I want to preface this piece by thanking Rachelle for two things: First, for her patience, because it’s taken me a long time to get to these, which leads to Second, for asking me to do this, because it opened something up inside of me and has led to new levels of understanding of myself, my life, and my writing. 

When I got the questions and had a fuller understanding of what Rachelle was doing with these interviews, I felt really challenged and called to become more open and honest about myself than I have ever been. I realized that I wanted and needed to start exposing my life in new ways so that people could see that the struggle that comes with mental conditions is difficult but worth it. I also want to help remove the stigma of these labels (even though I am a bit anti-label and don’t care to use them — they can still be helpful as a lens and to show us that we aren’t alone).

My label is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and you can read more about it here. If this seems to be you or someone you love, I highly recommend the work of Judith Herman, MD, and Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD, both of whom are true trailblazers. And now…on with the questions!

Q: How has dancing helped you break free from mental and emotional conditions that have hindered you?

One of the really difficult aspects of Complex-PTSD is emotional flashbacks. Our brains in these moments cannot differentiate between past and present. We are simply IN the past.  We are feeling it all again as if for the first time.

Dancing (or any challenging physical work) does not allow for anything but the present. When you are fully in your body, you are fully in your life and in the now. Period. So dancing can act as an anchor for me and as a reminder of who I really am — that I am not my injury (the preferred term for Complex PTSD).

Dancing also gets out the “goo,” as Marcy and I call it. It releases toxins and emotional residue from the physical body. The better I feel physically, the more I am able to deal with the mental stuff. When I am not dancing for a couple of days, I start to feel unreal and disconnected.

Q: When you aren’t feeling well, how do you approach dancing?

I do it anyway. Or I don’t and then I pay the price. So mostly, I do it anyway. And each time, if I am feeling especially bad, it feels like this brand new miracle, because that’s another symptom of Complex PTSD — an amnesia about people and things in our lives that are good and trustworthy. We can literally forget what is good for us. (There are physiological/neurological reasons for this that are too complicated for me to explain, but the brain is damaged by the chronic fear-inducing trauma — under-grown here, over-grown there.)

If I am having an extra hard time, I tell Marcy or even twitter (ha!) that I am going to dance so that I have outside accountability. It can be so bad that reaching to turn on the music feels like the most impossible task ever given to any single human being on this planet. Really. I know it sounds dramatic, but this is life with trauma.

I have danced enough now to know that no matter what I think in the moment, this is going to work. I have my “witness mind” evolved enough that I can at least see that. So I turn on the music and I stand there, slumped, thinking, “No F-ing way can I even lift my arm much less feel the joy that dance brings…”  I stand and I breathe and within moments I am flying and smiling and I am well into the healing process.

Q: As someone who returned to dance “late in the game” how do you talk to yourself about your body and you abilities? What do you do when the “compare game” raises it’s ugly head?

Though I still have a fair distance to go in my own mind when it comes to my body and my abilities, I am the most fit I have ever been in my life and that is just a fact that my perfectionist internal-nazi cannot avoid. In terms of the physical aspects of my dance, I am a creature of confidence. Which is strange (or not) because I do not have real confidence about anything else about myself BUT dance.

The place I get into trouble, though, is thinking about what could have been, so I just snap myself out of it by reminding myself that I believe very strongly that everything happens for a reason. SO there is a REASON that I left dance when I did and a reason that I came back to it when I did. I’m not completely clear on the reasons but I know they exist and this is one of those places where I try very hard to have a little faith and just keep moving forward.

That’s really super hard for me, though, don’t think otherwise.

Bonus Q: What are you up to these days and how do we find you? 

Marcy and I are going to spend more time writing about how we deal with this as a couple. There is not a lot out there for the partner’s of people with Complex-PTSD, specifically, and there is very little about how the couple can create mutual coping mechanisms. So we’ll try to stay really transparent about our process. That doesn’t mean Blisschick is turning into a Complex-PTSD site, per say, but it will be deeply embedded in my writing because that is how I work toward my bliss — by working through all of this.

