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I hope I am enjoying the very long and complicated process of creating the art for this book’s cover!!  I awoke this morning and back to work I went — Mod Podging the covering over the 14 black and white rings that will be attached at some point – no idea when or where!

Here they are drying – on the work chair!

This is a very sticky process!  I have to work very fast and be very careful my fingers do not stick to the wet – very fragile – tissue paper.  I found myself thinking about ‘alchemynow’, how I am – as it seems I have done so often throughout my life – trying to make something good and useful, if not perhaps also a bit pretty – out of nothing but nothing – or so it seems.

These rings were cut from the tops of cans, first glued to a layer of toilet paper to cushion their hard surface and to provide a pure white background for the see-through tissue paper.  Great.  Garbage and TP!!  Oh, well, a gal’s gotta do (use) what a gal’s gotta do (use)!

At first I thought two of these rings would be attached to the sides of my name that will run across the very bottom of the cover.  But the b & w in part represents the very sick split Borderline Personality Disorder broken brain-mind of abusive Mother.  I don’t think I want anything to do with her down there by my name!

I thought the placement of these rings (there are also 5 solid circles of the same diameter gluing right now) would help to visually tie together the distinctly separate parts to the cover image.  Well, I don’t think I wish my name to be tied into this directly!  I have worked from birth to find a way to be myself!

So this might be the way the bottom of the book cover will look.  This is 6″ tall with a flexible curved top edge (there’s a useful reason for that), and is 32″ wide.  I will next apply yet ANOTHER layer of heavy cardboard to the back with the corrugated ribs running in opposite direction as these pieces want to bend up in a curve at the center as soon as pressure is taken off of them!

Well, onwards and upwards.  Literally.  I have the bottom part of the cover completed but not attached.  Now I need to work on the top of it.  This is quite the construction process!

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I find it hard to accept that my name will appear on these books.  Story Without Words, author without a name.  Seems right — ??  I cannot find no part of me that cares for recognition.  I just care that this whole job gets done – and that I do what needs to be done to the best of my ability.

Adding my name to this work feels like some kind of accident, really.  It was an accident I was born to the mother I was born to.  To the family I was born to.  To the role of the targeted all-bad child for horrible abuse that I was born to.  I didn’t want anything to do with it then (although I didn’t have those words to think with) and I don’t want anything to do with this saga now.

Oh, well.

I am in the soup, so-to-say….

So, I am working on the cover bit by bit as steps need to be completed in an order that doesn’t even to be mine.  It’s the order the image needs follow to be constructed.  I found a young boy at the farmers’ market in town a few weeks ago whose grandmother said it was perfectly fine for me to “hire” him to print the words for the cover.  So far, along the bottom of the cover, this will reside:

Our local dollar store now has a different shade of “gold” tissue paper coming in for restock than the one I first purchased.  Actually, I like the combination — all mod podged down with matte finish on primed cardboard….

Then dots….

There are pretty little spirals inside the little squares inside the dots.  Once this is all dry the whole thing will be glued to a background piece that is 32″ wide by 6″ tall that belongs belong the abuse scene of the cover.

I was very curious to see how the spirals would photograph!  I like them!!  There is something (art therapy-wise) about the patterns that have come into the image of circles contrasted to squares.  I keep thinking about “can’t put a round peg in a square hole.”  I haven’t bothered to think past that phrase — although I also have had thoughts about how I see my dissociation of horrific trauma memories as if those experiences are retained somewhere inside of me — in bubbles.  I call this a “bubble memory process of dissociation,” and it works for me!

Hard for me to imagine that this will end up being about 4″ wide for a kindle book cover –

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Creative processes have a way of their own.  I just realized why I cannot bring myself to continue to write past chapter 42 of the 10th book for the entire Mildred series.  The book is already completed!

WOW!  Am I glad for that, and glad that I have figured that fact out!  Such a sense of freedom, of accomplishment, of relief and yes, of TRIUMPH!

Book #10 is the second book, actually, of the second series that tells this entire saga.  Story Without Words, as I have been posting progress on its cover art, is the first book BEFORE the two series begins.  From that point there is one series of Mildred’s Mountain that contains the seven volumes of my abusive, mentally ill mother’s own writings.

The series I am working on now takes her words, adds commentary and takes on the ring of reality as I tell my own child abuse story within Mother’s words.  This book that I realize is FINISHED is the 2nd of this Dark Side of Mildred’s Mountain series.

