderful true love has suffered from more than the diagnosed general anxiety and depression that has been interwoven in our lives for all this time.

Two months ago my mother in-law lost her on/off 10 year battle with cancer. We were all left devastated, but my wife who has always been considered the most emotional member of the family showed little grief, despite being greatly consumed for the entire decade of this fight.

Two days after her passing, my wife had a memorial tattoo and immediately confessed she had fantasised over the artist and made sexual advances towards him. My wife has always despised adultery and we had talked openly about friends who had committed this most "despicable" of acts. My wife has also always been very timid around strangers, sexually unadventurous and incredibly attached to myself. I put this down to the trauma and suggested that some form of therapy for her grief, along with open discussion would help and that I would support her all the way.

The situation became worse on the day of her mothers funeral, as the following day she confessed she had been awake all night sending naked pictures of herself to men she had never met. She made in her own words " throw away " comments that she would be better off dead, how a massive hole was consuming her and how she was unable to love anyone or inflict her "issues" on me anymore.

Her family although unaware of the full facts all agreed she should see her GP immediately, who subsequently referred her directly to A&E. The Doctors fortunately could see the full picture and my wife's reluctance to open up, or even admit she had a problem. They talked to both her sister and I and after discussions at board level, generally agreed she suffered from a personality disorder and offered immediate therapy and support, this has sadly been refused and ignored by my wife.

During this period our daughter was also suffering from pneumonia and my wife was unable to fully cope with this and embarked on offering herself for NSA sex via the Internet, sleeping with 6 unknown men (at least) in a period of weeks, all of the encounters potentially dangerous given the unknown quantity of the individuals and the environments the acts were taking place.

My wife has always suffered from angry outbursts, issues of social acceptance, 'living in and blaming the past', fear of abandonment and an inabilty to focus on positive aspects of life. Its also important to teveak that she was beaten by her father as a child, along with her sister and mother and her fathers family also had a history of sexual abuse, although my wife claims she was never assaulted in this manner.

Whilst this has left me devastated and whilst an exact diagnosis is not possible without therapy and dialogue from my wife, I know the most caring and loving person I fell for all those years ago, now has some form of explanation as to why she feels like this, as do I for the roller coaster relationship we have experienced.

As a footnote, not only does my wife not accept their is a problem with her actions or health, she has also started drinking heavily and vilifies me to anybody that she is able to convince, normally those who have infrequent contact with her or myself and are unaware of the full picture . These individuals are now validating...

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