There is lots and lots of great resource material available for free download on the Trauma Center’s site (this Center is where Bessel Van Der Kolk is located).

I am currently reading Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence–from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, and I recommend that along with Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden, an amazing work.

Finally, just a little personal note, I think that Kundalini Yoga, in particular out of all yoga (many, many forms of which I have studied for 15 years) is a truly powerful tool for working with Complex PTSD. I recommend any DVD done by Ana Brett and Ravi Singh (and to start, their older DVD, Kundalini Yoga – A Journey through the Chakras, is a great overview).

To read all the posts in this series click here. Stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative. Thanks for being here.

My Strange New Looking Bed and Nailed to the Wall Picture
David Sandum, 2001. Used by permission of the artist.

It was there I started to draw - in my room, alone and confused. Many therapists at the time asked if I took drugs, had an alcohol problem or any other addictions, saying that people with such strong anxiety and depression most often had them. They were always surprised to hear me answer no, but I just drew and painted, even if I didn’t see it clearly then. Yet now I realize I did something constructive with the depressive. Instead of a needle or a bottle, I picked up a pen and eventually the brush. So I am completely self-taught. Art has consumed me since this time, not just because I love art, but as I’ve literally have painted to stay alive, and in it, have found empathy. It’s as simple as that. People could never tell me in words what I went through. But I could see and understand it through Van Gogh’s and Munch’s expressive paintings. It was as if they said: “I know everything around you is chaos. But look at this, I felt the same way.” I have written about this extensively in my memoir  (in English). It took me ten years to complete and I hope to get it published someday.

Q: As a colorist, do you notice a shift in tones and color as your depression ebbs or intensifies? Are there particular works of yours that you think illustrate that for us?

I think it’s a myth that depressed artists always paint black or in earth tones, though that can certainly be the case. Just look at Van Gogh’s vibrant yellow and stars, Degas inspiring ballerinas, or Matisse’s decorative color schemes. They were all depressed major portions of their life, but I see their work mainly as uplifting, even though Van Gogh’s early period for example was dark and his portrayals and subject matters often conveyed troubled times. But their colors and subject matters were vibrant. They focused on the energy inside. This is my main philosophy in art, like Matisse said: “I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.” 

Depression Prayer
David Sandum, 2000 Used by permission.

I have certainly painted darker though, and my first few years I painted so dark people often said they wouldn’t be able to have my art on their wall. But now I wonder if that wasn’t just mental: that I just didn’t quite know how to paint yet and to keep my brush clean. Any true artist will know what I mean. But two of my very first paintings were expressive and colorful, and they will always be key to me.

The Law of the Jungle
David Sandum, 2000.

This vibrant and expressive painting was created late one winter’s night in the year 2000. One of my very first paintings, I painted by impulse. I had no idea what would evolve. But soon Darwin’s theory of natural selection came to mind: How the strong survive and the weak eventually become extinct–contemplating that the world is run by people who pressure others to destruction for their own gain (displayed by the evil man in profile to the left, about to crush and grab me with his claw). The “claw man” is trying to stab me; and in many aspects he represented the world as a whole.

Ironically, this painting now hangs in a law office. The lawyer who purchased it has told me it’s his dream to see it in a courtroom. 

Q: You recently spent some time in the deserts of the American southwest. People have long gone to the deserts for a cure – for asthma, rheumatism, etc. Did you experiencing a healing energy in the desert — in regards to depression, or in more general terms? How did this change in atmosphere effect your moods and your work?

