Author Archives: Natasha Shapiro, ATR-BC, LCAT

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Push the arrow to hit play if you only see white: then the video begins:

I realized while making TikTok videos that it might work out well to try writing my book through TikTok and bypass all the impossibilities of having my kind of ADHD and writing a whole book from start to finish.

Now that “we’ve” begun the process, it makes sense in that the book comes to life and can be a conversation about everything in The Art Box. The chapters are tiny and I arbitrarily pick different doll creature puppets to put in the video and can make videos about the process itself and not worry about being boring.

Also it’s hard to find your voice with ADHD and I finally realized my voice is many different voices or rather my voice out loud which I actually don’t like but having lots of different parts of me “do” the book. TikTok format is perfect for bringing a book to life literally!

Psychologytoday is a crappy magazine that simplifies everything by having the answers to everything; the newest way to de with trauma. What makes a healthy relationship. Like self help books.

The most helpful thing I’ve found for clients to learn about what they’re grappling with is to find it out their way. No two people find things out the same way or look for the same answers. It’s common for clients I have to google narcissism and borderline personality disorder because a lot of them have been abused by people with those characteristics. Or symptoms. Whatever you want to call it. There’s a book called Walking on Eggshells about having relationships with different kinds of abusive people. I’ve been there. Afraid of calling someone who is supposed to be my best friend. Afraid of the next bad thing I’m told I’ve done and believe I’ve done.

I haven’t read the book but I’ve recommended it to some clients and it’s helped them. They also use it as a stepping stone to find articles and podcasts. Then they come back and process with me. I have discovered some traumas I haven’t read about or heard of except from clients’ experiences. Sleep trauma/abuse. When you’re partner comes home drunk and wakes you up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night and forces you to have a long emotional conversation for them when you’re half conscious. This person knows when you went to bed and how many hours left you have to sleep before you have to wake up and be really well rested. The person doesn’t care. They do it all the time. You’re unconscious and have not consented to being woken up and yelled at or forced into whatever your abuser wants from you. It’s part of why people take “so long” to get out of these relationships. Sleep is one of the most important things for mental health and functioning. Having your sleep interrupted on a regular basis causes you to barely have energy to deal with your day. It wears you down. When someone is unconscious and you purposefully wake them up for your constant crisis they are stealing from you your ability to live day to day like everyone else. There are all kinds of other aspects of trauma that aren’t in books. I discovered people who have had “noise trauma”. Growing up with a parent talking at them constantly and the tv being on in the background. I could explain it more.

It’s also having fights you’re told you started and that you’re manipulating the person so you feel guilty and talk to friends about what bad things you’ve done and they’re completely perplexed or they realize someone is fucking with you in one of the worst ways.

Anyway after one of my best friends killed herself I did the thing some people do where you try to figure it out; you want the answer and you don’t know how to get it but you obsess over it, read books. There’s Night Falls Fast by Kay Jameson, non fiction research book about suicide I never finished. Then I read a book by an older sister trying to find out why her sister she wasn’t close to killed herself. I don’t remember much of it but it was full of the research she’d done asking people close to her and experts.

I remember towards the end she talked to her sister’s therapist and he was torn over the fact that he’d never asked her one question. He was tied to his belief that if he’d asked her that question I guess she wouldn’t have killed herself. “What are you afraid of?” I’m sure he must have explained it and I could find the book and read that part. It seemed to make some sense for that situation but the book ends as all these quests end. There is no answer. I read a book called “Stay” during that time; I vaguely remember it was about the should I stay or should I go, but not the song, the question about sticking around despite wanting everything to stop and to get rid of the pain a final time. I can’t remember the book.

I’ve asked people what they’re afraid of. Sometimes the question was the right question to somehow open something up for the person. But a lot of the time the question is for people with anxiety and panic, not suicidal people. Sometimes people simply say they’re not afraid and explain what’s really going on for them. Maybe this question was only for that girl with that therapist. He didn’t sound like he thought it was The Question that cracks open things for everyone. Just her.

