bench in progress

The piece above is (clearly) in progress. The ‘dusty’ effect you notice in certain areas of the painting is the partially dry gesso. As usual, I’m using Winsor & Newton’s clear gesso over the collage to produce a good surface for the oil paint.

I’m currently working on 6 mixed media pieces. I’m finding it easier to apply the paint, to draw, to make art in general. I feel I’m achieving more with the paintings, yet using less effort.

So why the improvement in my painting/art techniques?

Regular readers will know I am bipolar. In response to the circumstances in my life, I’m choosing to manage the illness in a proactive manner. Doing whatever it takes to maintain a level of emotional stability.

I’m isolating myself from other people, to maintain emotional stability and inner peace, on a day to day basis. I can’t control the behaviour or words of others. So generally isolating myself when I’m feeling ok reduces the chances of me responding in a crazy wave of emotion to other people’s “stuff”. When I do choose to interact, I’m always very selective about who I chat to.

More importantly, isolating myself allows me the peace and quiet to recognising the very first fluctuation in my emotions and so respond immediately, doing whatever I must to counterbalance them. Remember the normal response to our emotions in bipolar and ‘normal’ people is to get swept along with them.

I’ve learnt to handle the depressive phases. When I want to withdraw, I’m swinging into a depression. This is when I need to seek out company, even if it’s just a phone call. I need to do little things to look after myself, eat healthy meals, treat myself to moisturiser, clean sheets, pedicures. Get lost in a good book.

In a manic phase, I will be insensitive, intolerant and probably offensive, I need to withdraw even more when I feel this phase coming on (including staying away from twitter and FB). The withdrawal saves me from both acting like a real asshole, and upsetting people. When manic, I get into music and painting. I’ve learnt to not beat myself for still being wide awake when the sun comes up.

When I start spinning out with anxiety, I do down to earth things to ground myself, gardening, walking (more), oh and collecting horse poo is a great exercise to keep me down to earth. Just hanging out with the horses seems to help in all these emotional phases. I do things to distract my anxious thought patterns.

I’m also doing Buddhist chanting (I see it as a form of meditation)- can’t get over how effective this is! I never thought I would try this, but a friend recommended it and I’m so glad she did.

I’m in a scary place right now, redundancy is looming. Yet my employers haven’t contacted me in weeks to discuss the progress of the redundancy process. Why? Incompetence, disrespect, some hidden agenda – you take you’re pick, I’ve had all the above suggested to me by co workers. I can’t rely on them to treat me well, in any manner. In the last 5 years I have learnt I cannot trust any of my managers nor my union reps to ever act in my best interests.

Being isolated and lacking contact/information (I do ask, but there’s either a vague answer or no answer and they don’t get back to me, no matter how many messages I leave) are enough to drive anyone to despair. This horrible situation has motivated me to chose to do whatever it takes to avoid being swallowed up into a black hole of overwhelming emotions.

Hey maybe they’re waiting to see if I commit suicide, and save them some money ….

This job led me to a breakdown 18 months ago – the bastards aren’t going to get me down again.

oh yes – The improvement in my painting techniques are a reflection of my improved emotional state and the stable environment I’m creating for myself.

I haven’t felt like spilling on this blog for a while, clearly once I started writing this post, that’s exactly what I did.

Namaste
Erin