As I reached the limit of my tolerance for dealing further with Mother’s words in book #10 – I realized that readers of that book will have ALSO reached their own level of tolerance at this same point.  Therefore, this volume has completed itself.

I need to longer think about it except in editorial and proof-reading terms.  When I return from my travels to Alaska in June with a stop in Seattle to visit family, I will consider the NEXT book, #3 in Dark Side (the 11th book in the entire saga).

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Alas, I cannot bring myself to face my mother’s voice in her letters at this point in time.  I reached chapter 43 of this 10th book in this abuse saga and found these were the next of Mother’s words that appeared.  I can barely bring myself to read them, let alone to think about them and form my comments about what this abusive woman was saying about me shortly after my 6th birthday as I tackled my first grade experience:

January 16, 1958 Thursday – the first part of this letter was missing

Linda’s teacher says she does excellent school work and is especially good in reading!  BUT is still wild and rough and talks too loud!!  Remember how she would run around so silly in the back yard while the others would settle down?  And she has a very bold streak.  Well – we’re trying desperately!  She has snow pants and has worn them over cute clothes – no pants – and so do the other girls – for ages now.  It’s ‘her personality’ when with other children.  She’s good, quiet and reserved when alone or with me or adults but unless closely supervised and reminded continually is loud with other children.  I know it isn’t intentional but just her!  I hope she’ll grow out of it.  She’s emotionally immature but smart.  Golly, Sharon 4 years younger plays and acts bigger than Linda did at 5!  I know our children so well.  Heavens knows I’ve been with them every minute since birth!  I’m just telling you this but not asking for letters of advice!  Just thought you’d be interested.  [Here in Alaska Mildred could completely control what my grandmother knew about me.]

Cindy too is real good with Sharon and they play very well together BUT I notice she gets loud when other children come.

I think our children haven’t been with others enough BUT I feel it will work out!!  When they realize results and that it isn’t approved of.  Like John – he had same difficulty (not as much as Linda) but I feel this year he has really grown up.  Less and less clownishness and tries so hard to be big!

Remember before John’s play Joe Anne Vanover told me John was not well liked by boys in class.  I told her if he wasn’t then it was her boys fault for saying things.  They turned into terrible teases etc. and at bus stop when school began and I had to speak to them and they were resentful.  I told her it is hard for John to move from school to school etc.  I didn’t lose my temper but told her plenty.

I do want to be friendly and get along here but still will not be pushed around. 

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I don’t have the energy to write about Reactive Attachment Disorder children — which I was.  I don’t have the energy to tie what I could say about Mother’s words into what I have described in the 42 chapters of this book prior that have been presented prior to this letter.  Mother had taken every effort to bias my teacher against me.  All of my life I have carried the warmest, most positive memories about my first grade teacher and my experiences in that classroom where I thought I was safe.  When I first read Mother’s letters my bubble burst — and I felt such a loss!

Never mind that all now.  I will be traveling for the first week and a half of June and for now I let the sleeping beast lie silently in Mother’s letters and in my own heart.  Meanwhile, it is the cover art work being created for the first book, Story Without Words, that captivates my attention right now.

I spent 12-14 hours these past two days creating the floor for this image. 

Having created a grid first I then Mod Podged various shades of blue and aqua to half of the squares….

I then glued silver paper from a gift bag that fascinated me to create a kind of cloud tile pattern surrounded by the blues….

I find myself thinking about how computer technology has in many ways taken the hands-on process of making images out of the process.  This part of the cover image left glue on my fingertips that only time will now remove….

Of course most detail of the image will vanish with its final photographing and sizing for the cover….

And of course when I am done moving the pieces around and adjusting positions and adding more parts to the image, all will need to be leveled, straightened and attached into final position.

Right now from outside edges of pillars the horizontal width of the image is around 30″.  To finish this for final ebook cover ratio the height will need to be 48″ tall.  The next stages of creation will involve adding this height along with book title and my name.

I find myself thinking that no matter what words I try to use to present this Story Without Words there can never be enough space for enough words to really tell it.  The story formed over generations as the abuser in this picture and the child represents both me and Mother and Mother as a child being abused by her mother.