The first question in the article was, “Do you feel like yourself?” I didn’t read the article but I know from other sources of learning that asking people how they feel/felt about anything is like asking why. How do you feel about that is the cliché therapist question everyone thinks of. It’s even often annoying. Once in a while it’s appropriate but I learned from a lecture that this question can cause the client to feel like they have to give you, come up with a feeling and many don’t have an answer and think they’re supposed to. What was that like for you is a question that people can answer or say I’m not sure, as the answer could be anything. Many traumatized people don’t like having feelings and it’s a coping tool for them. When they’re ready to feel something it’s often from an exploration the therapist had no idea would open up a feeling. According to this therapist whom I agreed with about feelings questions said the best intervention is silence. Then later he said he’s told clients sometimes I talk too much so please tell me to stop talking when that happens. Both are true. Complete silence can be terrible in a session with a traumatized client as they feel alone and abandoned. Other times you know you need to shut up and listen.

There are some wrong questions like Why did you do that and others but most of the time you have to go with knowing your client and even knowing that every session will be different and you’re listening for something but you don’t know it until you’ve been told.

Everyone says the wrong thing sometimes or takes risks. A mother of two was deeply affected by Tuesday’s school shooting. I answered her experience. The best part of her day was her kids coming home from school. I said, “I know. It’s horrible and makes you want to follow your child everywhere all the time even though you can’t.” She knows I’m a mom. It isn’t the right thing to say to anyone in particular but for her it was and she said Yes, and continued. I didn’t plan that or think about it too hard but I did listen to my instincts. It wasn’t an impulsive intervention. It was the right one at that moment that validated her experience and helped her feel less alone with it.

Maybe a lot of times it’s simply to be with your client in their experience so they are not alone. When I had my child I went to therapy every week with her. She was an infant. The therapy was reassurance that I was a good mom. I needed a witness who wasn’t anyone else. It needed to be him. I started therapy with him when I was pregnant. Before I went to have my baby I saw a little porcelain egg with a turtle coming out of it. The next week he gave me one. Was it his or did he have another one? I don’t remember.

I have to write a proposal by May 22 for the residency I’m applying to at Marble House. If/when I do it, I will be choosing the Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary category. As you have to choose between them, mine will be Interdisciplinary. My understanding is that I will be using several kinds of media to make several related projects that all fold into each other and could end up as an installation.

The unique aspect of this is; I am doing puppetry, making my own puppets, from flat paintings to beings/dolls and then animating them in a “puppet show” on Tik Tok. As with old fashioned puppet shows I will be telling a story in very small short scenes. My media will be:

Art: Paintings and works on paper, ie. 2D “flat” images

Art: 3D: mixed media dolls and “creatures”, made from a variety of materials and up there the goal will be to focus on making huge dolls/beings around 4 feet and above maybe to my exact height and to use materials from the outdoors/environment mixed with art materials

Video: A series of Tik Tok videos that will go together and be a construction of a book I started writing but haven’t written. The writing will be to organize each Tik Tok to tell a tiny story or part of a story from the unwritten book, The Art Box, a memoir of my studios, a life in art, art materials, art therapy and art therapy interactions, and other exchanges and experiences in the studios. The focus will be on little items to put in the “Art Box”.

Installation: End goal would be to have an installation maybe both indoors and outdoors. Some of the finished dolls would be outdoors and the rest in an installation room where there would also be paintings/drawings that were used as puppets. I’m not sure how the Tik Toks could be shown. I’d like to have iPads on the walls playing Tik Toks with headphones attached or ideally figure out a way to have the Tik Toks be going on with the sound in the open but one at a time in some kind of loop, maybe random, maybe in order as the different parts of the book. I would like to have an Art Box in the room which would have my “art box” items from the project, maybe notes and drawings that were neither kept nor thrown out.

So that is I guess the description of it.

I need to write about my concept of puppetry and video and why I’m using Tik Toks. I thought of moving to just video, but I want to continue as I’ve been doing with my Tik Toks and figure out how to make a book out of Tik Toks. I’m going to write a “script”, with dolls talking about the project because the artist statement and other statement have to be written.

Then the photos/videos to submit would be Tik Toks about it, photos of dolls and paintings.