I don’t think I have found the answer to this just yet (I returned home from the US last night), as I’m not the kind of artist who works entirely on site. Things need to linger in my mind, sometimes for months, and suddenly one day in my studio things will come together. But the strong impressions were definitely there throughout my trip to the deserts of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico: the peace, the silence, the beauty of the landscape. No cell phones or computers, just me and the earth. Navajo country, Bryce Canyon in Utah, Sedona in Arizona, and Ghost Ranch New Mexico, were all places of healing. I locked my door to my studio two months ago tired and weak, but have returned filled with thoughts, places, and colors etched in my head. I love the desert and I always will.

To read all the posts in this series click here. Stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative. Thanks for being here.

Living with Art and Bipolar Disorder with Abby

Q: Not to be all “Suzie Sunshine,” but sometimes a chronic condition can drive us into new working patterns that end up being positive for us. I think of this as turning something typically seen as a weakness into a superpower.  Is there any way in which having Bipolar Disorder has become a superpower for you creatively? Does it in anyway empower or enhance your creative self?

I’m (slowly for me) learning how to use my moods, emotions, energy levels, mind sets to allow me to get the most done. I know when I’m in the middle of the higher part of a cycle, I can accomplish a tremendous amount of creative work – most of my artwork and design is the result of me tapping into the energy of the high points. However, I’ve also learned that I can accomplish a lot of nothing too, which leaves me feeling uninspired and extra depressed when that up phase ends and the lower part of the cycle kicks in, because I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. (Which is kinda true.) Right now,  I’m working on recognizing up and down phases and then getting to work on what I know I can best accomplish during each phase that I can’t during the other. For example, I can come up with one or two web site designs in a day when in the middle of an up phase, but if I even try and sit down to code basic CSS or XHTML when up, I will have to fight with myself to focus. However, during a down phase, I actually benefit from “getting lost” in the hundreds of little steps involved in taking an image to the web. Like making sure I spelled “background-image” correctly.

It’s feels a bit like I’m a firehose for creative energy – some days I’m on full blast and other days you shake the hose and wonder if there’s a kink in it somewhere. Knowing where I am in that cycle allows me to focus on getting what I CAN get done, done. So I guess in some ways, it’s as if I was given this superpower that I am just learning to tap into, but that tends to fire off on it’s own. I have to learn how to control it when it fires off on it’s own, and slowly learn how to tap into it the rest of the time. I figure with time and practice, it will be more at will and less at random. ;)

Q: What tips and tricks have your figured out for working with your creative + Bipolar cycles? Do you have things you say to yourself at different stages? What helps you survive and even thrive creatively with Bipolar challenges on your plate?

To pay attention to myself! I ask myself almost constantly “Why do I feel this way?” Am I just having a really good day? Did something happen that has me feeling down? Or is this less situational and more cycle related? I give myself permission over and over and over to feel whatever it is I’m feeling, as long as I’m going to work out WHY I feel that way sooner than later. It’s important to me to know and understand what is going on inside my head and heart so I know when there is a real issue to work through and when I just need to find my headphones and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. At least until this phase passes.

Knowing what is going on inside also gives me some measure of control over a disorder I don’t have much control over. I may not be able to control how my brain and nervous system reacts tothe  day to day and to normal brain chemicals, but I can control how much I express those feelings. There is also a very real comfort in knowing that hey, I am NOT crazy, this just happens. It enables me to rise above it as much as I can, and keep going. So I guess I just ask WHY of myself a LOT, and then do my best to answer, as my primary way of surviving the constant changing of my emotional tides.

 What enables me to thrive is being able to view this disorder as not just a challenge, but a gift and tool. I have learned so much from having it, and am a much stronger person because of it. It also augments my love of art and helps me break outside of the box – something many people with Bipolar Disorder (and many mental disorders, actually) have an easier time doing. I apply that to my art in all of it’s forms, and also with how I deal with others. (Or I TRY at least!) For whatever reason, years of not being able to figure out what I was feeling helped me strongly identify and empathize with others. THAT is a gift I’d not trade for the world.

Q: What would you say to someone who has just been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder? What little nugget of info might carry them through the initial stages of learning to live with this particular chronic sidekick?

