I painted the beginning of this painting while inpatient at Aurora Las Encinas during arts and craft time. It is my first abstract piece. I was surprised to discover how creative I felt there, digging among old board games like Monopoly for collage material and working in child tempuras instead of my usual oils. I kept the piece of overworked construction paper through my stay, oddly proud of my first artistic effort in a year of multiple psychiatric hospitalizations. When I got out of the psych ward, I mod podged it to a canvas and added a border and purple feathers. I call it Inpatient, Forgive.
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17 Feb 2015
Art with Mental Health Detritus
I enjoy using pill bottles and Saphis casings as frames for my mixed media oil paintings. Stockpiling and creating from the detritus of my illness makes me feel as if I am doing something positive and healing. In so openly declaring my illness in visual art, owning it, I feel I am working towards destigmatization. These three paintings were created in the same series of recent work.
11 Feb 2015
Transitioning, One Day At a Time
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Jordan. In their first post with us, they talk about choosing whether or not to medically transition. Thanks for sharing with us, Jordan!
I’ve been anxious for as long as I can remember. As a child, social situations were nerve-wracking. As a teenager, I was already worried about getting into college, getting a job, and living independently. And as an adult, even with therapy and medication, anxiety continues to be a challenge that affects me daily.
So it’s no surprise that when I started to explore my gender identity, my anxiety kicked in full force.
05 Feb 2015
Full Disclosure: HIV, Bipolar and Insomnia….Not Easy but Necessary
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Stephen Puibello. In his first post with us, he talks about disclosing HIV, insomnia and bipolar status in romantic relationships. Thanks for sharing with us, Stephen!
Full disclosure; HIV, bipolar and insomnia, and why full disclosure is important, not just for the safety of transmission for the man you are with, but for your own anxieties around being a dual diagnosed HIV and bipolar, mental health consumer, as insomnia for me is extremely problematic. It has ruined two relationships as both partners didn’t understand the severity, all they noticed was I wasn’t in bed when they woke up, I know not the right men for me. Not easy, but necessary if you are to find Mr. right, he’s out there.
03 Feb 2015
Im So MAD
TW: suicidal thoughts, abuse
All of this could’ve been prevented. All I needed was my mother to support me, build up my self esteem, get me help for my eating disorder, be someone I could talk to. Instead she tore down what little self esteem I had bit by bit, contributed to my eating disorder, and was generally untrustworthy, unpredictable, and indecipherable.
01 Feb 2015
Call for submissions
This is a call for submissions for a proposed anthology entitled Headcase: LGBTQ Writers and Artists on Mental Health. We are particularly invested in making sure that we have a genuinely diverse array of writers and artists contributing; we want to include the voices of people of color, of youth and elders alike, of trans, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit people; people living with dis/abilities, low-income people, people whose intersectional identities are underrepresented in media.
19 Jan 2015
The beast in me
There is a beast in me, lying in wait to break through. When it does, it appears in the form of anger, frustration, fear, and anxiety. This beast likes to show up and the most inconvenient times.
08 Jan 2015
a little something…
See if i care, flat out, see if i care, if i care about you, if i care about this or that, and I’ll lie, hold my words at bay, smile outward, pain inward, and I put my heart on my sleeve and make my legs work, one step at a time and hold my head high, and eyes locked forward.
06 Jan 2015
Alone?
It’s been many years since I have been “alone”. Recently my wife decided she was no longer in love with me, as well as telling me she wanted off the Rhys roller coaster. I told her from the very beginning how I was and what to expect, I even went as far to tell her that she would not be able to handle me. Somehow she convinced me that she in fact would be and could handle me and all of my “crazy”. We got married, and a year and a half later she dropped the ‘I cannot live like this’ bomb. So that left me here, alone.
01 Jan 2015
Sensitive Soul
“You’re too sensitive.” ” You’re too emotional.” Two of the most common sentences I hear, that and “You’re too literal.” Yes I am sensitive, and I am emotional, and yes I am very literal. It’s who I am and how I am. I know if I could change that I would, but unfortunately it’s the nature of the beast that is me.