On the borderline gallery guide

On the Borderline - Gallery Guide Borderline Arts

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Artists - Beccy Gamble

- Helen Duran

- Katy Matilda Neo

- Madeleine Kerslake

- Rachel Moses

- Sarah Clarke

- Sarah Eley

- Victoria Vaughan

Beccy Gamble- Although never having been very creative before, I really enjoyed creating this piece and I have found a new outlet and way of seeing the world. I am really happy to be given the opportunity to express BPD through different means, because it’s a very complex illness that I think people need to understand more. I hope that through this different way it might help.

Medication. Pills. Tablets. Drugs.

I don't like any of them, but the Powers That Be have decided they're needed… But I'm so much more than that. BPD is so much more than that. "Pieces Of Me" aims to show that there are so many surrounding symptoms, thoughts and feelings to BPD... and that there's no "cure all" remedy to it.

Helen Duran I have struggled with my mental health all of my adult life but wasn't diagnosed with BPD until mid 2013. I’m now 37 and married with 2 lovely girls. I use arts and crafts to express how I am feeling, to relax and also as a distraction technique to try to prevent strong feelings, thoughts or urges becoming too unbearable to tolerate.

Can you see me? Am I here? Or am I merely an illusion?

When I was diagnosed with BPD, nobody was ever able or willing to tell me why they'd decided this or what it actually meant… Something I put down to the fact that quite often the professionals don't really understand the disorder or how it actually affects those who suffer; they see the labels, the stereotypes and are often themselves so blinded by the stigma surrounding the disorder that they fail to actually see the person standing in front of them.

This is part of what I wanted to portray in this piece, the fact that people forget to look beyond the obvious or the label and see who that person really is. It is also about my own personal struggle to deal with not knowing who I really am and what's real, along with the constant feeling of not really being seen or understood. The feeling that you don't really exist in any reality.

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Katy Matilda Neo Katy Matilda Neo is an art school drop out, with a PhD in Psychology (which she mostly uses as a doorstop) and a cacophony of mental health disorders. She has spent the last 3 years in intensive therapy for her primary diagnoses (Borderline Personality Disorder and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and she also lives with Major Depressive Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Eating Disorder. She's a hearer of voices, a recipient of intrusive thoughts, and her mind is host to a number of identities, who are learning to get along with one another.

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She's also a kitten lover, an avid reader, a lover of nature and nighttime, and an artist and writer.

For approximately 3 years, she has been documenting her life with mental illness through an art journal sketch series. The pieces in the series are "one draft" drawings, created during or as close as possible to the cognitive or emotional event they depict. Katy's method is not to plan her drawings beforehand. Rather she practices a method she calls "free drawing", which, similarly to "stream of consciousness" writing, involves simply holding the pencil in front of a blank piece of paper, and focusing inwardly on her emotional state. The resultant drawing is often a surprise, even to herself. This method helps her not only to communicate how she is feeling to others (an ability she struggles with verbally), but it also helps her to work out how she is feeling for herself (another things she finds diďŹƒcult).

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The pieces you see here are taken from the art journal series, and each has a caption explaining the emotion or cognitive state they seem to express from the artist's point of view. She is always fascinated to hear about other people's perspectives on what her work means as well, so welcomes feedback or questions (please email).

Web: www.antiparrot.com Instagram: @antiparrot Email: antiparrot@yandex.com

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Curtain Call I've spent my life being pulled in one direction or another, because I am a chameleon. People see in me what they want me to be and because I had no other way of understanding myself anyway, I thought they were probably right.

Cue costume and character creation. But this isn't an artificial or superficial persona. I became it. And so I’ve been passionate about (and successful at) so many things in my life, only to wake up one day and ask myself…. “do I even care about this..?” and find out the answer is “no”. And then I’m back at square one. Asking “Who am I? And what do I want?"

And when this happens, people tend to advise that me that listening to myself, doing what feels meaningful and enjoyable to me is the way to go.

But how do you do this when you have no idea who you are? And I'm not talking about the normal level of existential crisis experienced by most people at one time or another. I embody existential crisis, and always have.

It feels to me like I wake in the morning in a void, scattered around which are the pieces of all the things I could be. And from those, I construct the appropriate person to "be" for the day. Based on what I will do, who I will see and what version of a person I will be expected to be. And if I don’t do this, and go out into the world without a pre-constructed persona, worn like a costume, I might not even exist.

Cognitively and through therapy I know that not to be true, but the search for “who I am” still consumes my every waking moment in a way that makes me doubt existence, reality, the world around me, myself, anyone and anything.

Desolation As anyone with BPD will be able to tell you, the emotions can be deep, sudden and intense. This picture represents the a feeling of sadness, despair, emptiness and loneliness so deep and overwhelming that I could only describe it as desolation.

In the sky are written all of the negative thoughts that I was being flooded with whilst experiencing this episode. I deliberately obscured them so they could never be read (I don’t even know what they say) because the creation of this picture was an outpouring of pain, and I did not want to preserve those negative thoughts about myself, as to me this would make them feel real. Rather, I wanted to get them out and then wash them away. And in this way, this picture felt very healing to create.