Ok. That actually doesn’t seem so chaotic except how to describe what The Art Box book that is now going to turn into vignettes is about and what is it. Next post. I have from tomorrow until Sunday 5/22 to put together my proposal.

What makes it fun and original is my take on puppetry and the idea of using Tik Tok as an art media, not videos of making art, but videos of art talking and my definition/concept of what makes a puppet a puppet, as well as turning a book into a Tik Tok puppet show. I’ll be painting and drawing, making 3D dolls, videoing after writing reflections. Maybe the writing can be part of it in some way. I’d like to write a small paragraph of a vignette and then do the Tik Tok how I do them now. I don’t write a script but if it goes wrong I discard it until it’s good enough and then post it.

Actually I really haven’t researched this topic about trademark or copyright infringement when you do this, so I wonder what the answer is:

Yesterday I was very excited to start brainstorming an application to this artist residency at Marble House up in Vermont for 2 weeks in the summer. I applied once before and got rejected.

I’ve been doing Tik Tok with my dolls since December 8! Trying to do one after work most days so around 5 a week.

What I’ve discovered in doing the Tik Toks. First of all, Tik Tok are not only made by “young people” and teenagers; however, the highest compliment in terms of following is getting a teenager following me. I’ve also been told by certain people’s friends directly that they love my Tok Toks, so that’s meaningful. I may not have a ton of followers, but people are watching them; my views range from 83 to around 400, average being between 150 and 200.

Yesterday I posted a bunch of Tik Toks in a row about the idea of applying for the artist residency. 5 videos and the views got up to 345 in the 5th one. It is very hard to figure out why randomly people view something I made 83 times or 345. I know like with blogging, the more often you post, the better.

Since I’m again trying a day count for food to keep up what I’ve been doing but raise the mindful eating and decrease the bad snacking and night candy/sweets eating, I am thinking of trying to blog daily “morning pages”; however a SMART goal would be to post on the blog 3 times a week, and/or post my Tik Tok videos here 5 days a week and write when I can. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic and Time Bound. I learned about them from a client who did them at their job. There is some other goal based strategy called the Pomodoro Technique, which I guess is a miniature of a SMART goal. WIth your goal, pick one task, set a 25 minute timer, take a 5 minute break. Every 4 pomodoros, take a 15-20 minute break.

I used to do this with writing and drawing, but it was 15 minutes daily. I found out about doing it in a more individualized way from the book, UnFuck Your Habitat, a way to clean your house that is the opposite of the Marie Condo method. She has you pick a task that you can complete or start, like clearing off a surface. Then you set a timer for 5, 10, 15 or more minutes and work on it. Then you have to set a break timer. I think she called it the 20/10, 20 minutes clean, 10 minutes off, but said you can do 5/10 or 45/15 or whatever. The point is what I’ve been touting to everyone including myself for years which is that the way to get tasks done is to set a timer and work on it. Exposure therapy. You pick the big thing you’re procrastinating and work on it 15-30 minutes a day with a timer. The idea is that procrastinating involves hiding from the Thing. If you have to look at it every day for 15 minutes, it loses its power over you. It definitely works because you focus on small successes. If you set a timer and do the task, where you get to doesn’t matter; what matters is putting in the time.

SMART goals broken into “pomodoros” really do work. I use it when I finally am forced to get my taxes done. It’s very useful for that because there are different things to do and I just make myself do something for 15-30 minutes.

Setting the timer is one of the most important things about this strategy because you hear the alarm go off and your brain is wired to that kind of thing. It’s the difference between seeing a notification and ignoring it vs. hearing an alarm go off telling you to get ready for bed. I think it’s some Pavlovian thing.

Anyway, I haven’t timed this post writing but yesterday you can see how inspired I was from the videos and last night before bed, my balloon got deflated and this negative voice took over and said, what a stupid idea, nobody takes your dolls seriously as art; they are childish and this idea for a residency is not worth following through with; it’s not real “important” art.

I will post the videos separately, starting with this one and then write more to get my ideas together. One idea I had is that since I can’t make a video about what my project is, I could write a short script of two dolls talking about the project.