My struggle with self-portraits

I have struggled with self-portraits for as long as I have been drawing and painting. But why? While I was painting this self-portrait (finally one I don’t consider a failure!) I realized that my issue with self-portraits was not simply because “art is hard” but that my issue with self-portraits goes beyond art and is rooted much deeper.

I am so self-critical that it has distorted the way I see myself. In fact, I had to tell myself while painting to pretend that it was someone else and that it wasn’t actually me because if I didn’t dissociate myself from myself (does this even make sense?) I’d want to tweak my “flaws”. My “flaws” aren’t even flaws…they are just things I don’t like about myself in comparison to other people. I think this kind of goes along with popularized beauty standards. I hate to admit it. So, in my previous self-portraits I would try to change myself—my jawline, my forehead, my cheekbones, my nose, my lips, etc. and of course, in the end result, I’d never quite represent myself because I had altered myself.

Self-portraits are not about trying to look or be like someone else. Self-portraits are about accepting yourself as you are and portraying the real you, not the ideal you.

**As a  funny side note, once I finished this painting and went to take a photo of it, I realized I had been wearing my pants on backwards…

Art Therapy: the truth behind my paintings

In my previous post I wrote about being a long-time sufferer of Clinical Depression and one of my major outlets is through art. Along with the depression I also suffer from anxiety so with this combination I’ve got all sorts of negative thoughts and feelings. Keeping negativity bottled up is quite unhealthy which is why having an outlet to release this buildup of stress is so important. Art allows for me to take out my frustrations on a canvas rather than let my emotions antagonize me.It also lets me express emotions that have become so abstract that I don’t even know what they are anymore into something I can see and define. Art offers me clarity.

When my anxiety is really bad some days I get out my paints because painting is one of the few things that gives me solace. Painting distracts me and keeps my mind occupied while I transform my nervous energy into something colorful and beautiful.

This painting is called “Thoughts” and it is the embodiment of my anxiety (and I painted it during a time when I felt terribly anxious). It shows the bombardment of thoughts and the process of thinking too much about everything. It’s about thinking so much that you struggle to go to sleep. It’s about thinking about the things that you can’t control.

 

This painting is called “I died in a pool of colors” and it started with me imagining how I would die. I know what you’re thinking, yes, this suicidal imagery is strong with this one. It’s intentional. The red paint is supposed to look like blood/ the blood is supposed to look like paint. It is one of my fears that I’ll die by my own hand one day (that’s what scares me the most about my depression. It makes me turn against myself). So, I decided to run with this fear of mine and while I was painting the meaning of the painting began to change. Instead, this image is meant to show that I’ll always be creating art and I’ll never quit painting until I die. I wanted to show my passion.

What I really love about art therapy is that I can turn some of my darkest thoughts into my very own masterpieces and into meaningful works of art. It is truly a gift I like to share with others. It gives me a feeling of worth when I feel worthless. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. It gives pain a purpose.

 

Hold on for dear life

Every year around this time the pinwheels get planted in the ground on campus. I look forward to seeing the colorful pinwheels but not because they look pretty spinning in the wind. The purpose of these pinwheels is to raise awareness about suicide.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:

• suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States
• each year ~42,773 Americans commit suicide
• each day there are ~117 suicides

Of course, world-wide the number is much larger: approximately 800,000 suicides each year (The World Health Organization). It’s troubling, isn’t it? I’ve been wanting to write about mental health and suicide for years but I’ve kept quiet until now. Even as I write this, I am extremely anxious because there’s still a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness and people are bound to judge me. Oh well.

I’ve been dealing with Clinical Depression for years. My depressive symptoms started appearing as early as nine but I didn’t get a diagnosis until I was 13 years old. I’ve had my fair share of suicidal thoughts. I can’t stress enough how important it is to get help because I don’t think I’d be here if the depression had been left untreated. I really do mean this.

It hurts to think that there are others who have thought the same kind of thoughts as me—wanting the pain to go away, wanting to disappear, wanting to write their own ending. It hurts even more to know that these thoughts took someone’s last breath. I don’t want anyone to die this way. My heart goes out to those who have lost someone to suicide and  to all who have attempted or committed suicide.

If you’re in a bad mental state, it can be extremely difficult to admit that you need help or that there is something wrong with you. It’s okay if there’s something wrong with you as long as you realize it and give yourself a chance to live. I think we often underestimate our worth. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I’d never been born or if I was dead. When I look outside of myself, I can see clearly what a difference I’ve made in people’s lives. I try to keep my thoughts on the ways in which I can inspire others.