The effects of severe early abuse, neglect and trauma last a lifetime and impact everything about how we life our entire lifetime.  It takes massive efforts to try to recognize how patterns of early trauma appear in our interactions with other people and with situations we live through all through our childhood and through our adulthood.  The best I can do is try to trace the general outlines in word and image of what early abuse feels like to its prey.

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I am progressing with the cover image to the point where I need to figure out the actual size of this so that it can be photographed and resized using the proportion/ratio of the ebook picture size of 1563 pixels on the bottom (shortest) side of the cover by 2500 pixels on the top (longest) side of the cover.

I will have to play around with angle of the shots to be taken — so that I can figure out how these pillars will be situated — what “window” into the scene will I use?  That will determine what size I make the “carpet” for the image, how far above the pillars the space in the image for the full-size title will be, and below the pillars how much I will add for space to have my name on the book.

All kind of mind boggling to me — but meanwhile, I might as well get used to the context for this unusual book over as the image is evolving.  Here are a few pictures —

Abused children are in a prison they cannot escape from on their own – prison bars on the wallpaper are narrow cardboard strips –

The circle of rage flames the abuser stands in is removable.  I need to begin to see this whole thing in 2-D rather than in 3-D

I sprayed the abuser with a matte finish rather than gloss – I am not happy with the shine for this finish!  I do not have access to matte Mod Podge — the Elmer’s glue was too cloudy – a process to be continued –

Hard image to look at — I have to build tolerance to study it as it grows into a whole — I feel sad looking at it.  So far I do not keep the pieces in place when I am not working on the image —

The wider I make the horizontal on this the taller I will have to make the ‘filler’ top and bottom.  Also need to decide if I want a shine to the floor material – I do not want this photographed with flash – wish I could do outdoors – so much to consider —

Well, back to work….

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Although I cannot speak for my siblings, I will say that for all of us we spent our childhoods having to pretend we loved our mother.  I am sure that Mother’s Day was one of the holidays where that pretending took us full force as we tried to give to our mentally ill psychotic mother what SHE wanted us to give her — unconditional love, praise for her mothering of us and our adoration.  Of course we knew nothing different.

As the targeted all-bad child of our Borderline Personality Disordered psychotic mother it would have been the widest possible spread for me to express loving adoration to the woman who had hated me (as her projected all-bad self) and caused me great pain from the moment I was born.  I didn’t know I had to pretend I loved this woman.  I did my very best TO LOVE her.  How could it have been possible to LOVE this personification of evil intention and action?

People who as adults really DO love their mother had/have a mother than can be loved.  They are most fortunate.  I wonder if they know this?

There are mothers such as mine was who can only be truly loved by God, although I do suspect that our father really DID love her.  But that love was so distorted as to be impossible to recognize for what most people call love.  For my own sake I do not judge her, my father, or their relationship.  What I do is assess the facts of my experience with the woman from whose womb I sprung — into an insane world of her brutal madness.

Mother was my devouring predator.  Her version of love for me could be matched, I suppose, to that of a female Praying Mantis who snaps off the head of a succession of males who mate with her, devouring their heads to give herself necessary sustenance as she goes on doing what she was essentially created to do:  Make offspring.

I LIKE Praying Mantis!  They intrigue and fascinate me, beneficial garden insects that they are, beautiful in their elegant shapeliness and gracefulness.  There is nothing about my mother than I can think of that I like — and certainly absolutely NOTHING that I can find to love.  Yet Mother demanded love — and I complied as I in reality BEGGED for her to love me.

To me, it doesn’t matter.  This is the reality of my life with that particular mother.

I think of her today in relation to the book writing I intended to return to May 3rd.  I accomplished some of my own writing, but find I cannot return to reading any of her letters.  I would rather eat a live rattlesnake at this point that consider one single thought she expressed on paper.

That’s OK.  I am still plodding through the creation of the book cover art that needs to be done next, anyway.  There are many small steps in this process, and as I have mentioned all of the different gluing steps require time and patience.  I am making a small plaque that duplicates the title of this book – only this will hang on the bedroom wall of the image itself:

I, along with many others, live a life formed during traumatic abuse that we could not put into words.  I am making cover art for such a story.  This step isn’t finished yet – but soon will be.  It will be seen from a distance, so small details will fade into the cover of the book itself.  Well, time for some more gluing….

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At least in the area where I live it seems that the ordinary expectations ordinary people have of one another are very low.  Without going into too much detail because it’s not other people’s standards, behaviors and attitudes that really bother me, I can say that it’s my reactions to other people that create my own problems for me.

