mental health

ADHD: PeeWee and Mari

My friends know this: my love of Mari Kondo (known here as KonMari) the writer of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-Up, is deep and unshakable.

Many of my friends have also known this: if I am hyper-focused on organizing to the detriment of other aspects of my life it might be a sign of my anxiety ramping up prior to a depressive crash.

Now we can add this layer to those knowns: I am an adult woman with ADHD and, like others of my ilk, I have a life-long complex relationship with the concept, and execution of, Being Organized.

Yup. My mental clinic doc agrees: ADHD. However, Japan has a difficult historical relationship with medical stimulants so there are only two available choices for ADHD: Concerta and Strattera. Ritalin exists in Japan but can only be prescribed for narcolepsy, it’s prohibited to prescribe it for the treatment of ADHD. My doc is wary of prescribing either of these due to the common side effects of nausea, loss of appetite, and sleep issues. For now I work on behavior modification and knowing this new part of me I’ve lived with all my life.

Back to my BFF, KonMari.

I’ve never viewed her as someone denying me things. I’ve never cast her as a bringer of stoic minimalism set on banishing my joy.

To me she’s one of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse friends we just never got around to meeting. Pee-wee, like me, enjoys joyous objects. He’s filled his playhouse with them. Like me, he thrives with some structure….I don’t wear only out outfit but I get the uniform impulse…but I don’t get the sense that he’s the sort of guy who came to organization naturally.

Thus, he had a KonMari somewhere who helped him learn how to organize his house, understand the feelings he has about each item in the place (like KonMari he’s literally speaking to his objects… although they answer verbally instead of having to spark joy) and not get overwhelmed. KonMari and PeeWee are friends. Friends of PeeWee are friends of mine. Period. Fight me on this.

I’m not alone in the ADHD world of having INTENSE FEELINGS about KonMari, positive and negative, a fact I’ve learned from scanning ADHD podcasts.

It’s time for me to glance back at KonMari through my emerging understanding of adult ADHD to see how my love of her is part of my neurological makeup.

First and foremost: Unchecked ADHD creates clutter. Let’s take that as a given instead of diving into how and why.

Fact: I create clutter and confusion. As a child it was rampant and as an adult I’ve got a lot of coping mechanisms for wrangling it when it’s reached certain levels…but I’m usually wrangling my chaos and very rarely just entering, functioning in, and leaving an area without MUCH WRANGLING.

My adult life has been one of actively looking for more answers to corralling object chaos. KonMari was just one of many things I looked into, but she was the first to really help make a large difference in my life…and keep me away from the cycle of trying and failing at the latest organizing trick…and disliking myself for my failure

Difficulty in prioritizing and properly sequencing steps in achieving anything is part of ADHD.

Knowing what step to take first is hard. Knowing what a finished step looks like is hard. Understanding the progression the steps must take….(brain shuts down)

This is an accurate graph of my mind starting on most things.

(Collect Underpants -> ??? -> Profits!!! Meme)

KonMari doesn’t take any chances.

She has steps. Lots of them. There is an order to those steps. She explains why that order is there. She explains why the steps yo’ve been told to use before aren’t going to work. She keeps reminding you that the order of the steps and doing the steps right is essential. There are clear steps.

For some people this is probably patronizing. I needed this.

People with ADHD are often afflicted with Time Blindness.

This is hard for an outsider to grasp. The idea that uninteresting tasks feel like they take longer and that interesting tasks create a time bubble where three hours can pass unnoticed is fairly universal. Everyone accepts it as facts.

But with ADHD that feeling isn’t limited to the extremes of interest and disinterest. It’s a constant expanding and constricting of time calibrated to the smallest fluctuations of thought and mood. It’s a time accordion given to a small child who isn’t losing interest in the squeeze box anytime soon.

It creates very real problems with estimating time. Period. How long will this take? How long have I been doing this? What time is it?

This problem is one I’m working on currently with a stopwatch and notes. Fun.

Attached to time blindness (when it’s not a known issue) are the feelings of shame and failure at not having managed time correctly…again.

KonMari tells you right off that there’s no way to estimate how long this will take. This undertaking will vary wildly. There are no estimated times to fail at meeting. There are just the steps.

She notes that things will look extra out of control for a while, because everything is out of hiding and can’t be ignored , but that’s a sign of the process and the steps being done, not a sign of failure. Adhere to the steps.

The wells of shame an adult woman with undiagnosed ADHD contains feel bottomless.

I’m immature. How can I be an adult and still like this? I’m lazy. Other people can do these things. I’m an imposter. The better I hide my true self the further I shall fall when it is revealed.

This is our soundtrack.

Confronting things we’ve failed at in the past, like being organized or cleaning our kitchen, increases the volume of this soundtrack.

This soundtrack gets even louder when we simply think about starting something perceived as difficult, increasing our distance from executive function and tying us tighter to procrastination (our most successful relationship ever).

