I will encourage you to get back into art. That, too, is something I did as a child and you may find a way to connect. I walked away from art for at least 10 years because I let the corporate world shut it down. It might take a few false starts but it is an excellent tool for healing.
The last portraitat and still life i did was in 2001 so its been 14 yrs for me. I used to be able to sorta focus one emotion or a few and draw that emotion and the viewer could always see that emotion, especially in the eyes of my subject however now my brain spins with 10 million things like a race track, i cant quiet my mind down enough to do anything good. Ive tried many times and just get frustrated and throw everything. Only thing i was able to draw was a cartoon of some blue bird from a movie, but was teaching someone that has a slight retardation (shes in her 40s but has a mind of about a 10 or 12 yr old) and she cant draw but has very low self esteem and since i am an artist i told her id help and though her drawings look like a 3 yr old did it i always tell her they are good, i was tryong to show her about shading and that came out good but i was teaching so thats probably why, i wasnt thinking, it wasnt quiet, i was teaching. Anyway, i will keep trying.
Ive always known that I had different identities that came out at different times of the day, I was SOOOO scared to tell my therapist as in addition sometimes, completely out of the blue I will hear what sounds like a crowded lunch room that hets louder and louder until I want to tear my head off and I was terrified I had DID. He doesnt think I do. When I was growing up, I gave names to different "identities"; Allie was the prostitute, Brandy was the one that was forced to drain the blood of small animals, she was the one cut down there and hurt with chemicals and the one forced to have sex with men after men after men. Oddly it was me, just me that my step father had "gental sex" with and oddly i longed for that, felt loved and safe. My therapist states it was my was to disassociate, its not happening to me, its happening to them tho i do disassociate to my own made up world too. Though I still have different indentities that come out at different parts of the day, as an adult, they dont have names, i know they are there, and they dont "take over", im always aware and I think thats why he says its not DID, its actually more PTSD per the sourcebook he had me buy. I just realized that loud 'crowed lunch room" noise hasnt happened in some time, months...so maybe that means im getting better? Also when i started therapy, emotions were all a jumbled up ball, im feeling them seperate but i still vant pick one out, ID it and let it pass through me but they are seperating. I also see these "identities" more like emotions, the day time is the push down supressing everything, massive anxiety but at night is the fear, hurt, pain, terror, sadness, lonliness and thats the little girl.
