When I had my first visit with a counselor and filled her in with what was going on in my life, the first thing she said was, “Have you contemplated suicide?” Now I know that counselors are suppose to screen their clients and make sure they don’t need more help than a once every week or two visit to talk, but still it struck me . . . maybe I really had been through a lot and it wasn’t a personal weakness but more of a reasonable response to a lot of loss and bad situations in my life.

Years earlier a flood had ruined my art portfolio. For an artist this is the only thing you have to show prospective employers. My portfolio represented 8 years of work and since this happened before the digital age, there was no backup. I had taken slides but the flood got them too. A lawsuit over the faulty plumbing that caused the flood dragged on for years. This was closely followed by a divorce.

My black dog grew larger and decided to take my art too. All motivation to create something meaningful and beautiful left me. The counselor I was seeing was working on getting me to start making art again.

You would think it would be an easy thing to do. Just do it. The black dog doesnt’t work like that. Like a kink in a garden hose, nothing was going to get through. In fact there seemed to be nothing there but emptiness.

Every week she assigned art homework for me to do based on a mandala but no amount of encouragement or cajoling worked, even though I wanted to start making art again. The internal self-talk was so negative I didn’t have much hope. When my counselor brought up the importance of hope in my life, I countered with the argument that hope was one of the plagues released by Pandora. Something that teases you into thinking that something better is coming when in reality there’s nothing. This kind of extreme pessimism evolves into an ever increasing downward spiral. You feel isolated when you’re depressed, you’re not a lot of fun because of it, so others shy away from you, which in turn make you feel even more isolated and worthless.

If I was in a concentration camp I wouldn’t be the one planning to escape, I’d be one who would just give up and waste away. . . that’s how hopeless and worthless I felt at times.

The black dog makes everything seem like a chore and often the task, no matter how small, seems like too much work. Over time I did manage to force myself to crack open a drawing pad and start. I had to learn to relax more and let go of my perfectionism - another self-defeating spiral. If I couldn’t make a perfect piece of art (whatever that is) then why even try?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates

I finally had what I call a George Constanza moment. There was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s looser friend George decided that everything he’s done in his life up to that moment hadn’t worked, so he decided to do the exact opposite of what he’d done before and immediately his life turned around.

As difficult as it was, I was determined not to continue doing the things that kept me down. I started to draw but I had to make the conscious decision to let go of judging myself and my art.

There is a Japanese word - *Wabi-sabi, which I interpret as ‘imperfectly perfect’. I tried to adhere to this concept. Here is my first drawing -

*An aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience . . . one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” - from Wikipedia

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 10:49 am and is filed under art, therapy.