Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, An Excerpt From Inside Anxiety and Depression, A Work-In-Progress.

I’ve been making work under the umbrella of My Anxiety Project for quite some time now. The various twists and turns the work has taken (drawings, performances, publications, animations) are more the result of my complicated relationship with my own mental health than to any particular plan. Sometimes I make the work to exorcise my own demons or to try and understand my struggle with anxiety and depression. Sometimes I make the work believing it might be useful to others who live with anxiety and depression, or others trying to live with and be an ally to a friend or loved one. I’ve been following my thoughts, feelings, fears, body aches and pains, almost improvisationally, trying to listen to them and let them guide my pencil across the paper. A few weeks into the pandemic (Covid-19), when it was clear things weren’t going to be “normal,” for some time to come, I tried to take stock of all this work. Asking myself what’s next? And to my surprise, discovered that my relationship to my anxiety and depression is actually one I can live with. I discovered this as a result of starting a new visual narrative piece, Inside Anxiety and Depression. A piece I’ve been constructing one page at a time, each page hand drawn and hand written. Each an attempt to articulate the truth of living with these companions. A truth I can only express from having accepted them as my companions and working each day to live in balance with them. Each day I focus on mental health, and not mental illness, seeking to be inside anxiety and depression but not owned by them. This brief silent movie is excerpted from the longer work, a work still in progress. I’m grateful to have it appear in Intima.