Journal, write, and give yourself permission to really feel and express how you feel during that time. And no censoring! (That’s important!) If you are angry, BE angry. Write angry. If you are soaring among the stars, then feel it, and write it. No one else has to read it, so it doesn’t matter how it reads. The important part is just that you get down what you are going through at the time, and what made you feel that way, if anything. Over time, you’ll start to see patterns, triggers, cycles, timing. And THAT is the best tool you can have in dealing with this disorder, after your medications (whatever they may be) and a good counselor. Actually, knowing your cycles and patterns will help your counseling/therapy progress. Knowing your patterns and triggers helps you maintain control over your life, even if you can’t control your disorder, or your mind set, intially. You’ll know what signs to look for that signal mania or depression, and you’ll know what to avoid to keep stable and when you are going to need a little help from friends and family.

Don’t let the disorder own or control your life – it doesn’t have to. And it does get easier. Like GI Joe says… knowing is half the battle. The better you know yourself, the easier living with Bipolar Disorder gets. Use the tools at your disposal, because that is what they are – tools.

Bonus Question: What have you got going on right now and how can we find you?

Oh my gosh, what DON’T I have going on? I’m in the middle of a minor identity crisis, so I’m playing with almost anything that comes my way, while learning to live productively and positively with this disorder. Even though I can remember feeling these cycles as a child, when you begin treatment and take control of your disorder, everything changes, including your sense of self. It’s incredibly freeing, but is it ever terrifying to not know who you are! So, I’m just going one day at a time trying to figure out who on earth I really am! And taking my own advice, I write about it a LOT at Life at the Poles. . And tweet about it almost just as much; I’m OririDraco on twitter. (I talk a lot though, you’ve been warned! ;)

Behind the Mic: Are you working with a chronic condition? How are you managing to live creatively with both your work and your illness? Please add to our Giant Pool Of Wisdom by commenting below. To read all the posts in this series click here; and stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative.

 Art Practicalities with Sarah Marie Lacy

 Q: How does art serve you in times of poor health? Does it inspire? Comfort? Companion?

Art definitely inspires me when I’m relapsing or ill. If I’m in a bad relapse, I’m usually too sick to make any art, and of course that’s frustrating. But it gives me something to focus on. It acts as a lifeline, something to hold onto when the seas get rough. It gives me something to look forward to – “When I get better, I can do this and this and this!” I can paint in my head, I can plan paintings, or I can ponder new directions I want to take and new skills I want to learn.

When the pain or the exhaustion is really bad, it allows me to look forward, into a future that’s much more pleasant.

I think art is literally how I stay sane. It gives my life purpose, and it gives my pain expression. I think that’s why my art isn’t necessarily about rainbows and sunshine. It’s about pain and hope, at the same time. For me, it’s about expressing the hurt, but it’s also about finding the light. What can I say? I’m a paradox. 

Q: How do you manage the ebb and flow of productive times, and rest/healing-up periods? How do you talk to yourself about success during these periods?

I actually find this the most difficult part of managing a chronic illness. My creativity is very cyclical. I’m learning to respect that, while slowly trying to change it.

My current creative rhythm is to be intensely creative for a month, and then have a month or two off. I’m working to steady that out, as it takes a lot out of me. I’d much rather have a few hours a day where I’m creative and then take time off, rather than be intensely creative for 6 hours a day, but then after a month, be completely brain dead and unable to even face my easel.

I’m also incredibly hard on myself, so in my down periods I’m not very good at talking to myself about success at all. I have a tendency to beat up on myself and compare myself to others who are creating more steadily.

I’m learning to cut myself some slack, but that’s a process too.

And sometimes your body just vetoes everything that you want to do, and you just gotta take a nap. Some days I’m okay with it, others it drives me nuts. Again, it’s something I’m learning to make peace with.