I haven’t considered suicide in years. I haven’t self-injured in years. I live a semblance of a “normal” life with medication and art therapy. I’m not ashamed of having mental illness but it’s something I’m not proud of either. It is just a part of my life and I’ve accepted that it is something I have to battle.

I hope this helps someone. Please know that you are not alone. We’re in this together and I hope we can make it through together. Stay strong and keep fighting!

Living with Hypothyroidism

Earlier this year, I got a blood test done and I came back with some irregular results. I had high cholesterol and my thyroid levels were low. This came as a shock to me because I’m only 22 and I thought that it was weird that I had issues that were more common in older people. Plus, I’ve always been a fairly clean eater and I thought it was bizarre that I had high cholesterol. So, I did a little bit of research to try to figure out what exactly was going on.

Hypothyroidism has a lot of symptoms and I had quite a few of them—extreme fatigue (all the time), brain fog, memory problems, shortness of breath, sometimes heart palpitations, cold hands and feet (cold like ice water), slow metabolism, and even some hair problems (I started to have dry and frizzy hair). Some of the symptoms I’d had for years like the weird coldness, memory problems, and extreme fatigue—since high school. I’d consistently complain about these things but I never knew what was wrong with me. I even wrote about these symptoms in my diaries and I thought there was something secretly killing me…and I was on to something.

The thyroid gland is a very important part of the body. It is shaped kind of like a butterfly and it produces certain hormones that contribute to your overall well-being. It was alarming to read how hypothyroidism can cause high cholesterol, blood pressure issues, and irregular heartbeat (slow or fluttering). It is linked to heart disease so it is pretty dangerous if left untreated. When the thyroid doesn’t produce enough hormones it is called hypothyroidism; however, if the thyroid produces too much it is called hyperthyroidism. Both have to be regulated. I now have to take medicine every day for the rest of my life since there isn’t a cure for hypothyroidism yet. The good news is that since I’ve been on medication my hormone levels are now normal and my symptoms have improved.

So, what caused my hypothyroidism? I don’t know. My mother doesn’t have thyroid issues and my father developed it much later in life. I can only guess that it is hereditary. I haven’t done anything to cause it. Sometimes children—even babies— have thyroid issues. If you share some of the symptoms that I had, be sure to get your thyroid checked!

What have I been doing?

For the past couple of weeks I’ve neglected writing about anything but I decided today I’d write just to catch up to what’s been going on in my life. So, here’s an update with lots of photos.

I recently took a week vacation to the Blue Ridge Mountains and experienced the sublime and breathtaking beauty of nature in which it’s easy to see God in everything. I stood on a mountaintop  where I saw five states (that is, states sharing the Blue Ridge Mountains). I found myself looking down the steep drop-offs and the curvy roads with no guardrails and imagining with one wrong move that I’d be tumbling over the edge and rolling toward death.

Other than reveling in the intimidating beauty of the landscape, I walked through a small art gallery housing various styles of artistic work. This inspired me to want to experiment more with my own artistic style. There was art on display there by an artist who was traveling all over the world because of his art career. That man’s got the life—a life I’m so far away from.

Since I’ve come back from the mountains, I’ve been dedicating my time to painting and drawing (I haven’t yet experimented with any new styles but I will eventually). I’ve finished some paintings and started new ones. I’ve also drawn a few of my celebrity crushes for good practice.

Art can be intimidating especially when you set high standards for yourself like I do. Realistic drawing and painting turns me into a perfectionist and I don’t just see the flaws in my own work but I also find them in myself. I look at other artists who are better and more successful than me and I start to feel myself shrink. Facing those mountains—those frighteningly beautiful giants—I realize how small I am in comparison. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, overshadowed, humbled. And yet, there’s this part of me that refuses to stop climbing and trying. I cannot compete with mountains but I want to be great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the love of reading!

I wasn’t much of a reader when I was a kid. While most children were reading various Harry Potter books and other popular chapter books, I was being tutored to improve my reading skills. I read at a slower pace than most of my peers and I guess it was enough for me to be taken out of class to go practice reading in another room. I remember feeling self-conscious whenever I was pulled out of class and separated from the other children. I don’t know if they noticed or gave it much thought at the time but I always felt like they must have thought I was stupid because I needed extra help. I hated the tutoring sessions. Reading was like a chore to me and I was aware I wasn’t good at it, and it didn’t help that I  found it annoying that my tutor would snap her fingers at me and tell me to read faster while I was reading aloud. I’d have to start over from the beginning and if I didn’t read fast enough I’d get snapped at again.

