Hello.
I’m Stuart and this is my mental health selfie for Mind.
My story started when I was a teenager, when I left home for the first time to study art
at university.
I didn’t really know what was going on then but I now understand that what I was experiencing
were panic attacks.
Sometimes quite extreme ones and sometimes as regularly as three or four of them a day.
I felt extremely isolated and very, very alone.
Very nervous to tell anybody what I was going through because I didn’t really understand
it myself.
Slowly, I became more withdrawn and started to confine myself into my room and it came
time, one day, to go home and visit my family.
Unfortunately, on the way home, I ate something that I was allergic to and when I arrived
home, I collapsed on my mother’s doorstep, essentially dying from a very, very extreme
allergy.
The next few days in hospital were the most terrifying I’ve ever been through.
I really didn’t think I’d make it and the doctors and nurses didn’t, either.
So, really, it’s a miracle that I’m here.
Unfortunately, I left that experience, even more traumatised than when I went into it.
That anxiety disorder and that panic increased, rapidly and I became confined to my room,
very, very terrified to eat or drink anything.
I lost an awful lot of weight and I really distanced myself from friends and family and
I really didn’t have anywhere to turn.
But one of the things that I did have was my art, which at that time, became more and
more important to me.
Somewhere that I would reach to, to cope with these panic attacks and these feelings and
these emotions that I had and I started to express what was going on, internally, in
those pieces of work, which I started to share with the world.
And I’m extremely lucky that now that’s almost become my career.
I draw and I paint and I make art every day.
Although I’m unbelievably better, compared to how I was at my lowest, I still have panic
attacks from time to time and I still have quite bad anxious episodes.
But I’ve become more capable of dealing with them and noticing them when they’re
flaring up.
One of the things that I still use, to this day, that helps me massively and I’m hoping
it might help some other people who have similar stories to me, is just the act of doodling,
drawing, colouring.
Not in a precious way.
I mean, you don’t have to be good at art to do this.
In fact, it’s better if you don’t think about it too much.
I find, when a panic attack’s coming on, I’ve got better at recognising it in the
early stages and at that point, I’ll grab my sketch book.
Quite often, I’ll put my headphones in and I’ll start doodling and drawing and that
really focuses my mind on something else.
It takes me away from that sort of dialogue and what I find is that as I get absorbed
in that, by the time I finished it and I take a look at the piece of work or whatever I’ve
drawn, often those anxious feelings have subsided.
And one of the things that I’ve learnt is there’s definitely a start and an end to
a panic attack.
And they always will pass, even if you think you’re going to die, actually you definitely
won’t and they will go.
And by doing something in that moment, distracts you from the panic attack can be really powerful.
So, drawing, painting, creativity has been a huge part of how I’ve
coped with that, that part of my life and I know that’s there for me and I always
reach for it as and when I need it.
And it’s a vital part of the toolkit, if you like, of what helps me cope.
Anyway, I hope sharing this has helped someone else who’s going through what I’ve been
through and thank you very much.
Bye.