How An Artist Is Finding Peace With Treatment Resistant Illness

When I first became ill, I thought I just needed answers so I could figure it out and get on with life. Then, as I gained answers and started a treatment plan, it became clear this was going to be a long road with no end in sight. After years began to pass, while in treatment, it became clear that to some extent I would not escape the recurrent trauma that comes with the oversight and maintenance of a chronic illness. You’re required to maintain contact with specialists for your treatments, do testing as needed and treat symptoms as they manifest. The never ending job of advocating for your body and all that is required to treat it is exhausting. Especially when dealing with syndromes with no known cures and only whack-a-mole symptom management.

I began a practice involving art therapy to cope with navigating living life in a temperamental body and making time for the new normals. I focus on the seasons of emotions I experience from living with the health issues I face as I make my art too. I think I enjoy the process and mind focus more than the product itself. I fall into the page or work and it allows me space to breathe.

To start, avoiding my problems seemed like a good first step but I soon realized that I could not escape myself and the symptoms were debilitating. So, I decided to face my fears head on and learn to desensitize myself to my treatments and find a new normal. My specific practice of self reflection and use of art therapy  is what I now call my ART-work. The acronym ART stands for “Awareness of Recurrent Trauma” and work meaning the art created during the process of exploration. When I actively draw my thoughts out, into the 3-dimensional plane, a physical record appears. It’s a chronology and visual representation to help explain why I can sometimes feel numb, overwhelmed or even panic when in a medical setting. It’s also an opportunity to reflect to see if my instincts created when I recall my experiences actually match how I feel in present time.

I have found that through this process, I often create a new association from a place of understanding, patience and strength while reflecting on the journey in totality. The practice has been enriching enough that I have ritualistically begun painting the parts that I wish to heal. The dysfunctions I have are not being immediately emotionally rejected and my associations don’t feel quite so ghostly and unresolved. Many of my memories feel disconnected from my emotions but they are assigned during the chaotic or crisis stage.  How can one recall properly if we’re too overwhelmed to even accurately process in the moment? We just cannot do so in an organized fashion. So, I have found when I’m exposed to my triggers like injections, medication and physician check-ins, I relive the trauma and everything feels dysfunctional again.

I stumbled into ART-work by folding in activities involving neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity involves making new connections within the brain that help create a new response or outcome. Our brains and their connections don’t have to be static and they don’t have to be on a loop either. There are new bridges being burned and made regularly when we reflect on situations and have a way to healthily cope and respond to the trigger. I’m now an artist sculpting new brain folds and connections to the pathways within. It’s sort of a refiling and labeling system that is put in place. How I associate my illness has a direct relationship to my frame of reference via experiences and memories. This work dictates and influences my mental and physiological response to the carousel ride that comes with chronic illness. Sometimes the ride is smooth and other times incredibly irritating & nauseating.

When making, my hands move and become actions with control and intention, giving a new association and illusion of control. We often can have a new perspective or emotion that emerges over time and reflection. Making and being inspired by medical experiences created an exposure therapy that I could work through in the safety of my own space, my own terms and time. For the memories that are traumatic or the parts of my body that are forever being monitored, I’d like to find a new peace with the parts.