KonMari has ways of addressing our shame…and a lot of them get called “woo woo”

Do I want to thank the items I’m getting rid of? No. I feel foolish.

But she’s right, I do feel shame about how much I’ve accumulated. I feel guilt about what I have and haven’t done with those things: the hopes they represented and how I felt they would define a future me.

So I have to find a way to process that shame. To look at something that cues up my soundtrack and not say “I failed” and instead say “I’ve learned from you. You taught me this isn’t where my priorities are. Thank you.”

“You brought the thrill of perceived change to me, thank you.”

“I wanted you to be part of my life but it’s not working. We deserve better. Thank you. Onward to your new life.”

Shame doesn’t just evaporate. you need to find ways to process it. Transform it. Bleed it off a bit.

If talking to objects gets me to process my feelings…and it did…I’ll do it.

I’ll procrastinate a bit but I’ll do it.

People with ADHD are very visual and as such we can be overwhelmed by visual clutter.

KonMari removing extra labels from boxes as not to be assaulted by too many words in a pantry or medical cabinet. Oh, I SEE you.

KonMari simultaneously suggesting we can line our closets and storage spaces with feel-good geeky images that we wouldn’t want on our main walls despite the fact this might count to some people as visual clutter. Oh, I SEE you too.

And I am seen.

I REALLY need places to be tidy and run on schedule. I can’t handle outside unnecessary clutter and disorganization throwing me off course because I’m expending so much energy just existing an staying focused.

I mean this only for places I need to do things in (home, class, workplace). I don’t care if I visit people who have messy houses.

KonMari: I get that…but if it’s not your space you can’t expend energy on it. Focus on your own things and place and stop trying to change others, you’ll only mess up interpersonal relationships that way.

Me: Buuuut I’m hyper focused on it and it’s driving me crazy and.

KonMari: Nope. Fix yourself. Know what your space is. Define it. Set it up. Defend the boundaries of your space. Let the world beyond that fall into chaos. It’s ok. you are master of your space and your space only. Now, please, go talk to those shoes you don’t wear.

Ok, Mari!

She speaks to me and now I’m better understanding why and how.

dance

Partners in mind

Last night and tonight’s art is dance and altering dance costumes.

I’ve confirmed that my health clinic treats ADHD as well as anxiety/depression, but my next appointment is still a week and a half away.

As much as I want to I can’t drop everything and deep dive into ADHD learning right now. And I want to. Oh when I want to do something boy do I want to.

The current priorities are:
I’m wrapping up third/last semester at school. This involves a lot of lesson plans, busy days, shifting schedules.

Studio 10th year anniversary show this Sunday.

Last night, after work, I went to the studio to rehearse with my dance partner/ friend/ studio owner, H.

Reading how ADHD presents in adult women hasn’t simply meant that I’ve seen >me< on the pages. H and I are very similarly wired but where we differ has always been a source of stress.

I am punctual. I have clocks in every room and make full use of kitchen timers to stay on track. I religiously use the train schedule app on my phone.

If kept waiting once I’ve made it somewhere, I become a fidgety mess. I can’t just wait. This is why I often pack projects and extra distractions.

H is habitually late. She has great difficulty estimating time and distance.

She’s gotten better about alerting me that she will be late, instead of just being tardy and then apologizing.

I’ve also learned that sending her a text message about 1-2 hours before we meet, that’ says I’m looking forward to seeing her at (time and place) is helpful for her and isn’t seen as a rude reminder.

Our other major clash.

I am a clutter bug who has developed an intense focus on decluttering. I know how clutter creates external stress for me and work hard to reduce it.

H is a clutterbug but at the studio her priority is managing the studio and often teaching while her 1 year old son is also present.

Clutter at the studio drives me to distraction. I will focus on items out of place and child handprints on mirrors instead of choreography and what I’m teaching next.

We’ve reached a defined agreement for the sake of our relationship. I will come early for extra studio cleaning when I teach, which tends to be the evening after her teaching. She knows I’ll clean what she doesn’t register at messy or can’t deal with. I’ve budgeted the time do I can do so without feeling like it interferes with my work and focus.

Before we rehearsed H and I had a long discussion about how to better communicate and schedule in light of our brains.

My love of making thing with my hands and her loathing of anything to do with sewing defines my art practice tonight.

She figured out years ago that she’ll never be up for moving hooks on her dance costumes. If she doesn’t pay someone to alter and adjust her costumes it won’t get done. She pays me.

I make costumes.

So tonight I’ll be altering some of her costumes, including one I first made for myself in 2009. H purchased it two years ago, early in her pregnancy, so accommodate her changing body.

We’d wear the matching costumes I made us but her house ate hers and she’s been realistic about the fact she would not have the energy to find it before the show.

Uncategorized

I have so much and yet no idea where to put it.

No crafts today, just my mind.

