Getting to know you

I've mentioned collages or art or cutting out pictures a number times. Some survivors use images very effectively to process memories even though much is not known consciously as to its meaning. It can be enormously helpful when memories surface and/or a new alter surfaces. Alters will choose pictures to identify themselves. It's an exercise in system cooperation as well. Go through magazines and grab any picture where you get a feeling that you must have the image. Don't worry if it doesn't make sense to you...such as an inanimate object or group of images. In going through magazines, alters will grab pictures that go with memories as well. I love that I had a visual identification for all of my alters.

Use unusual magazines like electronics, computer-related, art related. Communication Arts (at $53 a year) is a most valuable resource. I kept subscriptions for my clients to use. Often, entire collages were made of images from that magazine. Individual copies are available in news stores or bookstores, but one issue is probably about $18-$20. If you look through a copy in the store, you will see what I mean. Their photography annual and illustration annual are ripe with strange and bizarre images that go with stuff that can express the experience of having been abused by organized pedophiles. I would justify the cost of an annual subscription as less than the cost of one therapy session.

My hairdresser used to know I was in the waiting room because she could hear me "secretly" tearing photos out of her magazines. When you see a picture you need, you HAVE to have it. lol. You can always make note of the issue and get hold of one at the store. Sometimes libraries and doctors offices have old magazines they are happy to turn over. And don't forget the parenting magazines for baby and child pictures and a few teen magazines for teen alters. Greeting cards are more expensive now, but I found a number of littles on Anne Geddes cards and in the images of children done in black and white with a splash of color. I don't recall the photographer or artist.

Keep in mind that sometimes metaphor is used to portray a memory. So a particular item or animal may appear over and over throughout collages or pictures. When the time comes, your system will let you know the meaning. Everything in its own time. Today I was going through one of my binders of images and a picture of a rabbit is on the cover of one along with other images. These are the words written next to the rabbit which is a beautiful carving in stone:

"In many Native American traditions, the rabbit is a symbol of fear, yet an old story tells that rabbit used to be a great warrior. Use this...to help you conquer your fears. Let the rabbit remind you of where you have been (trapped in your fears) and know that, just like the rabbit, you have a Spiritual warrior hidden within, beneath your fears, waiting to help you claim a passionate new way of being."