This part of my life is such a process. I’m a Type A personality, and having to stop and do nothing is always where my struggle lies.

Q.  It can be hard from someone with a chronic condition to 1) work enough to meet their monetary needs (ie pay the bills) and 2) rest enough to not have chronic-pain flare ups, and 3) do their creative work. How do you manage this challenge?

I actually have to give myself some credit here – I’ve managed to work this out really well for myself, but don’t ask me how. I think Lady Fortune was just smiling on me.

I currently manage 2 jobs on top of my art, but I don’t work more than 55 hours a month for other people. The rest of the month is my time. I do some freelance social media marketing for an arts company out of Texas and some freelance web development for a web designer in Colorado.

What I also did was move to one of the cheapest (and prettiest) places to live in Canada, so my basic expenses are really low. I’m also quite frugal – we don’t have a car, or cable or a cell phone. We also live in the downtown so we can walk to everything that we need.

So with the money I make, I can pay for all of the rent and bills, and my boyfriend pays for the groceries (he’s a student, so he isn’t making tons of money and we don’t want to run up unnecessary debt.)

What all this means is that most of my energy and most of my day is mine. It also means that all of my work can be done from my bed – I can be pretty sick, and still be able to make money to support us.

Like I said, I’m not sure how I got into this situation, but it works beautifully and allows for lots of nap time if I need it!

More importantly, none of the work takes creative energy from me, so I can dedicate it all to my art. I couldn’t ask for anything better. 

Behind the Mic: You can find Sarah’ work on her website, where you can sign up for her newsletter and find out when her new collection of notecards will be available. Live in PEI? Visit her work  in person at the Pilar Shephard Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. She’s also good company on Twitter , and has a backlog of live paintings recorded here at Ustream.  

Are you working with a chronic condition? How are you managing to live creatively with both your work and your illness? Please add to our Giant Pool Of  Wisdom by commenting below. Stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative. Thank you for being here today.

The Art Of Illness
by Kirsty M. Hall

Originally posted March 31, 2009. Re-posted by permission.

Since I’m currently in the midst of a Chronic Fatigue relapse, I thought I’d do a post about how to continue making art whilst managing an illness. I know it won’t apply to all of you but hopefully it will be useful to some.

Be Realistic
Firstly, it’s important to recognise that ALL artists have challenges in their life. Although it may seem incredibly unfair that you’re limited by your illness or disability, in reality ‘normal’ artists may be struggling just as much to make their art.

It’s easy to look at healthy people and feel jealous but try to remember that NO ONE has unlimited time, energy or money. Many artists need to work part or full time jobs to pay the bills, which drastically reduces the amount of time and energy available for art. Children or other family commitments can also be a serious limitation. Artists working on large, expensive projects may face endless frustrating delays while they scrabble around for funding. No one ‘has it easy’.

Identify Strategies
Don’t make yourself more sick by carrying on doing something that is clearly too much. If you are finding it hard to walk or you’re in a lot of pain, then a very active practice that involves shimmying up and down ladders or hours of gruelling physical work may be impossible. Instead, tailor your practice to what you can do and find creative ways to continue to make art.

If you want to carry on making physically demanding things, then maybe you need someone to do a lot of the prep work for you. When Eva Hesse became ill with a brain tumour she employed assistants to make sculptures to her specifications. I employ The Wonderful Zoë two mornings a month to help me with things like admin, framing, organising and anything that involves heavy physical work.

You may need to change the scale on which you work or employ different materials or new techniques. When her almost constant migraines kept her bedbound for months and she could only paint for small stretches of time, Sarah Raphael divided her canvases up like strip cartoons and painted in tiny daily chunks. She also had to switch from oils to acrylics because the smell of the oils was a constant trigger.

When his eyesight started to fail due to cataracts, Monet loosened up his style and began working on his famous waterlily paintings.