“At that time (and all my life), I had a little room in one part of the house in which I spent each night and weekend trying in vain to “get organized.” I had no idea that other people weren’t spending each weekend as a bridge between Friday and Monday trying frantically to dig their way out of the “rubble” before Monday arrived again. As I began to understand AD/HD, I began to notice small things; for example, I heard other people making plans to go to the park on the weekend or to a concert. To me, it was like hearing people from another planet. Each Friday at the agency where I was working, my friend and colleague, Lisa, would ask me, “What are you doing this weekend?” I would say, “I’m getting organized.” After a few months of hearing this response, Lisa finally said to me, “Oh, you must be working on a major project!” And I said, “No, I’m just getting organized.” It started to dawn on me that others weren’t living the same way, but I had no idea how they did it.”

— Women With Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life by Sari Solden

I didn’t know others didn’t live the same way. I mean, I kinda know but I just thought that those who didn’t were better at life than I am.

And when I read a simple example of short term memory, that functioning short term memory storage does things like help you store a phone number you’ve just been told, I laugh. I know in theory people can retain a phone number….but if you try to tell me yours I will stop you and grab something to write with. I cannot store a string of numbers I have just been told. I’d assumed it’s because I’m bad with numbers…but it could be how my short term memory works. No. It could be how my short term memory doesn’t work.

Then I think about the other subject I always thought I am bad at. Languages. My only bad grades in high school were in Spanish, a subject I loved. I struggle with Japanese despite living here.

I Google ADHD and foreign languages and read.

I feel both hungry and finally seen.

As I read this book, Women With Attention Deficit Disorder , and listen to the audio version of The Queen of Distraction by Terry Malte (another book about women with ADHD) I keep wanting to cry.

I read about the internalized shame undiagnosed women with ADHD have.

There I am, naked, described.

I hadn’t seen myself in discussions of women and girls with ADHD before because of how it’s generally stressed that they are more likely to be inattentive instead of hyperactive.

I wasn’t the quiet girl in my class. I wasn’t so loud as to be hyperactive either. I didn’t have bad grades.

“One of the most telling signs of the child with this type of AD/HD is disorganization. One look at her locker, desk, room, or maybe even her handwriting might give you a clue that she may be struggling with this disorder. They might also be extremely sensitive to visual stimulus and physical movements and be highly distracted by both their internal and external worlds.”

— Women With Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life by Sari Solden

It wasn’t until I started seeing descriptions of how the specter of clutter haunts women with ADHD and first-person accounts of how they deal with the seemingly simple task of putting things someplace that I thought. That’s me.

My obsessive days spent trying to organize. Those days that my shrink, and my friends, and I, think of as a sign that my anxiety/depression isn’t properly balanced….I now wonder if those days are a symptom of ADHD and the feelings of shame, stress, and worthlessness are what presents as anxiety/depression.

It’s, of course, not exactly an either or equation. Anxiety/depression and ADHD are often linked together in women.

The idea that I can’t function with too much visual stimuli and yet am wired in a way that creates piles and clutter would go a long way to explain my documented decades of decluttering and cleaning.

(Sigh) I want to keep writing. I’m hyper focused on these ideas. I’m good at focusing when I’m interested. I’ve read a lot in a short amount of time. I could write for hours.

When I’m interested I go deep. My mind makes connections fast and time falls away.

I function the same way creating things.

It’s yet another reason why the term “attention deficits” never rang familiar with me.

But now, reading that ADHD isn’t a deficit in attention, that it’s more like a surplus of attention that is hard to prioritize, I know I must now seek help.

craft, Doll

Maybe we go deeper.

Setbacks and stashes.

What kind of person am I?

After getting some disappointing but not unexpected results in my life, I take stock of what I have,l and then take two Ambien (the full dose) so I won’t stay awake with worry I can do nothing with.

And the following day, as I head home from work, I’ll get a flash of the night before and check my emails.

Yes. Indeed. Ambien me did order “Thr Artist’s Way” on Amazon. Because, my friends, is the kind of person I am.

The kind who thinks, things aren’t as I’d hoped….maybe I just need to be more of an artist.

It is time to stop searching for more projects and use what I have…

Because last night I did take stock… and these are only the dolls I haven’t started working on…my used doll stash. This doesn’t include my in progress pile.

19 Disney animators dolls
One giant monster high doll
One 17 inch monster high

One tall Rapunzel (plays music)
Two My Scene dolls
Seventeen monster high dolls
Two EAdolls

One TaeYang
One Namu
Two factory Blythes
One Dal

March, 2020, the year of the dolls begins.
I’ll still dance, and teach dance, and work my day job. …and need Ambien from time to time.

But we’re going on a doll adventure, folks.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Acrylic Yarn: Squeeky self-care.

I’ve written before about how handy-work can be quite an effective form of meditation for those of us with minds that sometimes fight meditation.

