They say that with every blessing comes a curse. And even the curses can turn to blessings if you can find a way.
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia four years after I finished college. It was at a time when I was going through emotional, social and career changes. I had always been a good student, and was recognized for being smart. I'd won awards and certificates of merit in English, Math and Social Studies. I'd always known that I wanted to be a writer—I'd written poems, plays and stories and was even working on a novel. I'd gotten into art for the simplest of reasons: I wanted to cover a bare wall. Through my art I discovered who I was.
I had a job and it was not exactly what I was looking for. I was a secretary and my boss was verbally abusive. She was a copywriter for ads such as toothpaste and sanitary napkins. She was a perfectionist and she reminded me, a bit, of myself. Revising, revising, she was always revising. I would travel on the train and think everyone in the car was talking about me. I would hear voices telling me new words. I had to quit, I couldn't stand the pressure.
When I was alone in my room I would look through old photographs and think about the people, so far away, that meant so much to me: My grandfather, my father, my dead uncle. I'd nail a canvas to the wall and draw them out, then paint. I'd love to look at my mother's expression as she'd recognize each face. "You're like Picasso!" she'd tell me. When I'd finish, I myself was full of awe and fear at the same time that the spirits of those I'd rendered would come and haunt me. I'd have conversations with them. I wanted to make peace, and if I found that I couldn't I would move the painting to the hallway or roll it up and put it away.
I had a couple of art shows in Manhattan. One in the 50's and the other downtown in Tribecca. I was part of an art scene down there. Musicians, writers and artists frequented. I got in with the Director and helped select pieces to hang in between the arguments and philosophical discussions. We smoked and created and basically lived for one another. Things started to get bad when I stayed at the studio all hours to paint. I'd gotten angry at something the Director said and vandalized the gallery walls. I'd locked myself in there with a paint roller on an attachment that looked like a spear. I said to myself, "If anyone comes here, I'll be ready to fight." Thankfully, when someone did appear, he was friendly and we painted together.
Needless to say, my "fame" never came. But is there a legend?
Now, I do my art in SoHo in a loft run by an organization called H.A.I. (Hospital Audiences Incorporated). It's an artist-run studio that allows adults with mental illnesses to create art in many forms. Within its structure, I'm able to do my works on canvas, paper and found objects. Now I am exploring the world of photography and computers. And soon there will be classes on programs such as Paint and Photoshop. I'm blessed to have been given another chance to express myself. As I struggle with my illness I recognize some of the limitations I put on myself in the past. Yet, as I grow, my boundaries are stretching farther and farther apart.
After my first break with schizophrenia it was like a rebirth of my soul. I was stable on medications yet very unhappy to be in this body and in this universe. Here I was a fresh person pregnant with eagerness, desire, ambition and lust, and I was impatient for their birth. So I surrendered to the pain and accepted it and slowly the birthing began and so here I am today stepping into the waters of eagerness, desire, ambition and lust for life and the people in it. And my art is my ob-gyn.