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The Perks of Being an Artist

~ Because demented people need love, too.

The Perks of Being an Artist

Tag Archives: mental illness

Drunken Black Whirligig

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by emilypageart in art, death, dementia, health, mental health, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

absence of color, coping, death, dementia, depression, grief, mental illness, pinwheel

It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks. I’ve had a little too much down time. Appointments at the tattoo studio are few and far between since I’m still so new and haven’t developed a big customer base yet (hint hint: tell everyone you know to come see me!). So I’ve had a lot of time to think. That’s not always a good thing for me, because it leads to negative, cyclical swirling in my brain. It’s like my brain is a drunken whirligig of black and gray and more black and more gray. There’s an absense of color in my head sometimes.

I’ve had too much time to look at photos of the tattoos I’ve done and pick them apart and get mad at myself for them not being perfect. I’ve had too much time to worry about the probability that I’ll have to get a job soon since I’m not bringing in much money at the tattoo studio yet. When I’m not constantly distracted, I have too much time to focus on my body, which spends most of its time complaining about its own mere existence and threatening to quit. And when I get tired (which is always) and achy (which is always) and nauseated (which is often), and don’t have a decent distraction, I get little mini flashbacks of those final couple days by my dad’s bedside when I was so utterly drained and exhausted and ill and grief-stricken. And then, of course, I am again grief-stricken.

For some reason, the universe always chooses these moments to give me little nudges to keep me thinking about my dad. Lucky pennies left in the grocery store parking lot, dementia reminders all over the news, tv shows and movies where a parent dies, radio shows about grief…millions of little things that become an onslaught at a moment when I’m already fragile. I’ve cried. A lot. Which is embarrassing when I’m sitting in my tattoo studio room. Not the most professional. Thank god we have doors to close so I can hide for a minute or two and compose myself.

The thing that really gets me is that I’m still not missing my dad. I’m missing my demented dad, my sick dad. And I’m replaying his final days and trying to figure out how I could have spared him that pain somehow. I’m not thinking about him napping happily on the sofa with the cat, or hiking down the train tracks with him, or how he had a very particular way of eating yogurt. I remember those things, sure, but I can’t make myself focus on them. Instead, my brain goes to the hardest, most painful moments with him and replays them over and over. Those painful memories have become syndicated reruns, invading seemingly innocuous moments and leveling me.

I don’t know how to change my focus. I don’t know how to slow the whirligig down and add a little color. I keep trying to will my attention to happier things, like throwing colorful chalk dust onto all the ugliness, but the whirligig just blows the color all away again. I wish there was a way to scrub my memory clean of the dark stuff, because I know there’s color underneath. It’s there. It peeks out periodically. Sometimes it bursts forth and the blackness cracks and shatters and I can sweep it up and toss it out. But the black always comes back. And I’m okay with a little darkness; it’s familiar and makes the good stuff seem that much better. But lately it’s been overwhelming. I wish I could find some balance. Or maybe still have it not be balanced, but have the color on the winning team.

whirligig pinwheel

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Ultimate Woman

10 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by emilypageart in health, humor, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

health, humor, mental illness, silliness, silly, ultimate woman, vitamins

Sometimes I wonder about my own mental health. Why do I do these things?

ultimate woman

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Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

book-cover-1

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Gratitudinousness

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by emilypageart in art, gratitude, health, mental health, painting

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

art, artist, breaking the negative cycle, depression, gratitude, kicking myself in the ass, mental illness, paint, painter, painting, pity party, tomatoes

Normally, on Thursdays, I post a painting about who my dad was before the dementia, but the next one isn’t yet complete, so I’m going to skip it. I’m also not going to talk about him today, because I’ve been in a very dark place over the last couple weeks, and things seem to be getting darker by the minute. This is not the normal time of year for me to get this depressed, so I’m not really sure what’s going on. Have had several loved ones get very sick, and I think it’s contributing to it.  But I have an exercise I do with a friend, Kristy, where, once a week, we trade emails with all the things we’re grateful for over the last week. It helps us each kick ourselves in the ass and stop focusing on the negative. It doesn’t always work, but I do think it helps me break the negative cyclical thoughts. And I find that reading the triumphs and little things that make her happy help to cheer me, too. It forces me to look at little things I might otherwise miss. I just finished typing mine up and sending them to her, and thought I’d try the exercise with you, dear readers. This won’t be a weekly thing, but here are some highlights of my gratitude. I’d love for any of you who are willing, to comment with something that you’re grateful for, to help me see the sunnier side of things.

– I’m starting a new project for the haunt. Will post about it once it’s complete, but for now I’ll just say that it’s way outside of anything I’ve done before, and I’m having to learn as a I go. I love starting new art projects because of the promise they hold, and I love learning a new skill in the process.

– I’ve started giving Satch B12 injections. I’m grateful that I’ve had enough experience with needles that I have no problem doing the injections. I’m equally grateful that they seem to be helping stimulate his appetite and find his purr again. We may not be able to prolong his life, but however long he has should be of a higher quality than before.

– This weekend, I was at work and was going stir crazy. So I called S and said, “we need to stop working right this instant and take the rest of the afternoon off like normal people.” So we went to Adventure Landing and played skee ball and miniature golf. I’m truly awful at both, but I got a hole in one! S got 3. I love that when we play we don’t actually keep score and make it truly competitive. I mean, we get competitive, but only in as much as we look for ways to cheat and sabotage the other person by jumping in front of their ball to block it, or using the club like a pool stick, or blowing on the ball to avoid one last stroke when it’s on the edge of the cup. We were laughing so hard and having so much fun, even though it was eleventy million degrees out. When we were done with the skee ball, we found a little kid and gave him our tickets so he could get a prize. I loved the look on the kid’s face. It was like I’d given him pirate gold.

– I love that, when I do the dishes, I can squeeze the dish soap bottle in just the right way to send bubbles floating around the kitchen. I also love that, sometimes, Dizzy chases them.

– I’m grateful that my god daughter squeals with excitement whenever she sees me. It makes me glow.

– My mom has been taking woodworking classes and is letting me design a coffee table for the new house we’re getting. I sent her rough drawings a few days ago, and she sent over the sketches with the dimensions last night and I’m so excited I might wet myself.

– Breezes. Because, yo, it’s hot.

– Big thick vines that wrap their way around trees. When I was a kid we cut the bases of a couple out at camp and used them as swings like Tarzan. When I pass them now, I smile and think about how much fun that was, sawing away with our pocket knifes and yodeling as we swung.

– Honeysuckle. It makes my walks smell wonderful and puts the song Honeysuckle Rose in my head. Here’s Patti Austen’s version, one of my favorites.

And just in case you’re missing me posting a little art on Thursday, here’s my newest still life of a veggie for which I’m ever so grateful:

Tomatoes with Stems, 12"x12" oil on board $360

Tomatoes with Stems, 12″x12″ oil on board $360

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Emily Page

Emily Page

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