Time has passed, I can talk about the abuse without retreating into that dark, shadowy world. The shame I felt as a child should never have been mine at all. I can now feel, and even label, the emotions that I had buried so deeply very long ago.

The inner child, for me the inner children, have become a conscious part of me. Though I never really understood the concept of how integration could happen, this seemingly impossible feat has occurred.

Recently, I felt a need to capture these children in some sort of art medium. The time seemed right to acknowlege them, to let them be "seen,' not just to myself, but to others as well. The natural place for me to do this is the place in which I felt safe as I worked through the pain of the abuse and trauma.

Therapy is an enlightening and painful experience, in a safe spot that for me was ever changing. The walls were often not even there, as certain memories came flooding back. As for those children, they often "hid" behind my chair.

This series of pictures depicts that time in my life. I finally discarded my ideas of watercolors or pencil drawings. The images in my head were too much a kaliedoscope of realism and the abstract. Recent and old photographs, combined with computer images that I created about four years ago during those painful times, and scanned drawings from that same period, gave me this perfect combination of art styles that allowed me to express this almost surrealistic time of my life.

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