The night came with more darkness than I expected and I’m feeling slightly melancholic. Going through this process of acceptance is hard. I’m walking through a parade of things unresolved. Flaws. Shadowlands. My mind is trying to work it all out, by just accepting it, but it is not done without a great inner resistance. Like I’m hoping to find a solution for the unresolved at the last minute. But there is no point in trying. I have to accept that life leaves you with these unfinished symphonies at times.
The silence is not a waiting room anymore. Your hands look a bit like mine but I will never know how they will age with time. The years that we wasted will grow into a soundless void. My tears will dry and turn into a collection of dead pain. The blood moon will never rise again. I won’t have to write any more black letters. The truth won’t have to burn in three’s.
I keep waking up from strange dreams at night. Last night I was on a beach and I trimmed the horizon with a pair of scissors until it started to rain then I ran into a room with a kitten that held me hostage. Other times I wake up wondering where Johnny is and I call out his name until I realize he’s back in California. It is a confusing time of overlapping timelines – I’m looking back to find some kind of closure and acceptance of my past, and the future I want to share with Johnny seems so far away (that’s probably why I wanted to be able to trim the horizon) all while going through many changes in my present moment. It’s a blur of ‘then’s, ‘now’s and ‘later’s. Both me and my life is a work in progress and I have to accept that I will feel like this at times, bloody confused.
At least I know where I am now. I am here, the past is over there behind me and the future is in front of me. When you live with PTSD the timeline is different; the present moment is glued to the past and the future doesn’t really exist. But it doesn’t feel as confusing as this because then you only have one time to consider and it’s your past, almost like it’s carrying you through the timeline but not into the future but rather going round in circles instead.
When I started doing self-therapy work three years ago, I had no idea how much work it would be to clear out the timeline so I could see a horizon. But now I do and it looks spectacular. But it feels so far away. Unreachable. I guess I have more work to do to be able to feel like I will be able to reach it and all the wonderful colors it holds.
A still from one of my favorite TV series “Fringe” with people trapped and frozen in an amber quarantine
Johnny and I have been watching Fringetogether, but from opposite sides of the world. I really love that show and it tickles my imagination, especially all the philosophical elements.
As we were watching the episodes where people have been frozen in time inside the amber quarantines due to the overlapping of an alternate Universe, I was thinking about how I wish I could do that with my past, just trap it all in amber and there would be no way for me to reach it – or for my past to ever reach me. I think I have to create my own amber quarantine, inside my mind.
I’ve tried to run away from my past, I’ve tried to block it out, I’ve even had some suicidal thoughts at times (don’t worry, I would never surrender to those thoughts) when the past has come too close to my present moment, but it’s impossible to escape it and trying to escape it doesn’t make me feel at peace. It’s just a desperation of not feeling like I’ve had closure. PTSD is not easy to live with, and at times it can be confusing to live with the past as a shadow to every passing moment.
You can never run away from the past – but at the same time the past is no longer part of reality. It is merely a collection of used up time, memories, words, feelings, actions that once was part of reality but now gone. The only way my past could ever reach me is in the way I allow it to exist in my thoughts. I make it real, I break the laws of reality when I visit it through my pain and the vicious memories.
I love the quote: “Nothing controls you, you control nothing” – it is a good reminder of how my past has no power over me, here and now, in this very moment and that I can never go back and change anything. People from my past can return, familiar situations can be duplicated, but I am a different person now – I am not the same person I was back then. Today I would not accept the things I once accepted, I would not love the people I once loved – I would not even start the fights I once started. It wasn’t worth it. None of it. Not the love stories, the passionate affairs, the tragic warfare, the silences, the stupid strategies to prove I was right and not failing. Who cares about all that? Who was I trying to prove all that for anyway? Why was my attitude that everything would either ‘make me or break me’? Why did I take so many risks when there were no rewards?
My past is not only a collection of dead time and vivid memories of old mistakes, it is also a collection of questions and they are keeping my past alive. I’m like a restless ghost haunting my own past – asking ‘why, why, why?’. I have to accept that there are no answers and that the only question to ask is ‘how, how, how?’ – how I want my life to be, who I want to be, and how I want my future to look. That is an exciting question. The why is only loaded with confusion and pain.
I’ll put that inside of the amber quarantine as well.