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Intangible Hope Hope is one of my alters. She is very special to me (they all are in their own ways). She is shy, quiet and unassuming. She can turn invisible, and people easily forget about her. She can also cloak others in invisibility to hide them. Despite her frail appearance, hope is incredibly resilient. When she feels safe, she is creative and has an excellent sense of humour. In this picture, she wanted to be seen in her vulnerable state, so that's what I drew, but there are many pictures of her that express her mischievousness and sense of fun.

She called herself Hope because she lost all of her hope. But now that she's being seen and heard, she helps me to look into the future and she is beginning to regain her hope. She is a natural optimist.

Hope, to me, represents a future that I am starting to believe I can have. One where my life is guided by my own decisions, and the wants and happiness of others, while very important, will no longer be held in such esteem that I neglect myself to please.

Seeking The Middle Ground A key part of recovery from BPD is working to challenge black and white "all or nothing" thinking. This is something I find particularly hard. This piece was made at a time when I was really struggling to see that "grey areas" could even exist. I was struggling with the dialectic challenge presented by the fact that I wanted to do everything "all by myself" because there is a particular part of me that refuses to ask or acknowledge a need for help and support, and encourages me to punish myself and criticise myself as weak if I do have help. Conversely, there are parts of me that are small, and tired, and exhausted, and those parts desperately want to be picked up and carried and have someone else "fix" me without me having to do the hard work. The learning here was that, unpleasant as it felt to me, it was my job to teach the stronger part compassion for the smaller parts and help her to listen to them and to work at a pace that is more acceptable for them, helping them along the way, and stopping when they need rest.

She Lives In The Dark I struggle a lot with nightmares and night terrors. And I have for as long as I can remember. I wake frozen with terror and in desperate need for reassurance and comfort. To me the "dream" feels real.

When I was a young child, my parents soon lost patience with this "behaviour" me continually getting out of bed was "not acceptable".

So I used to sneak to the edge of where the pool of light from downstairs hit the darkness of the landing. And crouch there, smelling the pungent aromas and hearing the soft voices of my parents and their hippie friends, and gleaning some, small comfort. I hovered on that top step for hours, until eventually I learnt to stay in bed. I made up tricks to protect myself from the monsters that came into my room in the dark. Real and imaginary. No-one could or would keep me safe, so I worked to build an impervious armour; "I feel nothing" and I learned to dissociate.Â

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She Was Brave As per therapist’s instructions, I am working on challenging negative core beliefs. I have a lot of them.

And my ability to update my memory with new evidence to negate these is very poor. I generally struggle to remember what has been said within the session, and almost never take these details home with me. So I was asked to revisit these ideas and challenge them using art and writing. And I was advised to write down instructions.

And to write a note to myself to remind me to LOOK at the instructions! Which was a good call, as I immediately forgot about them!

This is one of the drawings that happened while musing on this task and was at attempt at acknowledging all of the pain, suffering and darkness this part of me had endured, reminding myself that she did the best she could, she was a powerless child, she was incredibly brave, she survived.

This is What I Really Mean One of the aspects of BPD I struggle with most is the lack of a coherent sense of identity. To the extent where I wasn't even aware that this was an issue. I simply defined myself through the ways in which others saw me. I was whatever everyone expected me to be.

Because that was all I knew.

Therapy helped me to understand the concept of a "self" separate from others. And this picture was an expression of a very early stage in the process of understanding that "I" is a single unit and that I am not responsible for the wants, needs or feelings of others. Not in the way I thought I was anyway.

During this time, I flipped to the extreme opposite, as I tend to do, and felt completely isolated from everything and everyone. This picture expresses a deep patch of dissociation/depersonalisation/ derealisation that I went through at this time, because to me, the shock of finding that I wasn't actually connected to everything cut me loose from reality for a little while, leaving me feeling connected to nothing and no-one; not even myself.

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Why I’m So Tired Like much of my work, 'Why I'm So Tired" is about identity and the struggle between the parts of my self that act as independent and often opposing forces. When I wrote this, I wasn't aware that what I experience is a form of Dissociative identity disorder, these "inner selves" had just emerged for the first time and I was still reeling from the shock of finding them.

My task, once the alters had made themselves known, was to work out who each one was, what her purpose was, or what memories she held, and what her wants and needs were. Because I have a number of these and they are all quite different, this was quite a challenge. Initially I didn’t even know how to listen to them. I was frightened and bewildered by them.

Eventually, with patience, the cacophony quietened down a little, and I began to be aware of the extreme level of conflict between them, each pulling a different way and each thinking they know what is best for me (as their purpose is to protect me). At this point, I could do little more than observe and try to make sense of it all. The poem below was written at the time of painting and was part of the processing I did to make sense of what was happening to me.

Madeline Kerslake- Madeleine is a 24 year old multi-disciplinary artist, aspiring to study a PhD in Mental Health and Arts at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her art derives from her own autobiographical experiences with Well-being and Mental health, with a particular focus on theories of ecology. Madeleine's art is always created 'within' the moment, including movement within mindfulness, poetry with contradiction, and images with inconspicuous insight.

Email: madeleinkerslake@hotmail.co.uk

CCTV Image This photography explores the idea of watching and being watched. In relation to mental health issues, this image blurs out the background voice of not wanting to be watched, whilst focusing on the uncontrollable notion of being seen. The black and white colouring of the image reflects the personal, but often misunderstood ideation of not being able to escape the extreme highs or lows of BPD.