The repetition of movement, the precision needed, and the concentration used helps clear my head. It’s not that I don’t think while doing this, I do, but it’s a quieter thinking. I don’t have the time to chase strong emotions or berate myself. With my hands busy a strong emotion may easily be noted and pass and I won’t be tempted to chase down its cause right then and there.

Let us now sing praise for 100¥ acrylic yarn…here for me at my time of need.

Without too many details, it’s been an unwelcome revisiting of the end of May 2019.

Vague story vague: within days two distinct circles of friends in different locations were revealed to contain two different types of horrible predators…and a lot of nasty information poured out of each. This week one of those two cases came to a settlement that involves only probation, no jail time, for a person who has torn through lives.

Cue the unwelcome few days of time travel none of us asked for.

And this brings me to the acrylic yarn. It’s not ALL the self-care but it is some of it.

I’m not the first woman in my family to find comfort in acrylic yarn.

My paternal Grandma Leah used to use the cheapest, squeekiest, most eye-hurtingest colors of acrylic yarn to knit and crochet hand scrubbers, sturdy foot “booties” and hard to explain dolls and toys…for cash or family.

Preferably craft-stall cash.

She lived with my father and step-family for years. We, family, all had these booties in inexplicable colors. Well, semi-explicable; they were the cheapest yarns for the best return on her investment of supplies. I also used to have a yellow and blue clown down with two distinctly different length legs where she’d just run out of yarn and ended.

Grandma Leah had a huge stash of different sources of patterns but it seems like the booties came from a hand-written letter from a neighbor. I have some of the letter but no more of the booties.

Dear Leah;

Once before I had to show someone how to make the slippers. It takes a long time to do it. I can’t read a pattern. I’ve never had one for the slipper. Thelma showed me how. I only know one way to show you.

I start with each step. I just hope your friend can follow the directions. They go fast. 1 3 1/2 oz of yarn will make a pair. They sell real fast at x-mas time. You can make a pair in an evening and more if you’re fast. They get $5.00$ a pair….

What I do to cheap acrylic yarn is a transformation in the opposite direction. Knitting builds up form. I take acrylic yarn and attack until it is broken down into thin synthetic fibers. This is time consuming.

What am I looking at?

Upper left hand corner: Acrylic yarn.
Upper right hand corner: Acrylic yarn that has been tethered to something and then brushed with a wire pet brush until it gives up hope. After this step comes using a flat-iron for hair set at 140.
Lower left hand corner: the yarn fuzz after ironing, being cut free, lined up, and attached at one end with glue to create hair wefts.
Lower right hand corner: building a wig from this insanity.

What doll is that and when did you make it?

Oh, yeah, I’ve been away from the blog. This is where I show you some of what I’ve been working on.

Googling tells me this Monster High doll is Twyla. She is a freshman student at Monster High and is a boogeyman, daughter of the Boogey Man, she lives in the Boogey Mansion. This specific Twyla is the “Coffin Bean” coffee shop release.

But to me, she’s one of the many used dolls I bought off a girl in America using a charity shop go-between.

Let’s check out what I did with her.

She’s loosely inspired by the aesthetics of Disney’s Haunted mansion.

I used the Rococo Hime Lolita dress pattern to create this outfit. If you’re thinking of using easy fraying fabric like I did….don’t. headaches.

I sanded off the “spirit swirls” or whatnot on her legs and used chalk pastels and acrylic to create a bat motif.

I created this wig with exhausted acrylic fiber, a syrofoam egg, a homemade wigcap, and a handful of things from the 100¥ shop.

Then it was time to repaint her face.

I repainted her shoes and added accents. Again, solid nod to 100¥ shops.

And finally, some earrings:

As for me, tonight I’ll be brushing, brushing, and brushing yarn and slowly creating wefts…allowing the feelings to come and they must…and focusing on what is really a low-stakes unessential and beautifully absurd addition to the strange world of things I make.

Stefon.

Because…this world has EVERYTHING.

Disney, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Inner Monster.

The most awesome doll in the doll haul from the American consignment shop:

MONSTER HIGH INNER MONSTER SHIVERING SAD, EEK EXCITED, & HAUNTINGLY HAPPY DELUXE PACK

So great. So great. Mine was without a box but I don’t care about boxes. I had everything but the notebook/diary. I don’t need that diary. I have this here blog.

Oh, and mine had one other issue.

A head detached from her body. I had yet to really understand how awesome she was. But her head alone had an exposed brain that, when pressed, changed her eye colors.

With much rattling and tweezers I finally got the broken neck-part out of her head. This allowed me to figure out how the neck and head were supposed to attach.

Oh, did I not mention that her body plates come off to expose her SPINE and such? When I bought the lot I DIDN’T KNOW. Even when I got it I hadn’t googled for more info. I only figured it out when I saw how the seams of the body moved a bit when I manipulated the head.

I opened her up!

I then drilled a screw partway into her neck and used Apoxie Sculpt to make a new head node.

