Living Well Through Art

No one tells you how adrift depression can make you feel. In the emptiness and cognitive impairment, a person can feel like a boat floating without anchor and no one steering. There is a grasping for control of the boat, and that grasping looks like reaching for many things. Sure, I might look busy on the outside, but I am really adrift on the inside. I have been reaching for so many things since I was diagnosed with depression in 2024. To some, it looks like discontentment, to others it looks like a lack of focus, and to others still it looks like a woman with a lot of hobbies. The onlooker can hardly understand that there is no sadness inside. Depression isn’t simply about being “blue” or having strong feelings of discontentment. It’s a fog that won’t lift and each turn of the boat’s fog light illumines another path that you are too tired to float down. All of the paths are just are just another attempt to escape the fog.

In looking back at the last two years of my life, I have watched myself try to escape the fog by doing various things. I was physically agitated and numb, so I began to draw. I started with a chair, and then drew a bird, but the fog remained. So, I started a business, more than one business. I made yarn and prayer shawls; I sold prayers (LAUGH OUT LOUD); I searched for my calling; I even went so far as to start an LLC Death Doula business. I can’t tell you how many domain names I have purchased and how many websites I have done and redone. So, I did art. I drew some butterflies and a woman holding a dog. I experimented with watercolor, and I blogged about my death doula business. Still there was fog. So I got some pastels and colored-blended a cross. My Savior. I tried to train as a natural family planning instructor, but my brain would not process the new information. So, I did art and the fog remained. I drew a lone whale and a mama hummingbird with her babies. I drew a pastel portrait of my dog Charlie, and I bought some acrylic paints. I painted my first picture yesterday; it was a picture of a sunflower and the bright colors made the fog a little less dense.

Through it all, I have done art. It dawns on me that even though I am still in the boat, adrift at sea in a fog, I can see the deep and rich colors of my pastels and paints. I can almost feel the detailed texture created by my graphite drawing pencils. The fog light shines brightly on my art, not because it is good art. In fact, it is richly imperfect. Most importantly, it doesn’t require floating down some hidden path out of the fog. The fog remains but it is on the periphery of the boat now. The only way out is to stay in the boat and wait it out, wait for the fog to dissipate. In the mean time, I will be doing art.

*If you would like to buy richly imperfect art and support depression awareness, you can shop my art on ETSY.