Trusting The Universe (And Art) To Lead Me Through My Bipolar Disorder

Untitled, oil and pastel on wood, 2012

The summer before I had my first manic episode, I hit a deer on some back road in New Hampshire. Or rather, the deer hit me. I was shocked, and got out of my car to see if it was okay. It lied very still on the ground until finally, suddenly, it got up and walked calmly back into the woods. Having never interacted with a deer before, I was shaken to the core. The experience was religious for me. I couldn’t get the image of its face in the headlights out of my head. And it left me with this deep-seeded dreadful feeling- something was coming. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that I was in its trajectory, and collision was inevitable. 

I returned to Vermont to study painting and animation at a tiny liberal arts school for the fall semester. I began having difficulty feeding myself. I’d forget meal times because I simply was never hungry. I was sleeping less and less and then not at all. My thoughts would move so rapidly, that my mouth wouldn’t be able to get the words out fast enough. I would learn later that I was also having brutal panic attacks, but didn’t have the knowledge of what they were, or the language to explain what was happening, so I’d show up to my RA’s room, sobbing incoherently. She’d have me sit in her cozy papasan chair and she’d make me tea, and practice breathing techniques with me. I don’t even remember her name now, but I will never forget her kindness.

During the days, I was completely untethered, dancing through the fields behind campus and missing classes or meetings with the college psychiatrist. During the nights, I’d have no need for sleep and would frantically take notes and write incoherent thoughts, believing that I was a great prophet of our time. The head of security would visit me. He’d sit and talk with me, or patiently listen to my ramblings. I recall him having a background in psychology. He was a shining light through the darkness of my time back then.

My mom and I visiting my old college campus, 10 years after my diagnosis.

Eventually, things got so bad that my mom brought me to the emergency department of the local hospital. It was one of the most significant moments of my life. The ER doctor gave me the same diagnosis that my dad has lived with his whole adult life. It was the same disorder I had seen him struggle with, the same disorder I had grown to hate: bipolar disorder. “No. Absolutely not. Anything but that.” I would spend the next six years running from those two words, that diagnosis, the disorder I didn’t want, but deep down, knew I had. 

I ended up withdrawing from school and moving back home with my family in Connecticut. Before the journey home, and after everything was packed, we drove down the long, winding main road on campus, and came to a clearing on the lefthand side. My mom and I both gasped- a herd of deer. A dozen at least. We stopped the car and stared in awe. They stared back. This grounded feeling of serenity settled within me, and the message that came along with it went something like this: “You are not alone. This isn’t over. You are meant for something greater.”

A lot has happened in the past ten years since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I have been hospitalized four times for mania and depression, respectively. I finally, fully, have come to accept the fact that I have bipolar disorder. I’ve been placed on a medication that actually works for me. I found a therapist and a prescriber who both work with me. I experienced a trauma that changed me forever, and learned how to heal that wound- through art. I reclaimed my power. I invested in my art, and therefore, invested in myself. And none of it happened over night. It’s still a work in progress.

During my last inpatient hospitalization, I wrote in my journal every day. It helped to give me something to do, to give me a sense of stability, and to get me out of my depressed state. Here’s the last entry I made before I was released:

Line drawing of the view outside my bedroom window while I was in the hospital.

October 11th, 2021

As I reflect on the past two weeks, I am overwhelmed by the amazing people I’ve met who’ve helped me tremendously, and the excellent care I’ve received. I feel like a changed person. I understand now that I have to put my mental health as my top priority. Every. Day. Today might be my last day here. I am excited to go home, but I am also nervous about how to fill my time. I don’t want to slip back into behaviors and patterns I had when I was depressed. I don’t think I will. I have the will power. I can be a stubborn person, so why not direct that energy in the direction I want my life to go in?

I keep thinking about the flowers on the caged in patio that we’re allowed to go out onto. “Flower” is a very generous term. Someone put planters out onto this patio. Their contents have since died and shriveled, and now, they look very, very sad. At first I was angry. I thought, “Wow, they couldn’t have given them some water every once in a while? How hard is it to take care of a few plants?”

But then I was out there one day, and I got up really close to the dried up twigs and small, brown, shrubby herbs, and touched them and really studied them and I thought, “Someone tried. Someone tried to make this hard, cold place a little brighter.” And I think that’s all we can do sometimes. I think I’d like to take better care of the flowers of my mind. Because my flowers are beautiful. And I hope I can learn to give myself more credit for my own growth.

I am trying to become the person I’ve always dreamt I’d be. I am trying to be less hard on myself, and to be more gentle. I am trying to walk to my art studio every day, to get out of the house and paint a little, even on the days where all I want to do is lay in bed with my cat. I am trying.

I am grateful for every experience I’ve had, and every person I’ve met, because they’ve all lead me here. And in the present moment, I am filled with inspiration, and hope for the future.

Work in progress shot of the mural on my studio door.

When I first went into the hospital during my last inpatient stay, I had no direction. I felt hopeless. I felt completely disconnected and out of alignment from my purpose. Depression has a way of making you turn your back on everything you love. The people I met while I was in inpatient, gave me my inspiration back. I will forever be grateful to them. During one of my first nights there, a monarch butterfly came to me in a very vivid dream. The next day, I went to an “expressions” group. There were liquid watercolors, brushes (the really nice ones), and different kinds of paper- some plain, and some with black felt images on them. The very first image I saw, the one sitting right on top, was of a monarch butterfly. I quickly stuffed the piece of paper in the oversized pocket of my hospital provided bathrobe, knowing it was meant for me.

About two weeks later, it was the first day of my outpatient group therapy program. I was eating my lunch outside at a picnic table, watching the nurses speed-walk to and from the cafeteria between shifts, and thinking to myself how nice it was to be enjoying the fresh autumn air after being cooped up for two weeks. As I was taking a bite of my hot dog, I almost choked when I looked up to see a monarch butterfly flying all around me.

“Hope / Despair”, 2018. A collaborative painting that was completed by members of an outpatient therapy group.

For some time, I have known the healing power of art, and its ability to be used as an outlet and tool to heal emotional wounds. I’ve reached a point where I want to give back. To help other people heal through exploring their own creativity. In 2018, the first time I was in an outpatient treatment program, the clinician there allowed me to collaborate in leading an expressive art therapy group. Other members of the group were randomly assigned to a canvas, and asked to paint a certain emotion. The next week, a different group was asked to paint an opposing emotion on that same canvas. They were invited to paint “in, on and around” the first emotion, to showcase how our opposing feelings work together. I loved every second of leading that class. This last time that I was in that very same outpatient program, I got to see all of the art that had been made in that class, now hanging in the halls of the building. It brought tears to my eyes.

I would love to become an art therapist. Or, at least, if that’s the goal, I’ll shoot for the moon and land somewhere amongst the stars. I’m not entirely sure what the future holds, but for the first time in a long time, I have hope. I have direction. I have vision. And as long as I have art, I have purpose.