Here’s the copy for this amazing product in bold.

Monsters have feelings too!

Yes, we do.

And now they can express their monster moods – or yours!

Awesome! I am a sucker for toys and stories about how our emotions are a natural part of who we are…thus my Inside Out love.

This Monster High ghoul has creepy cool transformative features and killer ways of emoting!

Me too!

With three of options, this monster can run the gamut of emotions from Shivering Sad to Eek Excited to Hauntingly Happy.

I have more emotions than that. That’s not technically running the gamut.

Fun fact about “Eek Excited.” I will respond to Eek. If I see it typed out I will identify with it as possibly meaning me. This comes from my misspent youth being a 14 year old with a 2400 baud modem who learned about local chat lines. I quickly chose the handle Eclipse and from ages 14-19 that was generally shortened to Eek.

Press on her scary cool neon brain to change the look in her eyes – the eye-changing feature even works with the wig on!

Three different eyes!

Swap out the three faceplates to change her facial expression from gore-geous to gaga.

This is something I’ve wanted with a MH doll AND IN LIFE. Extra faces.

This is another thing that dates back to my childhood love of the Oz books and the brief appearance of Princess Langwidere.

“Langwidere is a different person every time I see her. For the only way her maids and subjects can recognize her at all is by means of a pretty little key made out of solid ruby; which she always wears on a dainty chain attached to her left wrist. So when we see the key we know we are beholding the Princess.” ―Ozma of Oz (1907)

That key was to her hall of HEADS.

Back to dolls.

Plug emoticons (emotion-based peggable pieces) into her inner skeleton to make a literal statement and get even more “in touch” with your emotions.

Ok. So you can put a clear chest plate on her and see her spine/pelvis AND put little mood pegs into that skeleton.

I’m just keeping the thunderstorm in her pelvis. I feel it. There are three more places to plug in emotions on the rib cage. All extra emotions can be stored in her purse. I generally done have emotions in my purse but I usually carry around emergency nuts in case my blood sugar drops and I get Radically Raged.

And of course, fabulous feeling fashions and clawesome corresponding accessories can match the mood on the outside.

Clawed omelette is what my autocorrect made of Clawesome.

Throw on the enchanting wings, the creepy cool genie tail or both! Choose a hair-raising purple ponytail or a colorful wig. Swap the chest plates and the fashions to complete the look. When the right mood is captured, record the monster’s story in the fill-in-the-blank diary to take personalization to new scary heights.

Ok. The creepy cool genie tail. I had questions.

In the pictures of the lot I was going to get I kept wondering, “What is that hungry penis plant thing? Will it make more sense when it arrives? ”

It DIDN’T.

Turns out, that’s for her Eek Excited look. You pull out her legs and shove her pelvis in that. That’s ok and not disturbing at all! Probably less disturbing than the uncanny valley that Will Smith often inhabits in the live action Aladin.

This video from Surprise Egg and Toy Collector on You Tube shows each of the three looks.

Eek Excited:

The whole video goes over every aspect I mention in better detail and each of the looks It’s late and I’d rather not set up to take photos.

The set includes one full doll with eye-changing/brain feature, three interchangeable face plates, two peggable/interchangeable skeletons, one additional chest plate, three monsterrific accessories (wings, tail, furry peplum), multiple inner emotion-based pieces (that snap into the doll), two over-the-top fashions, one pair of shoes, doll stand, brush and fill-in-the-blank diary. It’s a brand new way to play! Collect other dolls and expansion Add-On Packs for even more frightful options (sold separately). Ages 6 and older.

I would have gone insane for monster high dolls if they’d launched at the right time of my childhood…or in my childhood AT ALL.

I’m not changing this one.

She’s currently wearing another doll’s outfit and being a Sad rocker.

And doing Sadness a great concern.

But, most things do Sadness a great concern. It’s her thing, really.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, Uncategorized

Feeling sad for my dolls?

“Is it weird that I feel kind of sad for the characters that the dolls originally started out as?”

This question was asked by my friend Doug when I posted a picture of a Kaoru in progress.

First, you get to feel what you feel.

We all go through enough stress that we don’t need to be negatively judging our feelings if they aren’t causing us (or others) emotional or physical duress. Feel Away!

It’s natural to have feelings about what I’m doing to dolls.

Dolls are powerful. They contain emotional resonance. Dolls are small representations of humans with a long, varied history. They’ve been used for rituals (magic/religious) since we’ve been able to create them. They range from high art objects to rudimentary crafts. The dolls (or action figures) we played with as children are no different, we imbued them with a wide range of emotions and tasks in our creative play.

Some of my friends have pediophobia, a fear of dolls, and which is also due to the power of how human representation in dolls affects us….not that any of those friends are following this blog.

