Going Kooky and Drawing
Please note: the following references psychosis and drug use, and also makes reference to a psychiatric hospital.
I spent most of the summer of 2021 scribbling and cutting out pictures, not sleeping, walking around O’Connor crying, and having panic attacks at work. I would lie in bed at night, wide awake as shadowy shapes moved across the ceiling. In the mornings my heart would race. I would pace around the house, forgetting I’d made a cup of tea, not touching my breakfast. I would take breaks from pacing to sit at my desk and draw the screaming I could hear, my eyes darting between the page and the window, full of paranoia.
Between calls with Access Mental Health, I drew on myself, I drew in my book- scribbly people and words, hearts, dots. The people around me were worried about me, and they showed great compassion and care. But at first it was so hard to discern that what I was experiencing was a psychotic episode. I was an inpatient for about 6 weeks at Canberra Hospital. Every day and night between visits, medication and meetings, I sat at the table drawing and drinking little soy milks. The medications they were trying on me weren’t working, so my mind stayed in another, very scary and bizarre reality. All that really seemed to help was drawing.
It's strange to reflect on my drawings from that time because when I look back at them, I remember the specific delusions I was having. One of them, for instance, was that I had pulled a heist on the hospital to steal ketamine:
Another one was that I had a brain infection (this is a drawing of my ear):
This one was ‘the sunset when I killed someone’:
I did a little bit of research before writing this and came across an interesting project called The Directors. Colin Martin analyses the works of artist Marcus Coates, who produced a series of films as part of an installation, based on the wisdom and lived experience of people with psychosis. Martin explains how, for Lucy Dempster, participation was like “flipping the switch”, taking control of her experience of psychosis and using it to direct. [1]
I can empathise with how uncontrollable the experience of psychosis feels. I think art can be the connecting piece- a grounding form- that connects reality and delusion. I would do my drawings in hospital, and it would put me in a physical reality where pencil on paper created a blend of colours or a shape. Simultaneously, on the psychosis side of things, the shapes would vibrate and melt and yell.
I don’t know how valuable it is to consider to what extent the art I made was a product of my psychosis. My drawing has always been colourful and scribbly. But I can say that at some points in my crazy person scribbling in ward 12B, I felt like a puppet with my brain telling me to make certain decisions. I would mutter to myself as I picked up the pencils “not green, green is bad,” “oh pink is lovely, pink is perfect.” It’s hard to remember (because I ended up having ECT) but I do remember the colours feeling SO important- like life or death.
My psychosis also really limited what I could do. My delusions permeated all my usual activities. I couldn’t read, talk to people, watch TV, or write- it was all too distressing. Drawing was something that took my body and brain back to a basic state, where I was less distressed.
The closest experience I can connect it to, that other people may have experienced themselves, is when you’re having a bad time on acid. It’s similar but at the same time barely comparable. When I used to trip, I found drawing one of the calming activities that helped get my anxious brain back into a good state.[2] And it was a similar psyche to the importance of creating various shapes and colours. There’s also that self-conscious internal feeling- that feeling that you can’t communicate with other people.
You don’t need drugs to create art, and you don’t need to be mentally unwell to create art either. But I think sometimes in those headspaces, you need art. Since being in hospital, I haven’t drawn as much as I did during that time. I’m thankful that I had art then and I’m sure it will always be there for me.
These are some collages I made more recently:
[1] Colin Martin, “Art and Empathy: Five Lived Experiences of Psychosis,” The Lancet Psychiatry 10, no. 1 (October 2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366(22)00364-9.
[2] “when I used to trip” is such an embarrassing phrase. I had done acid a few times over the span of a few years
You can find Lorien on instagram @jovialjorts and more of her art @jesterinjorts