I’m A Transgender Boy Diagnosed With Paranoid Schizophrenia And My Art Is My Therapy
I had a childhood trauma and my psychiatrist says that’s the reason I have hallucinations.
When I got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, I thought my friends should know so I told them. Although my close friends were okay with it, I had many people leave me because ”people with schizophrenia are often serial killers due to voices telling them to murder”.
Many people from my school also believe those lies. I wish more people knew about this illness because not all of us are “evil”.
I was devastated because of it and I decided to draw my hallucinations. I want to share some with you because it might help people understand this mental illness better. As you scroll down, you’ll see some of my drawings during or after an episode.
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I often feel as if I’m being eaten alive by paranoia and my voices but I learned to cope with it
This is a self portrait I drew when I could barely funcion.
I give my voices personalities and often draw them as human beings
This helps me visualise them and cope with them. This way I learned not to hate them, but to love them for the inspiration I get from them. For example, this is Charles.
Art helped me so much that I actually always draw myself with one of these voices
And this is another self portrait I did based on the game “Don’t Starve”.
I drew myself and Charles as the little ghost who follows me around.
I try to capture the feeling of having too many voices scream at you and talk all at once
Most of my art during an episode is characterised by messy lines and screaming
This was one of my self portraits and it was supposed to capture the visual hallucination I had when I looked in the mirror
Screaming, screaming, screaming
Visual hallucinations don’t last long in my case but they are terrifying
Everyone has their way of going through stressful situations. Art is my way. I am grateful to have friends and girlfriend who support me and help me during episodes. I hope you understand what I am getting through almost every day.
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This is amazing and horrifying at the same time. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. It helps understanding people with schizophrenia, if you have one of those in your life, in my case a relative. It also really helps with feeling more understanding and tolerant for some of his lesser... nice behaviours.
It is amazing..I've been dealing with some mental problems and art was ans still is a way how to handle it...art is truly healing...keep doing what you doing and good luck ☺
This is amazing and horrifying at the same time. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. It helps understanding people with schizophrenia, if you have one of those in your life, in my case a relative. It also really helps with feeling more understanding and tolerant for some of his lesser... nice behaviours.
It is amazing..I've been dealing with some mental problems and art was ans still is a way how to handle it...art is truly healing...keep doing what you doing and good luck ☺
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