How Doug feels about the characters I’m changing might also have something to do with how I know Doug. We met at American based Anime conventions in the late 90’s. I don’t think it’s any fluke that the character face that finally made him ask this was quintessentially Japanese/Anime-like.   I don’t know who the head I’m transforming into Kaoru is. I have no clue if it was any character from a particular series or just a cute head. I bought it as a head in a bag….no context…but Doug has identified the base anime characters I’ve picked up before for transformations. He probably has more emotional connection to them by knowing them as anime/manga characters and knowing what their backstory is, wherein I’m just picking them as blanks to make them into a character or an idea that resonates with me.

I also know nothing about Ever After High dolls or Monster High Dolls. I look into the characters once I have a doll, but it doesn’t influence their transformation.

Now, as for if I feel remorse for the original dolls I’m working on.

Easy answer: No.

I’ve long been fascinated with doll mutilation, HI BARBIE!

My Freshman or Sophomore year of art school we had to bring in a collection of a certain type of objects for one of my art classes. I chose mutilated barbies. It was easy. I know girls and boys are rough on Barbies. I asked my high school friends if they could provide me with naturally child-mutilated Barbies and I quickly had a pile of gnawed/melted/broken bodies and a few shorn heads.

Shout out to my Sophomore year roommate, Tor Imsland, who often had to endure these things all around the apartment, sometimes opening the bathroom door to find them floating in the bathtub.

I also read up on Barbie and followed up on Barbie related artists (many of whom mutilate Barbies and deal with the psychology of how we react to dolls in peril).  The idea of working with damaged dolls has never emotionally bothered me.

Additional answer:  No, because I don’t mess with dolls I’m emotionally attached to.

If I get a vibe from a doll that it’s fine the way it is, I don’t mess with it. I love the sculpt of the Baby Moana from the Disney Animators dolls. It also reminds me a little of my friend Ebony. When I got one in great shape I knew I’d make some outfits for it and enjoy it as it is. I’ve since received a messier Moana baby but I’ll probably just transform it into a cuter Moana.

More Answer:

I think of myself as making dolls better..which also is a testament to emotional attachment.

The first used Groove/Pullip/Dal I bought was a combination of “Hmmm, what are these dolls about” and “OMFG what did they DO to you poor doll? I’ll make it better”

I love a baggie doll. I’ve learned to have boundaries about how much work to put into dinged-up humans if I’m not getting anything from that relationship. With dolls I get SOMETHING, some change, from the work I put in.

Let’s look at two dolls to illustrate how my emotions fluctuate from doll to doll.

For my birthday, Ebony gave me two baggie dolls.

I love that my friend went into Dollyteria, not quite knowing what she was looking for but knowing I like dolls in baggies and that I need more dolls of color. She came to me with these two My Scene dolls.

My Scene: Madison and Hudson.

TADA.

My Scene “Hudson”…I do not have ANY emotional attachment to him. I think he looks like a douche.

So, within a day I was sending Ebony pictures like this, to let her know I was getting THE MOST out of Hudson….my way.

Yup, cutting his hands of to try and get more articulation. Removing his insane hair. I’ve sawed off parts of his feet to sculpt him new ones.

This is how I will make Hudson a better man.

Hopefully, this man:

Katya Zamolodchikova

As for My Scene Madison?

Far gentler treatment in how I handle her and present her. I’ll saw off Hudson’s flat feet in a hot instant and show you the pictures. If I sawed of a doll of color’s feet I probably wouldn’t show the process of it until those feet were right again.

BECAUSE DOLLS AND IMAGES HAVE POWER.

No one needs disembodied Black heads on their feeds. No one needs to see hand-less Black Dolls. Maybe someday dolls of color will be as mass produced as white/white passing dolls (Licca) and those images won’t resonate but we’re not at that point.

But Madison isn’t getting sawed.

She’s going to chill on the shelf until I’ve worked up the nerve to try and turn her into a woman I DON’T WANT TO FAIL in making. There will be no naked object photos of this process. Too much feelings there.

Legit scared about falling short on this but know I won’t get better at dolls of color if I don’t try.

Finally:

It’s ok to have your feelings about my dolls, or your dolls, or your action figures. It’s natural to shift between seeing them as dolls/humans/personalities/totems/ritualistic objects.

They are ultimately your feelings to have.

craft, Disney, Doll, japanese, monster high, Social, Uncategorized

Updates: Continue moving forward

Job stress: Will I be under employed? Can I find a different job quickly? Will I get permanent residency? Should I just go with being underemployed and cram for JLPT N2 6 months earlier than planed?

These are the things that make me want to just nap all day. When I’m asleep, I can’t consciously worry. I’ve had a few days since learning about work that involved doing one or two things and then nap. Nap. Nap.

I know this is depression.

When I can craft, that’s a win. It means I’m not asleep all day. I’m working on my kanji and Japanese gramar studies daily as well. I’ve applied to various jobs and…if I don’t hear anything in 3 hours…will do more of that. I continue to teach dance and know I may need to increase that soon.

