Gasping for Breath. Oil Sticks 25.11.21
Drawing with oil sticks, projecting lines from a photograph taken at Ashdown.
It was a window of time, away from the chaos. The view was frustrating me because I felt like I was looking at something unobtainable. My health has been a worry, and I honestly do not know what the future will be. My depression has changed, because this is now my body showing a sign that it might not survive. When depression is at its worst, I do not want to die. I just want the pain to stop. However, as I sit here now, it feels like God has intervened. I can no longer look forward, or even hope for better. I can not plan an escape route, because, I seem to have accepted that God has decided to take me. Yes, this is a spiritual moment. God seems to have played the ultimate trump card. Instead of trying to help me have a better life, he has decided to take me, That s all I can see, as I sit here. The turmoil from life continues against the backdrop of this personal fear and agony, as I think about my own mortality, and speculate about how much time God will allow me to have, and how I should spent it.
Grabbing at Time. Oil Sticks. 25.11.21
Here, gasping for breath
Warm stillness, then the cold wind
Here grabbing at time.
I made a simple sketch with a graphite stick in my poetry book, and this drawing made in oil stick was developed from that sketch.
The bipolar has ravaged my life, and I am forever trying to find ways to live with it, and make something of my life. Right now though, any thought of making something of my life, seems pointless. I would still like to talk about bipolar and not feel guilty about it, but however terrifying it can be at times. That terror has reached a new level, I am almost numb. Terror seems to be a waste of time. I feel beaten.
Unquiet Sublime
UNQUIET SUBLIME : LEE ROUSELL Wednesday 24th November 2021
I am Lee Rousell. I have been diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. I have recently, however, had cause to believe this to be, not entirely accurate. I would like to be tested for Aspergers and ADHD. I can’t see this ever happening though.
I seem to have an attachment to the theory of The Sublime. I believe there is a relationship between this, and my experiences of mental health episodes. What, I believe defines me, as a person, is that I need to express myself and my feelings and search for the sublime as being part of me. I am an artist, for this reason.
My mind seems to be out of kilter with everyone else, and makes social contact awkward. What is there, in my mind, needs to come out. I feel like a lost soul, without a voice. I never quite connect. I used to think I was wrong, but I am not wrong, this is how and who I am. It can be frustrating, and causes exclusion form that which others take for granted. Life can be lonely. All this can not just stay in my head, it needs to show itself. I Iive in a world that I call “Unquiet Sublime”.
Photography taken from video. Title “Suffocation”.
Powerless is me
Suffocation takes it’s toll
Coming up for air