I’ve found that having a small, manageable, daily practice like my current ‘Objects For March’ project or The Diary Project is helpful – ‘little but often’ apparently works well for me. I’ve also annexed an old spare laptop and I’ve written most of this in bed over the space of several days: right now it’s making the difference between being able to blog and not.

Don’t Compare
It’s easy to feel jealous when your peers can accept exciting opportunities that are impossible for you but try not to compare yourself to others too much: it just leads to despair.

I’ve found that it’s more useful… to look to people like Frida Kahlo for inspiration – she carried on painting despite being in shocking amounts of pain. Or I look at my college class and realise that even though I am not making art as fast as I want to, I’m still unusual in that I’m consistently making work and showing professionally.

Acknowledge Success
Give yourself props for what you ARE doing instead of mentally punishing yourself for what you’re not.

I have a terrible habit of berating myself for ‘not working’ when what I really mean is that I’m simply not doing as much in the studio as I’d like. I tend to discount anything that isn’t physical making as Not Art even though experience has shown that things like reading, writing, research, thinking, documentation and admin are all vital parts of my art practice.

If you’re not strong enough to make art, take a break and if you’re able, do something connected to your art instead. When I’m ill, I often use the time to catch up on my reading and documenting.

Allow Yourself To Stop
Art is a higher brain function and creating any sort of art takes a surprising amount of energy. Unfortunately when you are very ill, sometimes you have no choice but to put your art practice down completely for a little while. This can be difficult for artists since many of us are very driven by our art but it’s sometimes necessary. Concentrate on getting well and promise yourself that you’ll find a way to pick it up again as soon as you can. I tend to use my art as a ‘canary down a mine’ – when the thought of doing anything art-related makes me want to cry then I know I’m ‘crashing’ and need to recuperate. If I don’t try to force things and make the relapse worse, then the art comes back on its own as my health comes back into balance.

Pace and Plan
Find your own rhythms and what works for you. I no longer apply for things that require me to make new work for a deadline because it’s too stressful and it never ends well. Instead I only apply for exhibitions with work that already exists. I don’t apply for residencies either because I can’t guarantee that I’ll be well enough. It can be very frustrating but knowing and (mostly!) accepting my limitations allows me to make more art in the long run.

If you’re exhibiting, do as much as possible well ahead of time. Pace yourself and schedule some downtime for after the show. Ideally you’d schedule some days off beforehand as well but in my experience, that’s rarely possible. Often opportunities seem to come in clumps but try to space things whenever you can. Know your limits and your body and how long it takes you to recover from a show.

Find Support
Depending on your condition there may be specific grants and/or opportunities available. While you may not be comfortable with the ‘disabled’ tag, there’s no harm in seeing what help may exist. Online forms and support groups for your specific condition can also provide valuable information and resources.

It’s also vital to support yourself by pacing, eating healthily and getting enough sleep, especially when you’re experiencing a relapse or if you know that you’re going to be under extra stress. Easier said than done, I know! Accept that you might have to let some things slide. While delicious fresh homecooked meals might be the ideal, remember that getting your vegetables in tinned soup or out of the freezer is better than no vegetables at all!

Finally, do whatever it takes to get yourself through a bad patch, even if that means the house isn’t as clean as it could be, your email doesn’t get answered promptly or you don’t go to all the private views you’d like. Accept that to conserve energy for your art, you may have to let some other things go.

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Are you working with a chronic condition? How are you managing to live creatively with both your work and your illness? Please add to our Giant Pool Of  Wisdom by commenting below. Stay tuned next week for another addition of Chronically Creative. Thank you for being here today.

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Behind the Mic: Kirsty’s mediums include drawing, installation pieces, and sewing sequins on aprons.  A self-described ‘artist & purveyor of mad obsessive projects’, Kirsty blogs about art and chickens at Up all Night. She is passionate about the internet and has created a free resouce page to support other artists, and is now offering 30 minute Hand Holding Sessions to help you get your art up on line.