Paint Dripping Image This watercolour painting explores the notion of identity, and how one can struggle to form a sustainable and controllable personal gesture of identity. The absence of eyes depicts an absence of focus, as well as the struggle of clear vision when experiencing a 'high' or 'low'; however, the colours within the painting begin to seep through (in contrast with the photographed image) signifying the beginning of a journey of understanding of emotions and destinations in-between 'high' and 'low', that have been learnt through therapy, mindfulness, and the creative arts.

Rachel Moses-Although I struggle with not being ‘good enough’ at art, I have enjoyed creating it for years. I particularly love drawing, however in this exhibition I’ve actually created a mini installation. I have a diagnosis of BPD and my art in this exhibition expresses my struggle living with this condition.

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Bin Full of Rubbish I love drawing – well I used to. Now the thoughts and voices in my head try to stop me from doing such a thing. Whenever I put pencil to paper, the critic within begins: “That’s no good. Why do you think you can do this? You’re stupid. You’re not worthy. You’re not allowed to do something you enjoy. Everything you do is ‘rubbish’. Tear it up and destroy it.” When I was creating art for this exhibition, I went through this very process and felt that I could not possibly show anything I’d done. I joked that all I had to show was a bin full of scrunched up paper with frustrated scribbles on.

After chatting with a friend, I realised how much a bin full of paper actually really does represent my experience of BPD – ever feeling not good enough and fearing that anything I am or do is rubbish and not worthy to show others. I’m forever apologising for who I am or who I’m not and for what I do and what I don’t do. People tell me that this is the voice of BPD telling me so. That the way you see things really does depend on the perception of how you look at them.

Having my ‘Bin Full of Rubbish’ in an art exhibition made me consider that perhaps my perception of rubbish is actually not rubbish if it can be seen as art. Maybe this is also true for other parts of who I am and for other things I do. This is something I’m yet to grasp and believe to be true, which is why I framed the bin with the ‘sorry about all this’ tape. I hope I will be able to be myself without apologising for who I am one day.

Sarah Clark- I've been interested in photography for about 11 years, ever since I bought my first digital camera. I've had mental health problems for 9 years - a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and depression. I haven't been well enough to have a paid job for some time but have just about managed to complete 2 adult education courses in photography in the past 3 years.

Having BPD takes over your life. You lead a chaotic lifestyle, living from one crisis to the next, on a roller coaster, spiralling from extreme negativity, intense emotional pain, self-destruction, turmoil, unrest and despair - contrasted with over optimism and unrealistic expectations and goals. When I'm low I lose interest and enjoyment in photography but when my mood switches I get in a really creative and inspired mindset. Indeed, perhaps some of my more quirky images are inspired by my extreme moods in their very essence. Photography gives me a purpose and focus, and capturing a single moment in time is a way of providing a narrative and documenting the world around me - whether based in reality or creatively setting up images in a construed fantasy world.

I believe self-expression is of fundamental importance to recovery from mental illness and I'm passionate about ending stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health. Photography puts things in perspective and helps me focus on the bigger picture of life and overcome my individual problems. It is a bridge between the inner mind and external world, promoting initiative, meaning and self-expression. Photography is cathartic and has saved me from the depths of despair.

Website: www.photosbysarahclark.com/about/

Email: photosbysarahclark@yahoo.co.uk

I might smile but can you see the pain in my eyes I’m well known for my smile and seemingly happy persona, I’m good at putting on a brave face – but true friends can see past my smile and can tell how I really feel and spot when I’m particularly sad.

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Borderline Personality Disorder I had just learnt about differential focusing and was playing around with printed text and perspective, I think the converging lines in this photo give power and meaning to the diagnostic criteria of BPD and bring the text alive.

Hanging out to dry As part of my college course we had to do an assignment on portraits – I was particularly struggling and having a very tearful day. Sometimes I just cry for hours and can’t stop. I felt I needed to dry myself off after all the crying I’d done! Setting up the photo took my mind off how I was feeling and helped me to stop crying.

Sarah Eley- Until my late teens, because I felt that I was ‘bad at art’, I decided that I hated it.

However, when I started AS Level photography and began art therapy, I found I could use art for emotional expression.

As well as BPD, I have a diagnosis of anorexia. For me, anorexia is really an element of BPD - a coping mechanism (albeit a destructive one) to manage the intense, unbearable emotions and difficulties that come as a result of BPD. I find creativity vital to maintain reasonable health – whether as an outlet for emotions, a distraction technique, or for relaxation and fun. This is a much healthier coping mechanism!

I love all kinds of art/crafts and tend to go through phases of getting obsessed with one medium printing, stamping, clay, paper modelling, decopatch, scrap-booking, felting, jewellery making… the list goes on! Jack of all trades, master of none! Having said that, the two mediums that have remained constantly throughout all my ‘phases’ are collage and photography.

I find that selecting words and images for collage and ordering them onto paper really helps me to work out how I am feeling – which helps me to then communicate to my therapist how I’m doing.

