Looking back to my earliest memories, I can’t recall a day of my life where I didn’t feel severely anxious. Over the last 15 years, I have been diagnosed with many anxiety-related disorders – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Complex PTSD, Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, and others. Additionally, symptoms of Inattentive ADHD often leave me feeling severely anxious and overwhelmed.
My anxiety looks a myriad of ways. It can leave me paralyzed with panic, hyperventilating to the sound of my racing thoughts. Sometimes it propels me into productivity, hyper-fixating on marking off items on a never-ending list of things I have labeled as urgent. It can leave me irritable, sensitive to my environment, others’ emotions, or the feeling of my own skin. Often, it triggers a musical performance of my own tears, with promise of an encore.
From a young age, I have experienced dissociation in times of extreme anxiety or stress. What began as a trauma response is now induced by my most unwanted intrusive thoughts. It is difficult to think rationally or regain control when my mind is repeatedly communicating defeat or a perceived threat to my emotional stability.
Static is a four-piece series that developed from a Wings Across Alabama art support group meeting I attended in 2022. It started with me attempting to portray my most intense dissociative experience that occurred earlier that year. The screen represents the constant noise in my head. There is no off button. There is no power cord to unplug.
The final piece, Static: Dissociation, portrays how I often feel when I am disassociating. I move through these realms in my mind. The darker the colors get, the more disconnected I become – moving into a state of total darkness, where reality is lost. The background represents the dizziness I experience when I begin to move into this space, blurring my surroundings until all I see is a static gray.
Creating the Static series has allowed me to process my emotions and experiences in a healthy way. I have historically used writing as a primary form of expression; but I have found there is healing power in allowing myself to push through my artistic fears and express myself in a way I’m not always able to through words alone.
Alicia
Static: Dissociation
NFS
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