Sometimes I just think, “I don’t like very many people” and leave things at that.  It’s when I try to “join in” with others that I repeatedly find myself at odds — with no solutions I can find except to withdraw yet again.

I have had several bumpy interactions in the past 48 hours within a number of situations involving people.  I do have high standards and high expectations that are not shared by very many others.  I wonder at myself.  How did I come to reside in such a singular kind of universe within myself?

Neighbors’ children threatening other people’s property bothers me without solution.  Workers employed at a nonprofit business that supports a worthwhile social program who are lazy, slovenly and rude to the point they are completely sabotaging the success of the entire venture bothers me.  I worked hard volunteering there lately but I personally cannot continue because I cannot make inner peace with fighting what amounts to a losing battle all the way around.  I do not want to participate in that scene.

And then there was my attempt to venture into a social circumstance where fun is permeated by pot use and alcohol consumption by everyone else involved but me.  I partake of neither substance and do not understand how mature adults find such alterations of self to be at all positive.

All of the people included in my complaint list seem perfectly happy with their status quo.  I expect so much more of people!  Today I am considering how the combination of factors in my abusive childhood influenced how I experience people.  I was prevented from having ongoing social interactions that perhaps (probably?) would have created such a powerful need in me to have people in my life that I would never have formed such clear ideas about what I value in others in the first place.  I would have been created (socialized) to give up nearly everything within myself that would stand in opposition to being included rather than excluded from ordinary social situations.

I did not end up becoming a “socialized” being who could accept and overlook what people choose to do — because they can — and evidently want to.  It’s not my job to be any kind of a social conscience for others.  They can take me or leave me.  I hold no special significance or importance in others’ lives (with the exception of family and close friends).

I did not gradually learn sets of social “rules” and skills that I could use to negotiate troubling social situations.  I can only withdraw into isolation.  It can’t be just chance that isolation is exactly what I was raised in.

I am the only one who needs to make peace regarding these matters within myself.  I try to live up to my own high standards in my life.  It’s hard to make peace with this being a lonely road for me because as such an unsocialized person from 0-18 I did not learn how to compromise.  I did not learn to either like or understand people.  Most importantly, I did not learn how to need them at all costs or to accept as normal the (to me) illogical and detrimental choices people seem to very often make.

I am left not feeling better than other people so much as feeling completely different.

Am I unable to bridge the gulf I feel or just unwilling to “play the game?”

Often people confuse, dumbfound – and yes – disappoint me.  I cannot see any real benefit to selling one’s self short, which is how these patterns appear to me.  Did I just so miss the essential (it seems to me) ordinary socialization experiences others had that keeps them all content to be together on a boat that I watch sailing by without me on it that no solutions are even possible for me? 

I have never met another person whose first 18 years included along with direct abuse the kind of extensive isolation and solitary confinements that happened to me.  I cannot explain to others I meet what my world WAS like let alone what my reality is like for me today. 

I cannot learn more by asking questions, either.  This approach is not a part of ordinary social experience.  I either “get along” with all sorts of people or I don’t.  When all the coins are flipped it’s the DON’T side that comes up most of the time for me.

I can’t go back and redo my childhood.  I cannot grow up all over again to be involved in the many thousands of kinds of social interactions that evidently prepare people to do nearly anything — accept anything — blatantly question nothing that seems to so threaten so many people — just so they can NOT be alone.

Other’s social needs seem to be fulfilled in ways I cannot begin to imagine.  I don’t know how to pretend all is well while all that is not well is ignored.  Most social interactions are a LOT of work to me.  I end up feeling exhausted and unfulfilled.

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What is the good in all of this?  I always try to find a positive angle — but all I can think of is that as I write and publish this post there may be readers who understand exactly what I am describing.  It repeatedly puzzles me that I could come out of such a torturous childhood looking for too much goodness in people while I am repeatedly disappointed by human reality.

I was not trained for living in the social world of human reality.  I realize this.  It seems to have been something I was born knowing that humans are perfectly capable of so much more goodness than what they choose to live by.  How else, out of so much badness in my childhood, could I have come to these troublesome conclusions?

It’s not that I ever thought about any of these things during the first 18 years of my life.  I did not.  Do I notice these conflicts of values now simply because I can?

I do not know.

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