My art journal is my therapist

Life can be pretty overwhelming at times

 and we all go through rough patches,

 it is just extra tough when the bad times get drawn out

 and don't seem to have an end in sight. 

I am not really one for seeing a therapist and I don't think I could even find one that really suited me out here anyway. I don't tend to talk to friends or family too much either, just the surface of the matter really, and that is just how I am. I do however have somewhere that I can be as messy and emotional and demanding and unreasonable as I need to be in that moment and that is my art journal. 

Maybe that is why I have so many and why I fill them fairly quickly.

Of course they are not all angst filled pages, I take any emotion and use it to inspire my page and looking back through my journals I can clearly see the issues I was dealing with back then, and those that still follow me into the present. 

When I feel like I really need to get it all out I just write it all down, I can then chose to cover it all up or leave some out or leave it all out, I do have a lot of ways of getting it out and making it private so really no one else will ever be able to read the whole lot, but I can leave enough in the page so I can clearly see and feel the emotion or the release I was experiencing that day. 

These pages don't have to be pretty, they don't have to be anything. they are just for me to purge my head, sometimes the act of getting it all out turns into something bright and pretty and sometimes its just messy and that is all OK.

Do you vent in your journal?