When art means creating light from absolute darkness

I've been in a grief induced depression fog all week. It will come and go as it pleases, and I'm coping the best I can. But it is really frustrating when I have so much to get done and my poor brain is too exhausted to stay focused.

I'm ok, and I will be ok.

If anything, this has helped me see just how far I have come since I started my emotional/mental healing journey in 2013.

I no longer have the deep swings into heavy depression that would last days and sometimes weeks, (and at first it was entire months). What I'm dealing with now is because of my Mom's recent diagnosis with Dementia. While I know I can't do a thing about it, I know the cause of my pain and that's enough to keep me grounded.

To grieve for the living is hard.

I am not new to this place, and perhaps that is why I am able to navigate it as well as I am. I could liken it to wandering around a pitch black room in my house at night. If I step slowly, feeling my way and relying on my memory of how it looked during the day, I can find my way without running in to too many things.

Distractions are important, and having my art and my art business to pour my hours and attention into really does help. But it is also equally important to set aside distraction and sit with my emotions. If I suppress them, they’ll multiply and rise up to choke me later. But if I sit with them and let them appear one by one, and name them, they will fade away.

My Distraction - Pencil Process for Ligeia, from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story by the same name. Beautiful and haunting, the story is as much an enigma as Ligeia herself. I was working on this piece back in March when I got the news of Mom’s official diagnosis.

I hate the ‘Artists are Tortured Souls’ trope.

It perpetuates the idea that in order to make beautiful things, we must suffer, and that simply is not true. However, many of us have found that we can take our pain and mold it into something beautiful. This is where my art becomes my therapy. It is a chance to express my soul without speaking or explaining myself to anyone. It’s hard work, and very exhausting. Somehow, at the end of it all I feel a bit lighter, as if I took the mental weight that was pulling me down and put it right into my art. I’ve often wondered if anyone can see it. From the responses I have received on my works, and from my own responses to works by other creatives who I know use their art as therapy like I do, I think there is a far greater magic happening here. We don’t just expel our darkness into our creations, we actively transform it in the process.

Artistic Alchemy is to take darkness and turn it into light.

This is not something only professional artists do, this is something all creatives do. Musicians, writers, children, anyone is capable of it, including you. I think most of us do it without even realizing it. That is quite remarkable.

2020 was a rough year, and 2021 is continuing the trend.

As long as I can recognize the cause of my strife, and I am getting much better at this, my emotional response feels validating instead of alienating. My life has gone through some big changes and that’s not likely to stop any time soon. I am learning to be more flexible. Schedule changes happen a lot, and while I get a little antsy over having my precious plans disrupted, (hello Asperger's), it's not causing full on meltdowns or shutdowns anymore.

The most important thing I've gotten out of this is probably learning the need for breaks and just stepping away from whatever I need to step away from. I don't always do it, but I understand the necessity of it and I am getting better at it.

I feel wobbly often, and my anxiety has been a real monster lately. Taking time to myself to just exist without expectation does not come easily to me, but I am finding that if I want my days to slow down, then I must slow down.

It sounds counter productive, but it is, in fact, paramount to my productivity that I just. Sit. Still.

I hope you are all doing ok. Some of us have been struggling for a long time, and some are a bit newer to it. No matter how old or how new your struggles are, they are valid. If you can take a break and be a little kinder to yourself, please do so.

— sAm