dysregulation

“dysregulation” - oil on 36” x 24” canvas

i don’t really talk about the parts of me i don’t like. fighting off over a decade of depression and self-hatred means i try to focus on the positives or at least try to feel neutral about myself. but i can’t always do that.

especially when it comes to my response to change. i often have huge, blown-out reactions to things that are often, uh, not that deep. i’m doing my best to not criticize myself for these meltdowns, but it can be hard. i become a sobbing mess. i usually get unreasonably angry. and sometimes i take that out on people near me. or better yet, i’ll simply shut down.

i’m not proud of those reactions, and i’ve been working on managing my anxieties around change, but that doesn’t mean i can always escape a sudden meltdown; i can only attempt to change how i react to them.

this painting came from one of those attempts. granted the change this time was a little bit more than cancelled plans or an unexpected workload, so my reaction was extra intense.

the worst thing i can do in these moments is force these feelings down, but that’s exactly what i did. and much like attempting to keep a bottle of Pepsi and mentos closed, i eventually exploded.

sobbing on the rug in my living room, yearning for release from the feelings controlling my body—to no avail.

but from my vantage point on the floor, i noticed my easel. on it, was a giant canvas that i was supposed to paint, but never did.

i’ve been doing less paintings lately (been working on some exciting projects tho :)), but something in me drew me to the canvas.

still sobbing, i unglued myself from the floor and walked over to it. inside my body, i still felt the pain of the anxiety. my chest felt stuffed with rocks, heavy and sharp. my limbs replaced with magnets pulling my body back to the floor. my head screaming that i’m pathetic for being upset in the first place.

i stared at the canvas. its blankness stared back at me. i had absolutely zero idea what to do with it. so i said fuck it, and started throwing oil paints on there, specifically blues (i know, i know, i’m sad so i use blue, blah blah, so original)

i haven’t painted with oil in over a year and a half, but i had decided that i would change that. it’s a messy paint, and one i don’t have a ton of experience with.

what happened next was 2.5 hours of feelings on canvas. i didn’t know what i was painting, i was just doing. colors on top of colors, smearing together to create strange blends and new textures. i was angry. i was sad. i didn’t really know why or what i was actually feeling, i just knew the pain. my palette knives were taking too long to cover this canvas, so soon i was using my whole hand, covering the canvas in black and red around this sad little figure that started to emerge. i felt consumed with emotion and i tried to purge it all onto this canvas. it didn’t make me understand what i was feeling, only understand that these swinging emotions were smothering me.

so that’s what i painted. the discomfort of not understanding your own feelings and motivations. the discomfort of feeling disproportionately upset. the discomfort of being dysregulated.

i know i got here because of trauma. because i wasn’t taught how to feel, only to subdue and force myself past discomfort. no resolution, just years of ignoring signs from my body, begging for help. but this was an attempt at me helping myself.

i painted most of this with tears rolling down my face. but the longer i painted—the more i added—the lighter i felt. no longer jagged rocks, but only a few pebbles in my chest. i was able to regulate myself to a sort of comfortable low hum of anxiety.

dysregulation is hard and painful and consuming, but this time i let myself feel it, and i got myself out. maybe i can find safety in myself, maybe i can do hard things, maybe i still wish it wasn’t like this, and i’ll figure it out eventually.

but for now, here is my heart on a canvas.