The Story In The Picture

The above painting was created by artist Vincent Fantauzzo which illustrates the directions in which Heath Ledger was being pulled before his death. If one picture could define mental illness this one comes damn close. I don't know if Heath suffered from mental health difficulties and if he did which ones and I will not jump on the band wagon trying to "guess". All I know is the world lost a great actor way before his time, a family lost their son and a daughter lost her father.

The painting to me brings up memories of difficult mental health periods where I was trying to focus on the positive but my brain would not allow it. An inner voice that spent hour after hour trying to convince me that the best decision is to lay down and never wake up. The outside voices of my friends, family, doctors, therapists and other members of my support system telling me that everything that will get better I just need to keep working at it. I sat in the middle trying to make sense of all of the messages through a perspective that was so clouded by pain and frustration did not know which way was up and which way was down all I knew is I wanted to get better but at the same time I was dying inside. Too many messages from too many directions and all I wanted was everything to go back to normal.

Paranoia phases where I would be sitting on my couch able to see both the door that leads to the garage, the one that leads outside to the backyard and the front door. Trying to convince myself that I was safe yet on more then one occasion it just became too much so I searched my home with a golf club in hand looking for a demon that did not exist but I was positive that was present. Periods that were so intense and a mind that could never rest so I did what I did to survive which was destroy my body with a razor blade trying to snap my brain back into reality and allow the turmoil of emotions out of my soul.

This is the reality of severe mental illness and that painting tells one hell of a story. Being pulled in so many different directions that you forget where you are and sometimes who you are. All you want is everything to go back to normal so you fight with every cell in your body because if you don't the game ends on a permanent basis.