I love how I am always rescued by movies and TV series somehow. They trigger something positive in me, and I can’t count all the moments where a line or a scene has made me moved forward in my thoughts. It’s odd but nice. And it makes me a nerd, but that’s ok. Because I am sharing all these moments with another nerd. We speak ‘nerdish’ and it makes me feel really good. It makes me feel loved.
Time to put my past in an amber quarantine. I’ve got stuff to do.
And oh, I just love the Fringe title song, here is an extended version:
This must be one of the strangest beginnings of a digital piece ever. I am intrigued but I have no idea where I am going with this. It’ll possibly be the first collaboration pieces with Candice Angelini, but I’m not sure yet, I have to see where this takes me first. I’m deep into the forest of my imagination right now…
Exciting inner creative processes are in motion. I know what I want to accomplish next in my art career – with a future art show and it’s gonna be different from anything I’ve done before. Less shocking perhaps but more personal and poetic. It is so god damn hard to let go of my old career because it was everything I had ever dreamed about, but at the same time I couldn’t take the pressure that came with it – and it was killing my creativity. And when you think about it, it’s not a difficult choice; to choose creativity over past achievements. It’s not about looking backwards anyway – and what really kills creativity is any form of comparison, even if the comparison is to your own past achievements.
My art in the “UPSET” art book of contemporary lowbrow artists, 2010
I need a clean slate, a fresh start and a new place in the art world. I’m letting go of my old artistic position as part of a movement or style – I am my own genre and I am flexible in both expression and style. It was very tempting and very flattering to be part of the lowbrow art movement and the pop-surrealist community, because I’ve never felt at home anywhere, socially. It was like I found my people, but at the same time it was holding me back and I started to adjust my style and the motifs to fit the movement or the group shows. I won’t do that again. I’m ok with being an outsider or at least not part of any group. The struggle will be harder when I walk alone but without compromising my artistic integrity and my genuine expression.
Although I am very proud to be one of the pioneers of the digital art movement – what I like to call “the digi wave”. I have many friends and colleagues surfing the digi wave in the art world. Their digital techniques and expressions vary a lot. Here are some of them;
The missing is unbearable today. You are suddenly so far away, perhaps even a year away. I hate being this broke. I need to find more money so I can kiss you again, sooner than in a year.
For the people who are questioning the authenticity of digital art and would say “What about the ‘stolen’ images you collect from books and use in your digital collages?” I want to answer: “I paint with pictures. The images are my colors. Poets don’t invent the alphabet nor the language when they are writing their poetry.” – Mia Makila
“Still Life With Flowers and Love” by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital collage]
I can’t get enough of Christine and The Queens, I think I’m a little obsessed with her. At least it’s a big time girl crush. I get so inspired by her genuine charisma, passionate energy and the subtle sensuality.
I’m getting nowhere with the clinics, I’m frustrated but I’m slowly recovering. The health care system in Sweden at this point is basically following the trend of the DIYmovement; Do it yourself. But I’ve become pretty good at figuring out how to treat myself and I know what medical care that works and what doesn’t. As long as my health is improving, I don’t care if I have to play doctor, I hate hospital milieus anyway.
Part of my self-treatment is to let go of the stress from this summer. It’s been a lot. I have some heavy decisions to make when it comes to how I want to build my nearest future. I also have to go on defining myself as an artist – I have a feeling that I have to let go of some things to be able to push through the struggles I’m dealing with in my creativity. Something is holding me back and I know exactly what it is, but it’s hard to accept.
It’s my audience. You.
Perhaps I have to kill some darlings – your darlings – in order to continue working with my art. I know I will lose a lot of admirers, fans and collectors if my work took a different direction, if my focus point would shift from the things that brought me success and appreciation – to a whole new genre where I’m not familiar with the audience. But that is the privilege I have as an artist, to reinvent myself and my expression over and over again throughout my career. I have changed so much since my early works and my art is changing alongside my personal metamorphosis.
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Early works:
Semi-Paradise by Mia Makila, 2006
Alone In Hell by Mia Makila, 2006
Holiday In Hell, 2007
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Works from 2014-2016:
“Not a Phallus” by Mia Makila, 2014 [digital]
The Screaming Rug by Mia Makila, 2016 – digital.
“A Binary Dream” by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital]
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My life used to be a very private version of Hell. Chaotic. Dramatic. Painful. Everything in either black or white – but at the same time burning or in flames. Now, my life is full of love, longing, sensuality and stillness. I’ve found a harmonic grey-scale (visible in my latest digital works) within the black and white.