I’ve had an interveiw….but I haven’t heard back since.

Protip:
Always go early to interviews to make sure you can find the location. This is extra important when you travel by train and on foot. But you don’t want to officially arrive TOO early, that’s a bad look. Hopefully the offices will be located near a Donki Hote or similar store where you can relax a bit.

Of course, this is purely hypothetical.

In doll land, I am knitting Snow a sweater and have made her jeans. I don’t plan to keep her. I do plan to try and sell her and a few of the other Disney Animators dolls I’ve done. Knitting helps. Even when I have to frog a row, I concentrate.

I’ve been modding a random 200yen figure to make a “Pretty Pegasus Raven” to try what I think is a Japanese version of Apoxy Sculpt, Wave Epoxy Putty (light weight).

Yes, taking a handsaw to a doll’s hair was…theraputic.

She’ll get more putty layers before I’m finished.

Raven the average sized Ever After Doll continues as well. I’ve made her her cape, her arm/thingies and boots.

I sculpted some accessories and her belt from air-dry polymer clay..but they are still drying.

And that’s how I’m moving forward. There are three dolls on my balcony drying a new layer of Mr.Superclear. I’m reminding myself that I only awoke a few hours ago so I can’t possibly nap yet. I’m thinking about lunch.

craft, Disney, Doll, Uncategorized

Snowover it.

Ahh…my first week of relaxation and catching up on crafts, sort of.

Because of how the dispatch company I work at is set up, this year they pulled English assistants out of the public schools a record week before graduation, adding another week onto our unpaid downtime as part-time workers before our contracts begin again in mid-April.

So, I figured time would be abundant and I’d tackle crafts.

I’d also study for the JLPT N2 this year, something I’ve been doing daily since the new year begun but have been afraid to say anything about lest I jinx it.

I decided, last Tuesday, to just tackle another large Disney Animator doll from the BOX OF DOLLS. I picked one of the three Snow Whites I have.

I’ve long thought that Snow White wouldn’t be thrilled with the amount of Snow White merchandise that features apples: apple scented Snow White hand lotion, apple earrings, and so on. If I were Snow White I’d sure have some serious apple-related trauma to deal with. My idea was to keep Snow White herself, but update it to a Snow White who has been THROUGH her ordeals and come out the other side.

I think this is the 1st generation of the Snow White Disney Animator’s Dolls because she has the shortest hair, which was in keeping with the vague idea I had for her.

I pined her hair away, covered her body, and then removed all her makeup with 100% acetone. There were faint hints of where her lip color had been but I’d be giving her darker lips so it didn’t matter.

Then I sprayed three layers of Mr.SuperClear (MSC) UV Matte (allowing them each time to dry) and started with the first layer of chalk pastels.

Then, over the next day, I built up pastels/water color pencils and layers of MSC…feeling MUCH better about my grasp of eyebrow shapes and location but like I need to do some sketch studies of eyes before my next few dolls.

It’s at this point that friends on social media usualy remind me how deeply creepy these images are.

Then came the tattoos. I primed her chest with MSC and got my magnifying set-up out and started to free-hand. Some doll customizers use nail transfers to do doll tattoos but what I wanted to do wouldn’t be readily available in that form.

My friend Whitney has awesome tattoos and the idea of adapting Snow’s bird-buddies for chest tattoos draws heavily from Whitney’s real life ink. Whitney’s birds are more traditional but she has AMAZING Oz-related sleeves…and I have a poppy on my back and use Ozma as a stage name. We met way back in the day on LJ just because of Oz-related icons. More on her later…

This is the tattoo midway through.

As you can see, the sword and the apple are a visal riff on the Evil Queen’s heart box. You know the one she had handy to be all “Hey, huntsman, go kill Snow and THEN put her heart in this decorative heart-stabby box.”…except instead of a heart being stabbed it’s and apple because…well… DAMN APPLES.

Snow wouldn’t be the first person to have tattoos to commemorate what she’s survived. Nor…as I look at the face-up I gave snow…would she be the first person to gank make-up style from a problematic source.

More detail work.

This would be around Thursday, at which point I got an email from my company saying:

Hai!
Yeah.
So…. your next contract? It starts on your birthday. Yay. We’ve cut back your hours even though you were very specific. La la la la la. And we’ve put you in a school situation that you’ve specifically said “NO, Don’t. Nope.” to so there’s that. HAPPY WEEKEND.

Dramatic re-enactment of my reaction to this.

Sure, I was planning for this to be my last year with them. It’s part of why I’ve upped my Japanese study rate and desire to get N2 and eventually N1 certification…so I have more options. But ESCANDALO none the less.

I have since contacted my company with questions…and got a lovely email back that answered approximately 25% of my concerns/questions.

Luckily, my resumes are ALL up-to-date.

Saturday, after teaching dance classes, this is where Snow is. Her lips and eyes have been fixed and glossed. I found a 100¥ bandana print headband and reduced it to her proportions.

