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I didn’t get a chance to draw yesterday.  Wednesdays I have a full schedule mentoring children and participating in community activities. Before I went on medicine, part of my self treatment for depression was to make sure I spent time volunteering and being involved in the lives of other.  Depression causes me to want isolation, so I try  to make ways to keep that from happening.  When I’m up, I make commitments that are hard to break when I’m down.  Although I have nothing against taking a day off when I’m really low, having meaningful interaction with others becomes a strong motivator.  Now that I’m back on meds, I’m struck by how much more I enjoy these commitments.  That undercurrent of weariness gets washed away in the good company of others.

I’m drawing daily to help manage depression.  If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here.  You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Sometimes, I feel weird about having to take so much medication.  I have to take 6 different prescription to manage my transverse myelitis.   It’s that feeling that made me quit taking anti-depressants to begin with.   If I change my attitude about it, though, I know that everything I take is making my life better.  I know many people have trouble with medicines, especially anti-depressants, but they’ve helped me.  Today I drew about the return of humor:

I’m drawing daily to help manage depression.  If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here.  You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

When you’re depressed, you stop doing the things you like.  I have that as a warning sign on my list of things to be aware of.  The trouble is, I don’t always realize I’ve stopped doing them.  It’s only now that I’m recovering that I see what I’ve let fall by the wayside.

I’ve always liked old jazz.  I have a special fondness for Louis Armstrong.  I love his simple rendition of “Wonderful World.”  I’ve listened to it since I was a teenager.  It’s part of the soundtrack of my life.  But I’d deleted it from the music feed I most frequently listen to.  Today I put it back on.

I tried to draw a likeness of him.  I found a photo of him later in life, when he was a bit frail and wasn’t flashing his signature smile.  I don’t think I did him justice, but I finished the journal page anyway.   I hope that the energy of my drawing makes up for the lack of accuracy.  I like the way the paint pooled and bled on the forehead, so I painted some extra rainbow colors springing from his head.

I read the artist Gwen  Seemel’s blog regularly and she had a great one this morning about how it may be that the mouth, not the eyes, that is the window to the soul.  You can see her explain this here.  Since I struggled with the both the eyes and mouth on this illustration, I thought it quite apt and encouraging.

 

I’m drawing daily to help manage depression.  If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here.  You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Sometimes I like to paint a page in my journal and then try to pick out shapes that occur within it.  Watercolor is so washy and unpredictable it always inspires me.  I painted this page a week ago and drew on top of it today.

It’s hard to understand the difference between sadness and depression.  I went for a long time thinking I was sad, and I didn’t realize how deeply depressed I’d gotten.  I was functioning and even felt quite happy at times, but there was always a voice undermining me, always a feeling of fatigue and weariness, even if I didn’t show it.  I’d never act on the impulse to end my life, but the temptation is there, disguised as a solution.

Today’s drawing tries to illustrate this:

I’m drawing daily to help manage depression.  If you’d like to see the beginning of this project, you can see it here.  You can also follow me through WordPress or on Facebook.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.