I love photography and I am also an avid Lego fan. I like to combine the two! So I regularly take photos of my Lego figures on little adventures – whether just as part of daily life, or on trips away.

It’s a form of escapism and playfulness. Sometimes my photos have a deeper meaning, though often they are purely a bit of fun.

I’ve found that my artwork can also help people to gain insight into BPD. This helps them to better understand me, and also to understand others with the diagnosis. BPD is so misunderstood and stigmatised and I’m passionate about helping to change that, which is why I’m exhibiting here at ‘On the Borderline’.

Instagram: @eels83

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Medication We'd never tell someone with diabetes that they are weak if they 'give in' to taking insulin. Yet it is really common to hear people saying, 'You don't need those' and 'You just need to be more positive instead' etc when discussing psychiatric medication. In the past, I've felt ashamed for needing to take them, or thought 'I'm just being stupid - I don't need them', and have stopped taking them. But it's never ended well!

I currently take five tablets for depression and anxiety that are part and parcel of BPD, alongside a ridiculous amount of vitamins and minerals for the physical effects of anorexia, including osteoporosis. Every Sunday, I pop them all out into dossette boxes ready for the week ahead. One day, when I was popping the pills, I was getting really fed up having to do this every week. But then I realised how lucky I am to be on medication that helps somewhat and that I have family and friends who mostly do not judge me for taking them. Yes medication does not fix everything and does not help everyone - but it can play a part in making life a little easier, and there is nothing wrong with admitting that and taking advantage of it!

Weight Gain For me, controlling my weight and ‘achieving’ weight loss can deceive me into thinking I’m fine. It’s like nothing else matters as long as the number on the scales is going down. It’s the ‘right’ thing to do – I feel ‘clean’ inside and it shuts down my emotions and numbs the otherwise unbearable sense of overwhelm and shame that overcomes me as a result of BPD.

When trying to accept that gaining weight is/was the right thing to do, the eating disorder ‘voice’ screams the opposite. I can't think of anything else. I got on the scales again and again, desperate to see the number decrease. This photo expresses this dangerous obsession that fools you into thinking it’s making you feel better, but in actual fact makes you feel absolutely miserable (physically, mentally and emotionally). I’m now learning other ways to manage feelings (that are incredibly intense as a result of BPD) rather than shutting them and ending up very poorly. It’s a long, tough journey, but I’m on the right path!

Rest!

There are days when the effects of BPD and general stress really take their toll on another level. On these days, my body just crashes. I actually can’t stay awake. I sleep all day other than the occasional 5 minutes to eat or to go to the toilet. I beat myself up for not achieving goals or getting tasks done, for not fighting the illness, for not forcing myself to meet expectations. If I'd got a 'physical' injury that you could see, people would tell me that I was being irresponsible for NOT resting. And the reality is that on those ‘other-level’ days, I need that much rest in order to recharge physically, mentally and emotionally. I need to take time out to avoid a total breakdown. Of course, sometimes it's good to push yourself to keep going (and I do that a lot – perhaps too much), but sometimes you need to STOP and rest, with no guilt attached.

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Paralysis Sometimes, I wake up and feel paralysed. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I feel like I can’t move. I can’t make sense of anything or make any decisions. I feel vulnerable and overwhelmed, yet horrendously numb and empty simultaneously. I need to get up, even if just to get a drink or go to the toilet. But it’s like there is a physical weight on me preventing me from even sitting up. I want to, but I can’t.

When I finally do get out of bed to feed the cats, I often find myself getting back into bed as quickly as possible – it entices me into thinking I feel safe there. But then I am trapped again. It seems that this is common for people with BPD to experience and it is horrendous. You never know when it will strike and it really can take control of the whole of your being.

Rainy Day I am a very smiley person and people often seem shocked when they find out I have BPD. I am an expert at putting on a mask when I’m struggling. If I really can’t even manage to put on the mask, I just hibernate to prevent other people seeing me like that. But being on my own when I am in that state just makes me worse. I am learning to reach out to friends and family when I am having a ‘rainy day’ – not necessarily to talk, but just to be around people, rather than staying home alone and ending up in self-destruct mode.

Distorted Reality Having BPD can really distort your sense of reality. This can result in totally misinterpreting other people’s behaviours/words, dissociation, struggling with paranoia, or experiencing hallucinations and delusions during periods of stress. For myself, I can feel very paranoid a lot of the time. I also often dissociate – feeling that I am not really there. It can feel like there is a glass wall preventing me from experiencing the world around me, I can see it, but it looks odd and distorted. And I can’t touch it or connect with it - I’m cut off from it. This photo expresses what it’s like when struggling with dissociation, paranoia and distorted reality. The girl being in the glass jar outdoors conveys that sense of being out and about, yet still cut off. The distorted reflection of the houses and trees on the glass jar conveys how I can see out, but that what I see is distorted.

Hope is Distant We all experience times when hope seems to go astray. For us with BPD, this happens far more often and much, much more intensely. The hopelessness is all consuming and you honestly believe it will never leave you. In those times, life can seem unbearable and suicidal thoughts often come into the equation. Most of the time, I can ignore these thoughts and just try to push on through til eventually they fade.