As I am thinking about all this, a title for a future art show emerges. That is evidence that I am on the right path. Acceptance is more about letting go than it is about finding new answers. I need to accept that I can never go back to being the artist I once was – and I can’t force myself to be the artist I would love to be even though it doesn’t come natural to me. I just have to let go of my timeline of success and failure and accept the artist I’ve become, going through all that. The artist I am. Now. Celebrated for my past achievements – but not forced to live up to the expectations that came with that. I have big plans for my future art projects, but I need more money. So let’s start there.
I’m letting go of your expectations of me. Thank you for loving my art so far. It has meant so much to me. But I have to have the freedom to reinvent myself from time to time – and you are invited to follow me on my journey, it will be a roller-coaster ride for both of us I’m sure.
I had a little breakthrough in my self-therapy yesterday. Psychological breakthroughs are equally tough to face as they are liberating. It means you have pushed through a wall – and acknowledged something that you haven’t been ready to admit to yourself before and suddenly you are so clear in your mind – and things finally start to make sense.
I’m not a crazy cat lady, I’m the crazy notebook lady! (self-therapy books)
As I am working with my self-therapy and making research and notes in my notebooks, I often return to the same conclusions, but always with more understanding or new theories which will add something important to the old ones. I gradually build a clear understanding of my own behavior and emotions – and then I can move on and hopefully change from the core out.
notes from 2013 explaining the main movement of the ‘dance of death’
One thing that I keep coming back to is my theoriy about the dance of death (the destructive relationship, see older post here). I’ve filled notebook after notebook with theories and illustrations about the cycles of abuse and psychological submission/dominance.
The basic foundation to the dance of death is one person feeling submissive to another who’s acting like a victim that the submissive person is trying to rescue but being dominated and damaged in the process – and ends up a real victim (and the abuser won’t recognize or acknowledge the process of this dance which leaves the submissive person feeling lonely and powerless or doubting the whole experience).
A simple movement of a bad cycle going round and round but each time becoming more toxic and damaging for the person who’s trying to rescue the other (and the fantasy of what it COULD be like if the other person would change their behavior). A base for co-dependency.
This is the first step in getting caught in a destructive relationship – and the reason why many women stay with men who abuse them (or vice versa). But there’s more. Here is a ‘destructive ladder’ I’ve found in my work yesterday:
Lack of acceptance. I could not accept that the person I loved (and the victim I wanted to rescue in them) could ever abuse me or use psychological manipulation to put me down, to force me into a submissive position, to blame me for their damaging behavior etc, because that meant that I had to leave. The thought of leaving scared me so much that I’d much rather accept being treated badly. Because the abuser doesn’t want to take any responsibility for their actions or words – and their damaging behavior, I was left with all the guilt, shame and the heavy responsibility of blame. That makes it even harder to accept that the relationship is toxic and leaving the ‘victim’ I was trying to rescue is very difficult when you feel responsible. The lack of acceptance made me stay and paradoxically accept the abuse .
Expectations. Instead of accepting reality, that I was being abused, I turned to my expectations that things would get better or that the person would change, that they would come around and understand what they’ve done and apologize, that I could change them and make them see just how toxic their behavior was, that they would suddenly be full of remorse and regret and cry and promise never to repeat their abusive behavior. Of course that never happened. The lack of acceptance made me stay and accept their abuse and the expectations of a future time where everything would be alright, would make it even harder for me to quit the dance of death.
Responsibility / Guilt. Because I wanted my expectations to come true, I had to carry the responsibility all alone and not make anything worse by saying the wrong thing, by being confrontational or provocative, I had to adjust my own behavior and censor myself to not make the abuser angry or more hateful. Here is where I would lose myself completely to THEIR expectation of who I should be to them and the guilt I felt for being who I really was made me even more submissive and cemented my role in the dance of death even stronger.
Blocking out negative emotions. Because of I had to live up to their expectations of how I should behave, what I could or could not say or do, to make them comfortable and happy enough so that they would live up to MY expectations of them (to stop being abusive and start being empathetic and loving), and because I refused to accept the real nature of the relationship, I had to block out the negative emotions in order for the ‘lie’ of the dance to go on. This repressing process of real and powerful emotions is very damaging and leads to a disassociative state, memory loss, depression, separation of the self and makes the dance of death seem natural and normal. It will take a long time to reclaim all these emotions if a dance would ever end.
