18-Year-Old Girl Draws Her Hallucinations In Order To Cope With Her Mental Illness
With all the stigma that surrounds having a mental illness these days, sometimes it can be a struggle when it comes to looking for ways of living with it. Having a mental illness doesn't mean you're broken, or that you can't be beautiful or make beautiful things.
Some people don't let a label hold them back and use what life gives them to their advantage, even using their talents as their coping mechanisms. That's exactly what 18-year-old artist Kate Fenner did.
This is Kate.
Throughout her life, she had been given different labels, but by 17 her parents realized her mental health was getting worse, and she was diagnosed finally with schizophrenia.
InstagramShe draws a lot of her hallucinations.
Being an artist, she finds that it's a coping mechanism with what her mind creates.
InstagramHer hallucinations often have reoccuring themes.
She sees bugs, faces, and disembodied eyes, and she can also hear voices, sound effects, and sometimes just random noises.
InstagramBugs are actually quite a big thing.
Coupled with her schizophrenia, Kate also has depression, and she's quoted as saying it makes her feel useless, 'like a fly'. The bug illustrations represent her illness.
BoredpandaThey make clicking noises.
She says this figure often crawls out of the vent or crawls underneath things to hide.
InstagramShe also draws herself.
When she looks in the mirror, this is what she can see. She painted the way her eyes looked.
Instagram'Light it on fire'.
The voices tell her many things and make her feel very intense emotions.
BoredpandaThe eyes.
The disembodied eyes she sees warp around her and move in masses on the walls or floor.
InstagramIt's not always all-bad.
This little image is Birdie, and Kate says she gets sung to by her.
Instagram
But a lot of it can be not-so-good.
Sometimes Kate doesn't feel beautiful and wants to shape shift into someone else.
Instagram
Circles and colors.
She can look into other people's eyes and see this, with more odd circles and colors.
Instagram
It's all about managing her emotions.
She struggles to be organized at times, at communicating with others, on top of her paranoia, depression, and anxiety.
Instagram
What Kate lives with can often be debilitating, but she wants people to understand that she's not what people consider crazy. She doesn't go out into the street screaming.
She wants to raise awareness about the spectrum that those with mental illness cover, and expresses that every person can experience something unique. A number of people affected annually by depression continue to climb but how each individual copes is a whole different story.
Some people seek counseling or medication. Others dive into focused activities and creative outlets like making quite bizarre and dark paintings.
