Doodling Against Depression

When I was twenty years old, I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder. It is a smaller subset of psychotic disorder that is a mixture between Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. I was at the time an active duty Marine who knew my career was over. I was ashamed of my actions that had come about during my psychotic episodes. I was barely human, I couldn't put together coherent sentence together to explain how I was feeling and what I was seeing. I had auditory hallucinations that told me to kill myself or other people I would see. I was in and out of inpatient care and I did not want to live anymore. I was put into a program that helped military personel who had developed psychiatric problems while in service to help us with the transition into civilian life. One piece of the program was we had mandatory classes we were sent to try to find hobbies to help with stress and depression. I chose to take a meditation class as well as an art class. My meditation teacher was a very sweet lady from Brazil. She would teach us many breathing methods and at the end of class she would lead us in a guided meditation. This class was very helpful in giving me a chance to gain my bearings for the day. Shortly after the meditation group I went to an art class. In this class I got to play around with many different forms of art and fell in love with abstract art. I felt as if I could explain to people how I felt in that moment, even if I was suicidal I could express it. After many months of being in this program I was addmitted once again to the inpatient wing. I had expressed to the Marine on Duty that weekend that I had no will to live another day and I wanted real help or I would follow through with my own demise. He sat with me in the emergency room for hours. I was feeling awkward and vulnerable and he asked if I had any hobbies. I told him I had played football in high school and liked to go hiking but I was not able to do these things anymore due to being involved in the program for so long. He expressed to me that he loved photography. It was something I never expected from such a big strong man, who until this day had always been mean to me. He showed me his social media posts from all of his photoshoots. He would go on long walks in nature and take shots of the scenes he came across. He had many pictures from the San Diego Zoo as well. I could tell that he was truly in love with his hobby he had found and was jealous of his luck to find his passion. He was interested in my visual hallucinations and asked me if I could draw. I told him that I liked to paint a little bit but it was very abstract and looked horrible to be completely honest. He told me that I should try my hardest to paint or draw what I see on a weekly basis and that I would get better with practice. I took him up on that offer and I have found my strange doodles to be very helpful in showing people in my life what I see without feeling ashamed of my inability to convey those hallucinations orally. I have sold several of these doodles not enough to make a living, but enough to feel as if a few people out there understand what I go through just a tiny bit without having my flavor of mental illness. Whenever I am down in the dumps, my doodles have helped me through it. I am now married with three children, even though my depression, paranoia, and PTSD are still present in my life. There is hope that I can make the dark days a little bit brighter and keep pushing on one day at a time for my family and for myself. Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.