Art Therapy - Easing a Soldier's Burden

Sometimes life is challenging. The old saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, is one that most people know. When dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you get a great deal of lemons and sometimes you just don’t want lemonade because making lemonade is too overwhelming to do.

During my lengthy time of service, I participated in the burials of over 20 soldiers, handled the deaths of several more, and I deploy on two operation tours to the Middle East. I was burnt out from the high-stress endured during my career, and along with the emotional and mental strain, I was having nightmares. I was diagnosed with PTSD.

This is something that I will always have. It won’t ever go away, and is now a new normal for, me and because of that, everything is different. I used to be able to handle anything; I often say I could juggle 200 balls in the air prior to PTSD. Now, I’m lucky to handle one or two things. It was too difficult to think about handling my finances, filling out administrative documents or dealing with issues. I couldn’t write a simple email without asking for help in knowing what to say. Something was lost in me. I was fragile and I recoiled into myself. After two years of living with this, I am able to come back in waves…small waves, sometimes they are just ripples in the water, but even a tiny ripple is progress nevertheless.

After years of nightmares, panic attacks and emotional turmoil, I can say that therapy, medical appointments, medications and more have all helped, but art therapy is helping me find peace and joy in parts of my life that I never thought I would find. The proverbial light came on. It wasn’t by any official art therapy courses, but because of attempting to do something for myself to help me to find myself.

The art of choice was stained glass; completing it puts me in a meditative space. Both fulfilling me, and upon a project’s completion, giving me joy.

It started with stained glass. I’d do simple designs printed from the internet. It then progressed to designing my own patterns. I never thought I was any good at art. I didn’t think I could draw a straight line even with a ruler. Stained glass changed that for me. Making my own patterns, cutting the pattern pieces with my scissors and using the tools to score the glass and fit them into the puzzle, has given me a sense of accomplishment, albeit a small accomplishment. However, at this rate, any accomplishment helped.

About year and a half later, I found myself retired and living back home near my family. Lightening struck again! I'd reconnected with my cousin, and we both started to paint. I’d had no formal courses or training but in January, we took two virtual courses, and we painted for at least four hours every day together online; It was an adrenaline rush. After a few months, my paintings were getting better and better. An ability in me was birthed. I’d stepped into a beautiful world of bold, abstract colour, and it became my passion. I ate, I slept and I painted. When I wasn’t painting, I thought of painting, or what I would paint next, and I was in awe of the fact that I could do this!

With a new found confidence, I decided to do something I had been wanting to do since the mid 1990s. Back then, I’d written an engaging children’s fiction story. My children loved this story. They laughed when I’d read it, they wanted it read over and over again. I’d always wanted it published, however I had no illustrations. I had no idea where to start, and of the two people I had approached, I was unsuccessful at securing an illustrator, thus putting my dream on the shelf of ever getting my little book published.

About a month ago, it hit me… I could paint my illustrations! I’d already painted almost 60 paintings, I had the means and the desire, but could I get it to look right?

I took the story line and planned a layout of what images I wanted and I painted them. As I painted each scene, I was surprised that I could do this, and that it looked good. Once done, though, there was a period of pause, fear crept in. Could I publish my book after all? Would my paintings be enough? I wasn’t sure about how my images would appear. Some were great. Others needed to be edited. I did my best to use my scissors to cut out the paintings and place them to suit the design. It wasn’t digital manipulation, however, it still worked and my children’s book now had illustrations!!

After some encouragement from my husband, yesterday, I finalized the submission to having my book published. Am I still nervous? Absolutely, but I overcame the fear and self doubt and went for it.

PTSD will always shadow me. However, painting, stained glass and even writing will be my weapons of choice to finding peace and joy, even if it is only temporary. Despite the PTSD, I did overcome the fear and anxiety to publish my artwork. Will it ever go away? Unfortunately, the answer is no. However, I have discovered that my newfound passion of painting has allowed me to do something I never thought would happen; my little book is being published! What started as a form of art therapy has turned into a dream come true.