I think I was about nine or ten years old when I decided I wanted to be “smarter” so I took it into my own hands to improve my brain by growing my vocabulary. I’d lock myself in my room, start flipping through a dictionary, and then I’d write down words I thought were interesting. I think vocabulary building truly helped me accelerate my learning. By the time I was about 13 years old, I decided that most of my reading material would be classical literature because it would challenge me. I’d purposefully read books that were beyond the reading level in school because it would make reading everything else much easier. My self-disciplined reading practices proved to be productive. I’m now a strong reader and reading is something I enjoy and do quite often.

There are some people who say that reading is boring. I’ll admit that reading for school isn’t necessarily exciting but sometimes it can be rewarding.  It was the reading assignments for school that introduced me to my favorite Romantic poet John Keats (I’ve been obsessed with him for years now). I think in order to enjoy reading you have to read for your own amusement. There are plenty of books to choose from. Other than the classics, I’ve read a few vampire books, ghost stories, and lots of children’s books (even the ones with pictures).

There’s always something to gain from reading: a new perspective, a favorite character, a meaningful message. When I open up a book and begin reading I can almost hear the voice of its writer speaking to me—whether the writer is far away or has been dead for a long time—the voice of the writer’s thoughts carries an echo that breaks the barrier of time and distance. I like to think of books as more than bound pages filled with words. Books are like portals that can take us anywhere—to places far away, to places that are no longer here, and to places that exist only in the realm of imagination.

 A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.–Plato

 

 

Sight/Insight

When I open my eyes in the morning I immediately reach for my glasses. I am like Velma from Scooby-Doo “Jinkies! I can’t see without my glasses!” because without my glasses and contacts the world is extremely distorted and blurry. I’m reminded of a funny story about my poor vision. My friend was on vacation with me a few years ago and I wasn’t wearing my glasses because we were getting ready to go to sleep. The bedside lamp was still on but I couldn’t tell whether my friend’s eyes were open or closed so I walked over to her and peered into her face. I was probably inches away from her when I asked her if she was asleep only to find out that her eyes were wide open and staring right back at me! Sorry, KiKi, that must have been awkward. This just shows how extremely nearsighted I am.

I am reminded every day when I put on my glasses how precious the sense of sight is. I think a lot about what it would be like to be completely blind. A few months ago I experienced a terrifying visual disruption known as “scintillating scotoma” which is basically a painless migraine. I had no idea what was going on at the time. I was seeing flashing zigzags and I completely lost my peripheral vision as a shadow passed over my eyes. It continued for about 30 minutes and I seriously thought I was all of a sudden going blind. And then the dark storm clouds parted from my vision and I could see clearly again.

Even though my eyesight isn’t perfect 20-20 I cherish it and losing my sight would be devastating to me since I spend so much time using my eyes especially to write and to make art. I would miss seeing so much: people’s faces, stars, sunsets, flowers, and photographs…everything. Whenever I see blind people make their way around the populated sidewalks and streets on campus using just their cane and their other senses, it is nothing short of amazing to me and I wonder if they can sense me staring in awe of them. I can barely walk around in the dark without stumbling over something or running into a wall! Blind people make it look so easy.

It is one thing to be deprived of the sense of sight but there is another kind of blindness. This other blindness is the condition of being ungrateful. It happens so often and we just don’t appreciate enough.

What if we lived every day looking around us as if we were seeing everything for the first time? If we did this I don’t think we would take things for granted as much as we do.

My Standard of Beauty

Every day I wipe away the makeup, put on my glasses, tie my hair into a messy bun, and ditch the girly clothes for either pajamas or a t-shirt and basketball shorts. This is the “other me”. I notice that I get treated differently when I look pretty. People hold doors open for me, I get smiles and compliments, and everyone just seems to be friendlier. But when I walk around as the other me, no one bats an eye. I’m not a person who needs a lot of care and attention but this observation about how people treat other people based on looks gets under my skin. It bothers me.

It bothers me that we live in an increasingly superficial world of tanning beds and boob jobs and all kinds of emerging trends. It is one thing to care about how you look but being obsessed with looks and the standards of what is beautiful is toxic especially when that shallowness becomes overbearing and affects how we value people. I am reminded of the common comment “You don’t have a boyfriend? But you’re so pretty!” I don’t want to be liked for simply looking pretty.