Other times they somehow get a real grip of me and it’s like they control my mind – I can think of nothing else. Those occasions have led to hospitalisations and a great deal of turmoil and trauma for my family as well as for myself. Thankfully, those thoughts definitely take control of me far less now than they did a few years ago. Hopefully as I continue with therapy, this trend will continue

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Do you want some PRN? When I was in hospital last year as a result of BPD, I got a little obsessed with making ‘lift the flaps’ collages. Often I’d put secret or private thoughts and feelings behind the ‘doors’. I’d only let certain people look what was going on ‘behind closed doors’. When I shared it with them, I felt relieved and lighter.

Unfortunately, many times when I told staff that I was stressed, anxious, sad, manic or couldn't sleep… they had no time to stop and talk due to understaffing. Instead they would offer me PRN diazepam (valium) to calm me down. Offering PRN medication at the drop of a hat was standard practice for all patients. To me, it felt like they were saying, ‘we have no time for feelings here, take this medication – that will lock them away and keep things neat an tidy’. Perhaps this was the BPD thinking distorting reality. Perhaps not. But either way it felt very real and increased my anxiety – knowing that my worries/feelings were just building up to the point of being utterly overwhelming.

This image is a ‘lift the flaps’ collage to express that. Behind each locker door are various words to do with fear and anxiety. I am there aware how much is being stuffed into the lockers; more and more every day until they are so full that the doors bust open and it all lands on me and crushes me. But I have diazepam.

Do you want to Ying?

This was another collage I made when I was in hospital last year as a result of BPD. I created this collage to focus on hope and positivity when I was feeling low. It helped to distract me from very selfdestructive thoughts and reminded me of the good things in life. It wasn’t a miracle cure (sadly), but it helped a lot and is nice to look back at. One of the girls found the phrase ‘do you want to ying?’. Neither of us knew what it meant, but we found it amusing, so I added it to the collage just to make me smile.

Locked in my Mind Since getting to know lots of other people with BPD, I’ve noticed that we tend to either have a very strong emotional response/connection to our thoughts OR to have no response/connection at all. I’m not sure if that’s true fact, but either way, it is scientifically proven that we have difficulty regulating our emotions because our brains are actually wired differently than those without BPD.

For years, my thinking has been cut off from my emotions. It’s like they have never been connected. The padlock in the image represents the split. Although the lock is open, it still remains in place. When I created this image, the thoughts I was having didn’t connect to any feelings - I felt dead inside. But my thoughts were very controlling and I was scared of how dark they were and whether I was strong enough to avoid giving into them. I believed that no one understood this or had time for me and I was very lonely.

I’m now working on making the connection between my feelings and thoughts in therapy. I’m learning to notice, accept and feel my emotions – and to comfort myself. It’s hard work, slow progress and scary at times, but well worth it. I feel more alive and more connected to reality. I am learning to not shove my emotions away into a cupboard until it’s so stuffed full that they all fall on my head and knock me out!

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Speak This collage expresses the feeling of not being heard. If I tried to share how I felt, it seemed that the words just flowed out to form a river of text of built up thoughts and feelings. The river was overwhelming to anyone I spoke to as well as to myself, so it seemed easier to just block it and form a dam. Unfortunately the invalidation from myself and from others just exacerbates those thoughts and feelings until they become so forceful that they break through the dam. This is when I break down.

I’m learning to validate my own thoughts and feelings as well as speaking to my therapist, which is a vital part of being able to take control of BPD rather than letting it control you.

Denial In the past, I’ve had periods where I have gone from internal crisis to internal crisis, which has displayed itself through external selfdestructive behaviour. In therapy terms, this is known as ‘the unrelenting crisis’.

Generally though, I have a tendency to live in the land of denial. I can fool myself as well as others that I am fine when I’m not. I escape from my feelings by keeping busy, achieving, engaging in distractions, playing and zoning into my imagination where things are good (albeit rather unusual). I can appear highly competent for long periods of time.

I do this to avoid break down and crisis. And all of those things are very helpful in moderation and make me a very optimistic person. However, eventually this very behaviour leads to a crash from exhaustion and I simply can’t cope. I then hide away from the world for fear that they will see me as weak and as a failure. In therapy terms, this is known as ‘apparent competence’.

Often it’s assumed that everyone with BPD fits into the ‘unrelenting crisis’ category, but in actual fact a large chunk of individuals with BPD ‘fit’ into the ‘apparent competence’ category. In BPD terms, this is referred to as ‘unrelenting crisis’ versus ‘apparent competence’. In order move away from both into actual competence is a tricky endeavour requiring lots of support and therapy.

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Victoria Vaughan

I have always had a passion for being creative, and over the last few years in particular I have found art to be an extremely beneficial form of self-expression. I started to use my artwork to this effect when I began an AGCE art & design course aged 16; at this point, it became a vital way of conveying how I felt and what I was going through, especially when I found it so difficult to explain myself in any other way. I went on to study BA Fine Art at Winchester School of Art, and it was here that I really developed my skills and personal style. During my time at university I was given the diagnosis of ‘borderline personality disorder’, amongst others (including a mood disorder, OCD, anxiety, and an eating disorder, which I was already diagnosed with). It has been essential for me to use my imagination and art to help me to process and cope with my mental health issues.

