4

           In my early twenty’s something drastically different began to happen, there was something so wrong about the way I was starting to feel. There were physical manifestations of sudden heat and cold in my body, constant shaking, I had blisters in my scalp. As time went on, new ailments began to emerge. For three years I visited numerous doctors and they ran every test that they could think of. Under normal circumstances, to be told by a doctor “your test results are normal” is welcome news, but to hear that same line over and over became so frustrating. I felt anything but normal. One day, on my way out of another fruitless doctor’s visit, I was standing in a Hospital lobby, while waiting for the elevator, I began reading different flyers on the wall, and stumbled onto a poster, there it was, all the things I’ve been feeling listed right there in front of me. It was depression. Through my haze of suffering came a ray of light, I can finally get help, but that happiness was short lived. Three years slowly turned into twelve years and the pain just got worst with each passing year. For someone that has not been through severe depression, it is a difficult thing to truly describe; you are in a constant state of sadness and worry, it is like every thought that you have is being sent through a thick, dark cloud in your head. Over the years I was given different medications and none worked. Therapy didn’t work; tried different churches and that didn’t work. The pain just intensified with each passing year. My depression manifested itself into new branches of anxiety; panic attacks in public places, O.C.D. repeating actions over and over and not knowing why I’m doing it, pulling my hair out. There were days when my legs for reasons unknown would just stop working, I would lay in bed unable to walk, my vision at one point started to go, (everything became blurry) there was paralyzing body pains, at one point even the desire and ability to draw and paint was gone, no matter how hard I tried, I could not do it. And if the assaults on my mind were not bad enough, then came the additional voices. I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, and one of the things that you learn is if someone commits suicide, they go straight to hell. Over the years I fought against the thought but the voices became more and more frequent and it started to ware me down. Voices in my head were constantly saying “kill yourself.” A task as simple as drinking a glass of water was now a full personal conversation of panic; “Drink the water! No, don’t drink it! Why is it in a glass? It should be in a cup”! I can’t tell you how many days I’ve spent banging my head into walls hoping that whatever switch was knocked out of place would just switch back. With all that suffering, there was also no shelter from the borage of family issues unfolding around me. I watched my mother get hooked on drugs and deteriorate to the brink of insanity. There were many nights that I could not sleep because I knew that any minute the phone was going to ring with someone saying they found your mother dead in an alley somewhere.


And as I’m sitting at home during these forty days of dying, reliving my past, I said to myself, “GOD! Why so much pain?” By me saying those words, it triggered a memory. I suddenly remembered that in the height of my depression I would cry out to God, that very question over and over and never get an answer. I don’t know if I blocked it out, or if that memory gradually faded with the fog of that period, in any event it was fresh in my head again and with it came the feelings that I had at the time. “GOD! Why so much pain?” No answer. “God, you’re supposed to love me! Why put me through all this?” No answer. Finally, I got tired of asking and I became angry, I wanted God to feel some of what I was feeling. How can I make God feel pain?! He is God, so I tried to make Him feel the only thing that I could think of, and that was my disobedience. I didn’t care anymore. If death came while I was in this state, so be it. I felt at the time I will just be trading one hell for another. Twelve years locked in a head that did not belong to me and while all this is going on there is still that rational, logical part of me, locked in there as well. I was watching my madness unfold.

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My College Years

I had completed 3 years of college, and with just one more year to go, it felt like an insurmountable task. I just could not do it. So, I dropped out of college 

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The Toy Company

and landed a job in a toy production company; I was allowed to work in the paint department. It was quite exciting to see the entire process from the conceptualized toy on paper to sculpting it, then molding and producing copies, and finally putting the paint finish on it.

I must have worked there for about 2 years; it was not too long into my employment that I started noticing things that were a little off, but I was able to shrug off these feelings and continue working. The pay was good.

At the time, a lot of toys that were being created had a superhero theme; some toys were comical in nature, and there were toys/figurines that were very demonic-looking.

I excelled quickly in the paint department, and as a result, a lot of jobs were coming my way. Working there wasn’t bad – I actually liked it, but then…there were also times I felt in my gut that I should not be there. But like I mentioned before, the pay was good, so I kept on. Looking back, I’ve noticed that whenever the comical-looking toys were being created (for the most part) the mood of the studio would become very playful: co-workers would be pulling pranks on each other, etc. And at other times when the demonic toys/figurines were being created, (to me) the mood of the studio would change again. It would darken. Even though there was always a sense of joking around, it seemed like something sinister would fall on the studio from time to time. I remember one time my boss playing a video clip for us to watch; it was a real-life video of a man taking his life (he shot himself in the head). There was an uproar of laughter by my co-workers, and they then pleaded to see it over and over; something so horrific was met with laughter and applause.

There was another instance when again these demonic-looking images were being produced – and by the way, at these times the studio walls would be covered in wicked and morbid photos so that we (workers) could be inspired. One particular day I remember one of my co-workers sitting at his workstation and for no particular reason he started chanting the word ‘SATAN’ and within seconds, everyone was chanting ‘SATAN.’ I did not. They were pounding their tables and yelling ‘SATAN’ and laughing. I knew I should not be there; my depression at that time was in a mild season, but that was soon about to change. It was not long after that day that I experienced a major rise in my depression. It came like a blast, without warning; severe anxiety, blurred vision, sunlight hurt my eyes as well, cloudy-foggy feelings in my head, and more. At that time, I had no idea what it was – it was quite troubling, and for the next few months, it only got progressively worse.