Here’s where she started and is now.

And….here is Snow and Whitney…because as soon as I posted Snow, Whitney was all “I love her but she stole my look.” In turn, I stole a picture of Whitney looking very Snow.

I’m currently knitting Snow her own yellow, wide, sweater. Tomorrow, as I take my train to my first job interview, I’ll be bringing my knitting needles to relax my nerves. I also have enough left over denim fabric from making tiny doll jeans to create some jeans for her.

I’m glad I have art supplies to ride out the stress.

craft, Doll, Uncategorized

Hair Meditation.

A common reaction to my arts and crafts is: “I wouldn’t have the patience”

I don’t. I am not a patient person.

I am a scattered mind with so many ideas and thoughts that teaching myself organizational skills has been essential to get anything done. When I am not hyper-focused I am easily distracted and have a hard time prioritizing tasks. When I am hyper-focused on something I need to do…great…but that is rarely the case.

I have anxiety and depression which creates powerful emotions that can derail my life if left unchecked. I require grounding on a regular basis.

Let’s look at what this has to do with craft. I’ll be using doll hair here but the same is true of sewing, knitting, beading, stitching individual sequins and more.

This is an EAH doll I’m turning into Teen Titans Go Raven.

This is a traditional reroot. I’ve hand mixed three colors of hair, cut them to length, and started the process. For each hole I’m wrapping about 10 strands of hair around a two pronged needle, holding them in place along the needle’s shaft with a finger, and plunging them into the head from the outside. Then I release the finger holding strands,twist the needle slightly, and remove the needle.

Later I will apply glue to the inside of the head to keep the plugs in place.

Let’s check out a yarn re-root.

Using acrylic yarn threaded through a wide-eyed and long needle, this process also starts outside the head. I push the needle into the head but then, unlike the previous re-rooting, push the needle until it emerges from the neck hole.

Pulling the needle out through the neck usually takes the use of a Leatherman or similar gripping/pulling tool.

Please excuse my fingers, these are the cuticles of my anxiety.

Once the yarn is in through the hair hole and out the neck hole and the hair is the general length I need, I knot it. I cut the yarn below the knot and pull the knot into the head by pulling on the hair above the hair hole. No need to glue later.

Once it’s all threaded and knotted and pulled it’s time for the pet brush, unless you’re using yarn to replicate locks or twists and want the yarn to remain as is.

You brush and brush and brush that yarn until it separates into fluffy strands (you’ll loose a LOT of fiber and some length, that’s ok). Below shows before and after brushing. If you were replicating locks/twists you’d fill fewer hair-holes (after doing the edges) to control the amount of hair mass.

Now what does this have to do with anxiety and my lack of patience?

For most of my lifetime this (and dance) was as close as I could get to a meditative state of mind clarity.

Anxiety and Depression cause feelings/emotions that are real. Your body reacts. You can feel your heart rate change. There’s a buzzing. There can be anger flares and tears. You can feel your chest deflate and your shoulder slump forward and the heaviness of everything. It’s not in your mind, it is your mind and body.

These emotions are Real.

They aren’t necessarily TRUE.

Without having ways to ground myself, these emotions take me to terrible places. If I feel worthless, I’ll internally dig into myself find a list reasons why I should feel worthless. I’ll justify that feeling and label it real. If I feel the buzzing of anxiety and search externally, I’ll find a million things to believe are the cause and set to “fixing them” as if that will lift the surging panic: I’ll rehash settled issues with friends and loved ones, hurting them and bringing no peace to any of us. I’ll spend 2 days thinking that I need to re-order my kitchen and it’ll bring me calm. I’ll fixate on the past. I’ll ignore boundaries. I’ll lash out, believing my rage is justified. I’ll be all reaction and no calm, rational, reflection.

I’ll spend my nights awake in self-torturing thought loops chasing each emotion until it is dawn.
When I’m doing detail work I’ll be able to do what I’m supposed to do in meditation.

Breathe
Note emotions, memories, thoughts and let them pass without action.
Calm myself.
Give myself permission to do one thing at a time.
Give myself permission to be quiet.

I am not patient. I am a complex emotional woman whose lack of patience and desire to do things RIGHT NOW when my emotions flare up who has found ways to calm herself and create in the process.

You don’t need to be patient to do these things. You just have to enjoy the process and what it brings you. If you don’t enjoy knitting, or sequins, or beads, or plunging needles into dolls heads (but enjoy the results when others do it)…it’s not because of any failing in your patience, it’s just it isn’t a process that suits you. That’s ok.

And to all my crafting friends…who, like me, know that crafting does have emotional highs and lows but who love it for what it brings you. I’m glad you have craft and it brings me joy when you share it.

-K

Do It Yourself: WFU

The dolls and art of a woman in Japan trying to be better.

Tag Archives: mental health