Although much of my work could be considered quite dark and often rather disturbing, I also frequently employ a sense of humour within my art; when everything can be so serious, I find that comical side of things of the utmost importance in keeping me going! As a consequence, the nature of my work is often paradoxical: it means that people are sometimes unsure of how they should react to the work… do you laugh or keep a straight face? Two of my favourite artistsBobby Baker and David Shrigley- have similar themes of dark comedy as the basis of their work, and they have been hugely influential to my own practice (Baker herself struggled with borderline personality disorder, and did a series of drawings documenting this).

At first, my art was ‘for me’- I don’t create artwork to shock or astound people - but over the last few years I have started to see that I can use the work I do in other ways. Due to the personal nature of my work, I have always been unsure of making it public; it was a big step to even show my closest friends! However, as I had to do this for university etc., I realised that I could show people, and even use it in a positive way to help others and myself. In July 2012 I graduated from university, and my work was exhibited alongside other students’ both in the degree show at Winchester School of Art and at the OXO tower in London Southbank; I chose to show - for the first time - 5 of the ‘diary drawings’ that I had done depicting various aspects of my mental health issues and struggles. I have since exhibited these drawings again as well as other work based on the same theme. I have been doing the ‘diary drawings’ since 2012 and consequently have hundreds! I have also recently found that by showing some of my ‘diary drawings’ to professionals involved in my care, I am able to communicate how I am feeling when I am otherwise unable to find the right words to express myself (which happens frequently!).

My favourite ways of working are drawing and painting, and my favourite mediums to work with are acrylics, inks, watercolour, and graphite.

It would be brilliant if the artwork I have created could help to raise awareness and challenge the stigma surrounding mental illness- particularly BPD, as this is one of the most stigmatised mental illnesses of all.

Instagram: @vicky_artist

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Individual Works Overthinking In this painting my aim is to portray the emotional dysregulation associated with BPD and the complexities of experiencing emotions so intensely. A hypersensitivity to emotional stimuli means that I am constantly reacting to and analysing things (situations, interactions, the news, the-theory-of-absolutely-everything) to the extreme, and as a result I tend to over-think things to the point at which it feels like my head might explode (this obsessive overanalysing/thinking is also a trait of OCD)! Additionally, for someone with BPD it takes longer for an emotion to return to baseline than it does for someone without.

However, despite the negative effects this can have (depression, anxiety, paranoia, self-hatred, self-destructive tendencies, dissociation in times of stress), there are also positives: 1) because I feel and think so deeply, I also care deeply, and this makes me a fiercely loyal friend, 2) I can be very insightful and self-aware, which can help myself as well as others, 3) my creativity is highly dependent on my emotional experiences, and my artwork is a direct result of this (and probably would not exist otherwise), 4) my propensity to feel so intensely enables me to be empathetic, compassionate and understanding of others, 5) when I become curious or passionate about something, I can dedicate a great deal of time and effort towards learning and understanding it, meaning I have a wide array of hobbies and interests!

When I feel bad about and start to focus on the downsides of having BPD (which is often made worse by stigma), I try to remember these things... which often requires prompting from others who see these qualities when I don’t!

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Through My Eyes One of the criteria used to diagnose BPD is ‘identity disturbance: a markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self’. This symptom can manifest itself in different ways, and is something I have struggled a great deal with, although my experience of it now is different to how it has been in the past. The two main issues have always been ‘who am I?’ as a whole, and suffering with extremely low self-esteem and self-confidence due to a distorted and persistently negative view of myself. The latter is what I struggle with mostly now, as I battle with feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred; I feel that I must be a ‘bad’ person - useless, incompetent, someone nobody would want to be friends with, a failure, a burden, boring, waste of space - and find it very difficult to see the numerous positive qualities that others tell me they see.

I used to be consumed by the question ‘who am I?’ because I felt like I wasn’t a ‘whole’; I explained this to others as feeling like there are many different parts of me that are all split off and distinct from one another – ‘fragmented’ - rather than being integrated to form one ‘whole’ person. Despite having a strong sense of self in some areas i.e. morals, values, the core fundamentals of my personality, this feeling of incompleteness resulted in me feeling that I had various separate (and sometimes contradictory) identities or versions of myself, and I felt that instability showed itself in the way that I dressed, my career/life goals, my music preferences, my passions, my level of introversion/ extroversion, and sometimes feeling like a completely different person from one moment to the next. However, in the last couple of years I have discovered a feeling of being more ‘complete’, and rather than feeling ‘fragmented’ and viewing those seemingly incompatible parts of myself as separate ‘identities’, I now have the ability to view them all as parts of one whole person with a diverse and huge amount of interests!

I still joke that I have a different wardrobe for each version of myself (cue ‘impulsivity in areas that are self-damaging’ e.g. spending…), but despite how it can sometimes be amusing, when at it’s worst it did cause me a lot of distress internally.

Another symptom of BPD is dissociation in times of stress, and when present this causes me to feel disconnected and detached from myself and reality, leading to feelings of emptiness and ‘nothingness’, sometimes losing track of time. At these times in particular, I will look in the mirror and not recognise the person looking back at me. No matter how long I stare, it’s like I'm looking at a stranger. At times of stress I have also experienced a loss of touch with reality, including paranoia and hallucinations, and feel I can’t trust my own senses.