I told my boss that I suspected it was the chemicals that I was working around. He improved the ventilation system for me, but there was no improvement in the way that I was feeling. Like it or not – money or not – I soon had to walk away from this job.

I could not see it then, but today I know that the sudden unexplained illness was God’s graceful means of getting me out of there and removing me from that path of darkness. Looking back, though I heard that little voice saying to me over and over ‘I should not be here,” I shrugged it off. For what? Money?

The next job that I took was completely out of the field of art. Convinced that this change would stabilize my head once again, I became a dietary-aid worker in a hospital. Working in the dietary department meant that my job duties would likely to change from day to day, depending on where the supervisor decided to place me. Some days I worked as a cashier at the kiosk, some days I was assigned to go to the various floors to give patients their food trays. But of all the duties assigned to me, I think the most painful for me was to push the food trucks from one building to another. From Building A to Building B, there was an extremely long corridor that connected the two, and along both of the corridor walls (like closely spaced signs along the length of a highway) were artworks; landscapes, seascapes, portraits, still-life etc., framed and most beautiful to look at. I tried to keep my head down as I pushed the cart, but that strategy did not work for long. I just had to look at them. It gave me joy and hurt me so much at the same time. “Why isn’t my painting on the wall? Why am I pushing this cart…I can paint like this, I know I can! I did it as a teenager! But I couldn’t. This thing (depression, which I had no clue of at that time) had taken such a grip on me that all I could do was look helplessly upon at this thing I loved so much but could no longer do. I felt like God was punishing me for something. I thought, “Maybe it was for working in that toy company for that long.”

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THE DAY I STOPPED PAINTING

It had been years since I painted or had the desire to. My passion for this medium had waned at a most consistent and silent rate. On this particular night, probably in ____________, depression had taken such a toll that I felt like I was existing in a world of blurry shades of gray.

One night I woke up, startled by a dream. Sweating and confused, I tried to make sense of what I had dreamt. This dream was so real—so vivid and full of color. I was a passenger in a car that swerved recklessly on a road during the night. A woman pushing a baby stroller was forced to dart out of the way to avoid being hit by the car I was in. I sat helplessly in the back seat while the driver, a black shadow, sped me toward a life-ending destination.

The car accelerated and then drove off a cliff in slow motion. As I felt myself falling further and further into a pitch-black abyss, I braced for the inevitable crash. Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted through the roof of the car—rising and floating higher and higher—when a faint light pierced the darkness. With ascension came light.

As I traveled upward, I saw what seemed to be the greatest artistic creations known to man, stacked together in a massive column—fifty feet wide—that rose out of the blackness into the light sky. In awe, I floated up the face of the most beautiful sculptures, paintings, fabrics, and pottery. Everything glittered and dazzled the eye.

My gaze shifted from the column in front of me toward the horizon to my right, where there were many other columns of creations. Some stood a mile away, some a few miles, others closer to the horizon—each one lifting toward the heavens. I rose to the top of the column before me. Then, I woke up.

Waking catapulted me back to reality. I felt as though I had left that which was most real, most beautiful, and re-entered my very gray, sad world. Sitting up in bed, my mind raced as I tried to recall what art supplies I had at my disposal. I had it all—canvas, brushes, acrylic paint—unused and sitting in a box for years.

By this time, it must have been two or three in the morning, and although I hadn’t painted in years, I knew I had to paint this most beautiful thing. Within ten minutes of waking, everything I needed was set up. My frantic desire to capture my dream cancelled out all my years of painting fear, anxiety, and timidity.

Armed with confidence, I squeezed colors onto the palette and began to mix paint. Mixing paint to get the desired colors was something I had once done effortlessly and often in my youth. On this night, however, no matter what colors I mixed or applied, my brushstrokes produced nothing but streaks of mud on the canvas.

I tried again and again—fresh paint, correct proportions. Over and over: mud. A fear I had never known seized me. Staring at the canvas in horror, I stumbled backward. Then, using the tail end of the paintbrush, I stabbed the canvas, filling it with holes, and began to cry with rage.

This moment confirmed what I had feared all along: I could no longer paint.

(Written in 2010. This account took place sometime between the years 1998–1999.)

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BARNES & NOBLE

For many years, I was barely able to support myself through my craft. I simply existed. Years of isolation from people came at a high price. Even though I saw constant improvement artistically by using the computer, a lifetime of isolation did not allow me to develop the social skills needed to be an effective businessman. This coupled with the constant fogginess of depression, I would become irritated quite easily.

I remember one particular week I received three art commissions, only to have each canceled for one reason or another. I remember needing the money so badly. Looking up at the sky for signs of God, I was filled with anger, “God, what is this? What kind of curse is this?”

If this wasn’t bad enough, I had a growing urge to learn more. I went to Barnes & Noble two, maybe three times a week and devoured stacks of books. Books on graphic design, illustration, cartooning, children’s illustrations, and so on. With an insatiable appetite for learning, an emerging ability and yet no way to profit from it, nothing made sense. I was so angry at God because many days it felt like He had played the cruelest joke on me.

Despite the many times over the many years that I engaged in this book-devouring routine at Barnes & Noble, I rarely could afford a single book. Even if I were able to purchase a book, chances were that I would have to return it the next week to get my money back. God’s mercy was how I survived from week to week.

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