Dialectical Behavioral Painting

Painting is therapy.

Trust me. I used to be a therapist.

Three years ago, I taught Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in a state-run facility working with severely and persistently ill individuals. Dialectics is essentially holding on to self-acceptance while changing who you are. Contradictory I know. It is like believing two things at the same time. Actually, that is exactly what I used to tell people when I was trying to sum it up.

When you are holding two beliefs simultaneously you are essentially saying something like: I am extremely sick and in pain AND I am incredibly grateful to be alive. Or you might be less life altering and simply say: I really hate my job AND I love being employed. Yeah, kind of a mental teeter-totter I get it. The thing is it works. It is about speaking to the power of your mind to pick and choose how you are going to respond and react to any given situation regardless of how you think you feel. If you use the techniques, you can overcome any situation that overwhelms, upsets, stresses, or tries to screw with your life.

I was 100% behind what I was doing.

Until I had a complete mental breakdown, flushed my career down the toilet, bankrupted my family and nearly died.

Disclaimer: The fact that I became the very thing I had been trying to help does NOT mean that the mental health system does not work. I cannot honestly say that I was the best instructor or that I had many breakthrough moments where my “wisdom” saved a life. That did happen at least not in that dramatic, true-to-life, feel good movie kind of way. Most days my clients continued to struggle, and we did what we could to make it as manageable as possible. What it does mean is that I do not endeavor to do anything unless at some point I can do it very badly. In this case it was about practicing what I preached, taking adequate care of myself, and asking for help when the stuff in my head was staring to scare me.

Yeah, I didn’t do any of that. I went running toward professional burn out at full tilt completely ignoring everything I had learned about self-care, professionalism, and personal safety.

Anyway, I quit working, spent a little time at the hospital, had a bunch of stuff taken by repo men, watched my husband and kids tiptoe around me for 18 months because they didn’t want to “set me off” and lost my entire sense of self.

Then a friend suggested I get a hobby.

What a bitch.

I was mentally, physically, and emotionally broken. Between crying jags that lasted for hours, sleepless nights that turned into sleepless weeks, that then became complete unconsciousness for days, eating my feelings, and alienating everybody I knew both professionally and personally I did NOT have time to enrich my personal sense of well-being through crafts, exercise, or mental stimulation. I mean, seriously.

Then on a whim I agreed to paint with her, just once to get her to shut the hell up about my need to have purpose and meaning.

One painting turned into over one hundred paintings over the next year.

So, I am no Bob Ross, although I admire his sense of style in the hair department. However, I’m not horrible either. If they made a refrigerator magnet for canvases, I know my mom would display my work with pride. Quality is not really the point here; the point here is that with every brush stroke, through every splash of color, and at the end of every completed painting; I became a little more myself again.

There is something incredibly self-satisfying about seeing a picture in your mind, possessing the tools to create it, and seeing it become a reality. As a therapist I had thought that I was seeing a picture of healing someone, I had the education and resources to create it, and still sometimes people didn’t get better. So not only did I fail to heal mental illness I did the opposite and became ill. That’s a really lousy picture. Not refrigerator worthy at all.

I had painted an image of who I should be as a wife, a mother, a therapist, even a human being. When all that fell apart and I had no job, my family was struggling and I had no idea who the hell I was, I figured I blew it in the biggest possible way and there was no way to fix that image in my mind of what my life should be. However, the more I created the more I discovered that the picture I had in my mind about my life, my purpose, and even myself wasn’t quite right and needed a lot more color, shape, and definition.

As I painted the first thing that happened was, I got the hell out of my head. Choosing a subject to paint, picking the colors, finding the right canvas, getting the supplies together, getting the work area ready. Who has time to think about being miserable when you have all of those things to accomplish?

Depression? Nope, sorry I have to get out of bed because I told myself I was going to nail that beach landscape idea I had. Anxiety? Nah, look how organized these paints are. I am so in control I could run the country right now. Life and personal identity crisis? Yeah ok, but holy shit! Look at how well you blended those colors. That water looks almost real! No self-esteem because you were a successful professional and now you spend your days in your pajamas covered in paint? Um, hello somebody GAVE you money for that painting you did last week with the birds and the little heart thingies. Seriously lady. You can do hard things, you can accomplish tasks you set your mind to, and you can make things that matter!

Not every day was sunshine and daisies, I still struggled and made my own therapist also question if being in the job was worth it, but this is where my awfully expensive college degree finally started to pay off. If Dialectical Behavioral Therapy was a proven method for helping people who were struggling with mental health issues and despite everything, I still believed that it did. It was up to me to make it work for me. The more I paint the more I can hold the two beliefs that I can I accept my talents, and also accept my flaws. I can be struggling and still be moving forward. When I paint, I feel like I am doing something meaningful even if it is just to me. That tells me that what I care about can be important to me, but it does not have to be important to anyone else.

Painting and therapy techniques for the win. As of today, I am no longer in therapy, no longer on a mile long list of medications, and every day I wake up and I create my way to the life I want to live. I am at home full time now painting, writing and, feeling the happiest and most content I have felt since I was in kindergarten and they let me take naps in the middle of the day after giving me a cookie.

Now, here is the good news. I am actually quite lucky that my creativity and my education were able to work together to give me the much-needed support and perspective to healing. Hooray for me, right? Where is the good news that was promised? Here it is: Anyone can use their skills, talents, creativity, education, and intelligence to look at what is messed up in their lives and say: I don’t like it, but I accept it, and I am going to change it and make it beautiful to me.

Speaking of beautiful. I saw an amazing sunset yesterday. I think I’m going to try and paint it.