I remember when I was in elementary school I heard another child say that I was ugly. Who said it does not matter but what matters is that the idea got planted in my little brain and I believed it. I believed I was ugly. You’ve all heard of the story The Ugly Duckling, right? When I was younger I believed so much that I was the ugly duckling that I actually prayed to God that He would transform me into a beautiful swan when I got older. When you’re a little girl (at least in my case) you realize early that you want to be pretty like the Disney princesses and your Barbie dolls. I laugh at the image of Barbie because the last one I found from my childhood had gotten half of its plastic face gnawed off by a rat. Not pretty by Barbie standards, but I liked her just as much and kept her as a souvenir during my teenage years. I valued that doll for more than just her looks.

I sometimes imagine that one day I might become severely disfigured like that Barbie and I wonder if people would still like me just as much. I think there would be many people who would discard me or never look at me again but I also think there would be some who would truly appreciate me for me. As a person, I strive to be pretty and that’s different from trying to look pretty. Being pretty is what you are in your mind, heart, and soul—and this is the beauty you share with others.

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” –1 Peter 3:3-4

I realize now that my silly ugly duckling prayer I prayed as a child was actually more serious than I thought. It was a prayer that was granted. I am thankful that I know now that beauty has less to do with looking pretty and more about being pretty.

The Fragility of Life and the Limits of Time

Life can easily be taken away from you. It doesn’t matter who you are–rich, famous, or powerful–the life you live is not forever and your time here is only temporary. If you acknowledge this transience you’ll never waste a day of your life and you’ll realize the importance of every single day.

I keep a little case of dead butterflies in my room. I have kept them for years and they have stayed preserved and in the same form as the day I found them. They have not decayed under the glass but they have become dry like paper since life no longer fills their wings. Butterflies, I think, best represent the ephemeral quality of life and yet whenever I see them flutter around I feel happy because they seem so happy. I wonder if they know the shortness of life or if life for them is like an eternity. I think that the saddest part of living is that we often take it for granted while we are alive. We have this expectation that tomorrow will always come…but there will be one day when we won’t have a tomorrow. The question is when–on what day, at what hour, and how old will you be when that time comes?

Life is that precious gift that comes packaged with a heartbeat and many breaths but it is much more than this. Life is something that grows. Everyday we fill it with something new. New memories, new dreams, new friends. No one will ever have a life quite like yours; from start to finish your life is intricate and unique.

I think about my life often and in consequence I also think a lot about death. I admit that it is a strange thing to acknowledge as a living person that one day I will not be here anymore. Honestly, what I worry about the most is that my life will be cut short and that I won’t have to time to share all that I wish to share with everyone. I let this life/death anxiety fuel me but at the same time I don’t worry too much because there is a thought that comforts me. As we live, we leaves traces of ourselves everywhere and most of the time we aren’t even aware of it. These pieces of ourselves we leave behind are more than just tangible evidence like photographs and writings; the part of ourselves that continues  is our essence–or how we make people feel. It is the mark we have made and it means more than just saying so-and-so was here.

 

 

 

On being an old soul

Sometimes I feel the nostalgia of a life I never lived, of a time I was not part of…I have felt for a while that I do not feel like I fit in with the time I live in. As time wears on I feel more disconnected… I relate less to my peers and more to people who are older than me. That’s an understatement actually. I feel like I get along better with dead people but maybe that’s because they don’t talk back to me. I enjoy reading about the people who lived in this world before I was even born.

I can remember being drawn to the Georgian and Victorian eras when I was 13 and I was in love with everything Jane Austen. I find this these time periods to be particularly interesting and in my daydreams I often imagine myself traveling back to the 1800s. I especially would like to wear the fancy gowns and go to balls and join in their dances.

As a woman of the future I must say that I am thankful for so many things that 21^st century offers as far as advancements in technology and medical knowledge but if it hadn’t been for the people who lived before us we would have never gotten to where we are now. In my time-traveling dreams, I imagine myself showing up in my modern clothes and alarming the Victorians with my presence while going around telling people all about cures for diseases and showing them modern technology. I imagine it going two different ways: they either love it or hate it. I am either deemed the cool girl from the future or I get myself locked away in an asylum.

Even though I am in my early twenties, I have felt for a while that I act like an old woman. I haven’t really even started living my life yet, but it still seems that I have lived for a very long time. Sometimes I will say things and my own words of wisdom will surprise me. Being an old soul carries a sense of loneliness so it is refreshing to discover there are other people out there who feel a little bit lost in this current time.