Self-Portrait

When I joined Creative Works Studio in 2009, they were preparing to launch their next art exhibit. The theme of the show was, “Breaking down the Walls.”

Immediately I thought of the walls in the mental health system. I knew exactly what I wanted to draw.

I had finished my sketch for the painting. Meanwhile, Isabel, the occupational therapist at the studio, was walking around and observing what each artist was working on.

When she saw my drawing, she sat down beside me and said, “This is interesting.”

Self-Portrait. I broke free of my physical restraints. But today, I face a far greater challenge—liberating myself from the prisons I unconsciously lock myself in.

In my sketch, a lithe, young girl lay spread-eagled on a bed. Her wrists were fastened securely to the top two corners of her bed and her ankles, to the bottom.

“That’s me in a straitjacket” I said.

I really surprised myself. My eyes began to well up. The nurses in one psychiatric ward had placed me in a four-point restraint many times even though I posed no danger to myself. I had just kept running out of the ward because I hated being there. But that had happened about forty years ago.

However the pain of having been placed in restraints was locked deep within my psyche, and I didn’t even know it.

Isabel said to me, “What would you have liked the nurses to do instead?”

“I wish they had spent time talking with me.”

Such a simple thing, but nurses seem to forget how important it is to spend time with patients.

Drawing had allowed my deeply buried pain to rise to the surface. And through talking about it with Isabel, I healed a little from that horrific experience.

Thank you, Isabel!