@Ybother 

Hello Artist,

It sounds to me as though, through that experience, that you seem to be now, almost hyper-critical of yourself, your work and artistry, and extending to things that impose themselves into your life, directly and indirectly.

I notice what you are saying; that your responses seem to be non-consistent, in that “a totally randomly assigned feeling attached with it” when you look at the same or similar events compared to each other.

I like your analogy with regard to “the dog”; wanting to deal  with the dog one day, and wanting the dog the next.

Being trapped between the life that you want, as the soft, gentle, nurturing person that you see yourself as having been, and the life, that you feel has been imposed on you, and causes you to be fearful of again being the way that you remember yourself . You feel that to trust now could lead to you to being hurt again.

So even those awesome moments are not only irregular, but generally rarely experienced now. “I can count on one hand the amount of times I actually liked being in my body”

During the first ~thirty odd years, did you generally feel safe?

Would you tell me a little more about the pleasant time that you recollect when you were “with the girls at beauty school, …..”, with and from whom you felt such warm acceptance.

I also am hearing you about the “extremely high expectations.” And the resulting self judgement and feelings of being “unworthy and useless...”

The detail in your art work, the light and shadow, shading and direction of lines for the effect that you have used in composition of the subject on the ball against the wall and the hand. This all reflects your desire, to have what you present, meet those high expectations to which you refer.

I think that your own self critiquing of your art work is something that I understand all really good artists do.

Artist, what I talk about with you is from a non-professional perspective. Any thoughts or suggestions that I offer, are from my own life experience.

I think that I am, probably, a little like you, and would refer to myself as being fastidious with regard to grammar, and particularly meaning, in my writing. Unfortunately, I am not as able, in that regard, as I would like to be.

With Support and Best Wishes

HenryX