I’ve aimed to portray these two distinct difficulties in this painting, with the eyes representing the fragments of myself and also the times I feel unable to trust my senses, and the portrait representing my whole, true self behind them, even when I can’t recognise that person.

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Seeing I did this painting without really thinking about it or planning on what to do (it was done at an all-night ‘artathon’, so I was pretty sleep deprived by this point) and this is what happened… I tend to draw and paint eyes a lot; they’re so complex, detailed, beautiful, soulful. I painted/ doodled the eye first (in a cartoon style, I’d already spent my energy on painting a realistic eye), and then did the words associated with seeing, as well as words linked to that to show how that sense can become distorted/unreliable when dissociating or losing touch with reality.

Diary Drawings

Nightmare/Denial This was the first of many drawings I did in my most recent hospital admission, in 2017. The lyrics are from a song, and really resonated with me; I felt I was waking up every day in a nightmare, in regards to both my physical environment and my mental state. The second line is in reference to a few things, some too personal to share, but one was simply denial of the situation I found myself in. The black scribble is something I have been using in my work for years, and it appears on a few of my drawings as a symbol of depression/illness/death.

Blinkered I was asked so many times in hospital, and have been asked so many times outside of hospital, what my ‘goals’ and hopes for the future are.

I was in hospital because of a severe depressive episode, and at the time I didn’t want a future, so I felt I couldn’t possibly answer this question: if I couldn’t envisage a future at all, then how could I state what I wanted my future to consist of?

Avalanche I drew this during a state of severe depression. The lyrics are from a song called ‘Avalanche’ (by Bring Me The Horizon), and the whole song resonates with me for many reasons: I can’t cope, I don’t fit in in this world, I feel like a lost cause, please fix me… I feel like I'm going under, in an avalanche. The look in the eye is one of fear and desperation.

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Masking One of my key defense mechanisms is ‘masking’, however rather than protecting me it often stops me getting the help I need. It is such a natural response, though, that I feel unable to break through the mask I've created over time. I have a reputation of answering with “I'm fine” or “I'm okay”, even when I'm obviously not. I see it as a way of protecting myself from others, and of protecting others from the reality of how well/unwell I am; I just want to be strong for everybody else. I drew this when I was in hospital and my own mask was preventing me from talking to anyone or saying how I really felt despite my desperation to do so; I just wanted people to see through the “I'm fine” and the fake smile and see how I was really feeling. Some of the emotions are general, and some were related to the situation I was in.

The ‘scribble’ appears again here, over my eyes: “dead eyes”, “zombie eyes”, or “empty eyes” were descriptions used often by those who knew me.

Whisperer These lyrics represent how I was feeling: at the prospect of suicide, about being in hospital ‘safe’ instead, and about the experience of the emotions and thoughts that lead to those things. The wall represents feeling trapped and caged in - either physically or metaphorically - no matter what I did and whatever the outcome, as well as the walls I've built myself to keep others out, and myself in. The dead ‘scribble’ appears once again, for obvious reasons.

It’s Always Raining This is one of the first images in the ‘diary drawings’ series that I started back in 2012, and one that contains the most colour. The blue is prominent, and a metaphor for the depression I was experiencing particularly severely at that time. In this picture, the blue is the ‘rain’, and it seems to be crashing down around the figure (me) without any sign of easing off. There is a closed umbrella on the floor, and after showing someone the image they said “why don’t you pick the umbrella up?”. Up until that point I hadn’t even noticed that I had drawn it! I think that maybe (subconsciously) the umbrella was my way of saying that I knew there was a way out, I just didn’t have any idea how to access it. As a result, I had no choice but to put up with the rain. It can seem like an obvious answer to people on the outside, but for the person suffering it can be impossible to see a solution through the rain.

Monster Mind This is one of the earliest images in my ‘diary drawings’ series but is still one of my favourites. To begin with, red was the colour I most often used in these drawings when venturing away from black; it is such a strong colour and provokes an intense emotional response. In this drawing, I was trying to convey how mental illness manifests itself. The blank expression as I try to put on a ‘brave face’ and end up suffering in silence, whilst the monster of mental illness takes over. It often feels like I have no choice but to keep up this act, all the time feeling like there is an evil monster inside my head, tearing apart who I am, who I should be, who I want to be… this image shows what it feels like it should LOOK like. Mental illness is a silent killer, and is so often disregarded or stigmatized because people can’t SEE it like you can see a physical ailment.

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The Dark These lyrics along with the drawing represent the descent back into a depressive episode, and how depression can affect your ability to function or see any ‘light’. Once you’re in that dark basement, you may feel like you’ll never escape, even if you can remember that there is a world above you. Sometimes the basement may contain a rickety ladder and a dimly lit lamp, clouded by shadows, and you might be able to make out the sounds of people calling you from above. Other times, you may hit the cold hard floor and be shrouded in darkness, unable to see in any direction, let alone see a way to get out… and there is only silence.

