Journey with a Dragon
Living with a diagnosis like multiple sclerosis seriously upended my life, causing me to experience significant physical pain and mental trauma. For two years, starting in the winter of 2017, I lived with what doctors thought was MS. All the symptoms pointed that way. I endured chronic headaches, fatigue, bladder retention, nerve pain in my back, neck, skin, and feet. My core strength was declining. I was fragile and scared of what this monstrous disease (I dubbed a dragon) might take from me next.
I coped with this ongoing trauma by creating art in therapy.
Here is that art in chronological order starting in the summer of 2016 when the dragon first arrived.
"Nerve Pain" - This is how the pain felt to me. It's the chronic headache pain, and the constant "demon skin," patches of sunburn-like sensation that traveled to different parts of my body.
"Turbulent Waters" - This is an oil painting that captured the uncertainty of the source of the strange neurological symptoms that wreaked havoc on my body.
"Scary Woods" is an oil painting of a cypress forest I photographed the year before. The fear is in what lurks behind the trees. Was this a premonition of things to come? I painted this just three days before being admitted into the hospital for numbness on the left side of my face.
"Flare Up" - I painted this oil painting a week after returning home from the hospital just after being diagnosed with MS. This painting obviously represented the disease that I named "The Dragon"
"The Sleeping Dragon" - The idea for this came when I asked myself, "Is there a way to put this dragon asleep?" At the time, I was hopeful that the approach I took for the treatment of MS, the Wahls' Protocol, could do just that, and making this sculpture might magically lure the dragon into slumber.
"Electric" - This oil painting came out of nowhere (the unconscious mind.) I was experimenting with a rounded off palette knife to make what seemed to be energy coming from a plant. When I stepped back, I realized it looked spine-like. Was I painting my nervous system resyncing?
"Energy" - This painting represented the new cell energy (mitochondria) I was experiencing in my body since going on the Wahls Protocol, a diet that eliminated gluten, dairy, and sugar, and added 9 cups of vegetables/fruits a day.
"Writing on the Wall" - Here's another painting that depicts the fear and uncertainty of living with a dragon that could at any time breathe fire anywhere along my nervous system.
"Keep Me From Going Under" - This painting was inspired by a Casting Crowns song, "Oh My Soul" lyrics, "There's a place where fear has to face the God you know." "...Can he find me here? Can he keep me from going under?"
"Shipwrecked Faith" - Here's another painting inspired by Casting Crown's song, "Oh My Soul." "I'm not strong enough, I can't take anymore, You can lay it down, And my shipwrecked faith, Will never get me to shore, You can lay it down."
"Look Him in the Eyes" - What would the dragon look like if I stared him in the face? This is what I came up with.
"Feardom" - With continuing flare-ups from the dragon, I needed to give my fear form hoping to gain control over it. Later, I would find it too difficult to complete for it had control over me. I finished this piece after returning home from Mayo Clinic.
"Narrow Escape"