And it’s not easy to disrupt the cycle or end the endless rotation of the dance. But I did, more than once. If I’d only accepted the reality of the situation and the destructive nature of the relationship, I wouldn’t have stayed in the dance.
This is one of the most important discoveries I’ve made in my self-therapy so far.
Life is funny. It has happened many times that I’ve received an email from a stranger who’s following my blog, at the exact time I’ve needed to hear whatever they have to tell me. I am not religious nor do I believe in fate, but this is something that has meant a great deal to me, spiritually. Today it happened again. A kind person helped me fill in a blank space in my inner journey and now I know exactly where I have to go next. Stuck, my ass, now I am on my way again!
My blank space held the question “What is the opposite of ‘expectations’ (both good and bad)? How can I go on without feeling the weight of them?” The answer was embarrassingly simple;
acceptance.
So, there it is. Such a little word but with the complexities of a whole lifetime of trying to get there.
But at least now I’ve found a new direction for the path I’m walking on. Sometimes getting stuck is just one step closer to getting unstuck. Getting lost is one step closer to defining what home really is and where it is to be found.
With the concept of acceptance follows many steps of self-discovery and self-compassion. I am ready to work hard to accept the things I haven’t been able to accept before. I have to accept myself and my nature (and my body), my limitations, shortcomings, strength, my superpower, my talents, I have to accept reality, situations and people I can’t change, hearts I won’t ever be able to reach, I have to accept the love I am offered, I have to accept that I will always carry a big sadness within my soul but also to allow happiness inside, I have to accept that my past will always be a part of me but that it can’t touch me anymore, the slow processes of trauma recovery and that I can never live up to what other people want me to be for their own comfort.
To accept all those things is also to let go of worries, fears, stress, frustration and the sense of being powerless.
What this person did for me today with her email was not only to help me get unstuck, she also gave me hope that everything will be alright. As long as I am in a constant movement forward, everything will be alright – even if it means accepting being stuck for a little while and not being able to run wild but to take the smallest steps to be able to move forward.
The tools to overcome this hard time in my life might seem simple but they are hard to balance and that’s the most important part of overcoming things. Finding balance.
I’m still dealing with health problems, but the doctor is referring me to a specialist, so I’m hoping for better care soon, but I might have to wait for months to come to the new clinic. The summer has been full of difficulties and suffering and at times I feel like I am failing to be strong. I can feel how depression is approaching but I won’t let it inside. This is the time to be stronger than ever, even if I’m all out of energy and strength – and I feel like I’m losing faith in life, but I have to fight all the negativity – and find some new faith again. At least now I know just how sensitive I am to stress and when life is throwing me too many hardships at once, I get burned out very easily. I’ve found my limitations and my weak spots – but also how I am able to see where I need to pick myself up before it’s too late.
I am not comfortable with these transitional phases – and the slow speed of one-step-at-the-time strategies of trauma recovery. I feel so restless. I just want to make art. Be economically independent. I want to share my life with Johnny in the same geographical place. I want to feel healthy and beautiful. I want to move, move, move forward. My mind wants to run wild. To be creative. I want life to take my hand and run with me. I am hungry for the pulse. In anything. Everything. Even in myself. Nothing is worse than feeling stuck like this. To feel covered in dead time, waiting, worries and missing.
I am sharing these personal diary notes with you to expose the real nature of trauma recovery and the slow process of overcoming hard times. I don’t want to romanticize the image of being an artist, or to brag about my achievements in a mundane blog. I want to create something real and genuine – something that makes me connect with the world outside myself and vice versa. It is my contribution to the world, even if it’s a minuscule one.
I am no longer bound to my original life plan that I created for myself in December, life has disrupted the flow of it and I need to create a new plan where the steps are smaller and the goal is not the dominant factor but the victory of each successful step is. Because if I try to take on every problem I’m facing, at once, I won’t be able to handle it.
!["Still Life With Flowers and Love" by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital collage]](https://miamakila.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/still_life_with_flowers_and_love.jpg)
!["Not a Phallus" by Mia Makila, 2014 [digital]](https://miamakila.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/not_a_phallus.jpg)
!["A Binary Dream" by Mia Makila, 2016 [digital]](https://miamakila.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/a_binary_dream_black_frame2.jpg)
MIA MAKILA 