KNOCK-OUT This drawing represents the struggle between my negative inner dialogue (the devil) and the positive qualities about myself that I am trying to believe, the ones other people can see and constantly reaffirm (the angel). Here, the devil has won once again, and my angel has been knocked down so many times that she’s in a coma. Eventually the fight gets too hard and I give in to the negative voices. I find it so difficult to believe these things that the angel is saying, that she usually requires a pep talk or two from other people before she can get up again, and I can start the fight again.

Unstoppable These lyrics are from a song called ‘Unstoppable’ (by Sia, who suffers from bipolar), and I feel like they perfectly fit the “I'm fine” façade. I did this drawing at a time when I had started masking again and I was trying hard to convince people I was ok; ‘I know what it takes to fool this town’ / ‘I’ll tell you what you want to hear’ / ‘only alone will I cry out loud, you’ll never see what’s hiding out deep down’ / ‘I’ll put my armour on, show you how strong I am’. The colours in the eye represent the emotions I'm trying to conceal.

Hospital Vs Nothing I think this image speaks for itself (but I’ll speak anyway). During my time in hospital, I hated being trapped, being surrounded and watched by people 24/7, having no privacy, and feeling like a prisoner (and also the cement block mattresses), but it was for my own safety and I understood that (even the cement block fireproof mattresses).

Everything was checked and monitored and restricted and written up.

Then, when it’s time to be discharged, you have your final ward round, during which lots of strategies and suggestions are made and follow up treatment is discussed… Then you are discharged, and enter the ‘real’ world again. The real world in which, currently - from my own experiences and those of others I know - there is minimal support, often a lack of / no follow up, sometimes no CPN at all, no sign of further help as may have been suggested, and often a whole lot of miscommunication and cancelled appointments. Mental health services are under a lot of strain and do not receive the funding they need, and as a result there isn’t enough support in place to help those who need it. You can have the most caring and dedicated staff working on a team, but if funding/resources are limited then the appropriate services can’t be provided. Rather than a successful transition back into the community, many people end up relapsing and going back into hospital, or having to ‘go it alone’ for long periods of time.

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Enigma This drawing touches on the unstable self-image symptom and the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding BPD. I wrote this poem to represent how I often feel misunderstood and ‘unseen’ by various people, and the effect this can have on how I see myself; I can go from feeling fairly sure of who I am to questioning everything about myself.

I've had the words “you’re a mystery” or “you’re hard to read” or “you’re a conundrum” or “you’re an enigma” said to me so many times, by friends, family and health professionals. I find it very difficult to communicate my feelings and thoughts verbally (cue ‘masking’, introversion, anxiety and overthinking) and so often stay silent for long periods of time when I'm actually thinking very hard about how to translate thoughts/feelings to words... sometimes I can’t and so I end up just staying silent (or saying “I’m fine”), hoping that the person can see through the silence (they usually don’t, because not many people can read minds). I over-think a lot and this means I often have so much going on in my head that I’m not quite sure which answer to produce to a question such as, “how are you?” (this is not a simple question and there are a multitude of possible answers!). When I do try, I may not explain myself very well, or what I say may seem contradictory. There are times I try so, so, so hard to explain myself and it’s still misinterpreted, and I feel so trapped in my own head so much of the time as a result. Someone may comment on something I've said and have read it the wrong way, or they may say I'm feeling or acting a certain way and be completely off the mark, or they may make an offhand remark about how I'm “difficult to work out” or “[insert characteristic I know not to be true]”, and suddenly I start to doubt myself. ‘If they don’t see who I really am, and what they say isn’t matching up with how I see myself, then… am I who I thought I was, am I even me? I thought I was *, but they just said I’m *, so have I been wrong all along?’

Medication tiiiiime!

Taking medication is a part of staying well for many people, including myself. Treatment and recovery should be a combination of medication and therapy, but unfortunately the therapy is often unavailable or there are long waiting lists. Luckily I have been able to access it at different times. I have tried many medications over the years - some have been useful and some have been disastrous - and have brought myself off medication more than once because I was either sick of taking it or ‘didn’t need it anymore’ (that approach has never worked out very well). I’m now in a place where I can accept that I may need to take meds indefinitely, although I still get the thought ‘maybe I should come off of all this s***...’! This drawing is from hospital, where I heard the phrase “medication time!” far too many times, and where I was put on various medications, some of which I'm still on and some of which were… disastrous. Sometimes I feel like a guinea pig.

Give Up I drew this when I was at rock bottom. I was already in hospital but was getting worse, and was slowly giving up on everything I’d been trying to do, including talking to people, pretending to smile, washing, eating, trying to survive. I felt drained of everything, and didn’t have the energy to do anything. I didn’t have the energy to try to try.

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My Meds Are Killing Me This drawing represents one of the dilemmas I was faced with when taking [unnamed] medication: my own brain is killing me, hence why I'm in hospital, but… the medication is killing my brain. Mental anguish or chemical lobotomy? Anyone?

I’m So Tired When someone is depressed or suffering from a mental illness, the words “I'm so tired” mean so much more than “I'm so tired”. So many people hear those words and say “but why are you tired, you’ve not even done anything today?!”, without realising that it means “I’m so tired… of life… of being here… of waking up… of fighting… of existing… of this mental torture that never seems to end… of wanting to die… of being alive”. This drawing shows some of my coping mechanisms, both healthy and not so healthy.

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Published by V21