Katy Matilda Neo
A key part of recovery from BPD is working to challenge black and white "all or nothing" thinking. This piece was made at a time when I was really struggling to see that "grey areas" could even exist. There is a particular part of me that refuses to ask or acknowledge a need for help and support, [but] there are parts of me that are small, and tired, and exhausted, and those parts desperately want to be picked up and carried and have someone else "fix" me.
I struggle a lot with nightmares and night terrors. I wake frozen with terror and in desperate need for reassurance and comfort. To me the "dream" feels real. When I was a young child, my parents soon lost patience with this "behaviour" me continually getting out of bed was "not acceptable". I used to sneak to the edge of where the pool of light from downstairs hit the darkness of the landing. No-one could or would keep me safe, so I worked to build an impervious armour; I learned to dissociate.
As anyone with BPD will be able to tell you, the emotions can be deep, sudden and intense. This picture represents the a feeling of sadness, despair, emptiness and loneliness so deep and overwhelming that I could only describe it as desolation. In the sky are written all of the negative thoughts that I was being flooded with whilst experiencing this episode. I deliberately obscured them so they could never be read because I did not want preserve those negative thoughts about myself.
A key part of recovery from BPD is working to challenge black and white "all or nothing" thinking. This piece was made at a time when I was really struggling to see that "grey areas" could even exist. There is a particular part of me that refuses to ask or acknowledge a need for help and support, [but] there are parts of me that are small, and tired, and exhausted, and those parts desperately want to be picked up and carried and have someone else "fix" me.
I am an art school drop out, with a PhD in Psychology (which I mostly use as a doorstop) and a cacophony of mental health disorders. I have spent the last 3 years in intensive therapy for my primary diagnoses (Borderline Personality Disorder and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and I also live with Major Depressive Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Eating Disorder. I'm a hearer of voices, a recipient of intrusive thoughts, and my mind is host to a number of identities, who are learning to get along with one another.
I'm also a kitten lover, an avid reader, a lover of nature and nighttime, and an artist and writer. For approximately 3 years, I have been documenting my life with mental illness through an art journal sketch series. The pieces in the series are "one draft" drawings, created during or as close as possible to the cognitive or emotional event they depict. My method is not to plan my drawings beforehand. Rather I practice a method I calls "free drawing", which, similarly to "stream of consciousness" writing, involves simply holding the pencil in front of a blank piece of paper, and focusing inwardly on my emotional state. The resultant drawing is often a surprise, even to myself. This method helps me not only to communicate how I am feeling to others (an ability|I struggle with verbally), but it also helps me to work out how I am feeling for myself (another thing I find difficult).
The pieces you see here are taken from the art journal series, and each has a caption explaining the emotion or cognitive state they seem to express from my point of view. I am always fascinated to hear about other people's perspectives on what my work means as well, so welcome feedback or questions (please email antiparrot@yandex.com). You can check out my full online portfolio here: www.antiparrot.com, and follow @antiparrot on Instagram to stay up to date with new work.