Musings and Memories on Art, Education and Mental Health at 43, 33, 23 …

Train of thoughts on my experiences as I begin grad school again and look back on the journey to here

Welcome to Create Me Free where I share all of my deep research into and musings about the complex relationship between art and mental health. While I touch on art as therapy and the benefits of creativity, I really dig into the ways that our mental health symptoms can impact our creative process, content, productivity, medium choice, and identity.

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Age 43

I just started a second Masters degree in Visual and Critical Studies and had such a wonderful time at our orientation - not because it was great per se but because it really gave me the opportunity to appreciate where I am today as a 43-year-old returning student. It sparked a look back at my own twisting and turning journey in not just education but in terms of creativity and mental health.

When I dropped out of high school at 17, I had all of these Gen Xer justifications and reasons that essentially could have been summed up as “Damn the Man; I can do this on my own.” The reasons weren’t untrue but the deeper reason was then-undiagnosed major depression and overwhelm. Ditto when I dropped out of college at 21 and when I dropped out of law school at 26. In between and since then, I’ve received an Associates in Youth Social Services, a Bachelor’s in Public Agency Service, and a Masters in Psychological studies. I’ve taken non-traditional routes with my pursuit and use of all of these degrees - so in some ways I still “damn the man” but while I’ve done a lot independently I also recognize now the strength of the support system I’ve had along the way. 

If you know, you know.

Most of the comparisons I found myself drawing at orientation were to my 33 year old self who was just starting a counseling psychology masters degree program. I can’t quite believe that was ten years ago. When I started that program, I felt like I had come so far from where I’d been … there was a point where I couldn’t even get out of bed to answer the door for a friend and here I was heading off to a week-long orientation with new peers. And it’s true that I had come so far. But looking back, I was such a mess in so many ways … I was defensive and judgmental and overwhelmed and trying to prove myself and pretending I didn’t care about proving myself and basically I was just terrified. 

I had recognized in my late twenties that I live with recurring depression and that I am someone who needs a lot of time and space alone to recuperate and rejuvenate and understand myself so that I can be okay in the world. I love meeting with people and connecting and learning from others and sharing … but I need it buffered by a whole lot of downtime. The amount I nap in my lifetime is absurd. I had completed my Bachelors degree online at a time when that was super uncommon because I literally could not go to class. I had crafted a full-time writing career for myself because I literally could not go to a 9-5 job. I had created all of this protection around myself … and going to grad school dismantled some of that. It was an intense program that both did and didn’t offer that spaciousness. On the one hand, classes were in person only once a month, which left ample time for recovery and rest and processing in between. But on those weekends, we were there together, the same 14 of us, from 9-8 on Friday, 9-8 on Saturday and 9-4 on Sunday, processing deep stuff almost the entire time, for two years. Not to mention those one-week intensives each summer. And intense it was.

First day of first grad program, age 33

That experience taught me a lot about boundaries - not just how to set them and be okay with that but how to trust myself about when they should be rigid and when they could be flexible. I come from a very enmeshed background and didn’t know healthy boundaries so when I tried to set them I would usually be really rigid and keep distance rather than creating a healthy boundary. Grad school taught me how to navigate that so much better.

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If this is something that you believe in, I really need the support of paid subscriptions to be able to keep doing this work that I’m deeply committed to. In fact, I believe in this work so much that I’ve self-funded a year of full-time work here using a business loan. If I don’t reach the above goal by Summer 2024, I may have to revisit things.

That program was academically easy for me but emotionally and socially the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It fundamentally changed me for the better. I determined that I didn’t want to become licensed as a therapist for many reasons but I would never have given up that education and experience for anything. It shapes everything that I do in my work and in the world. I was 33 when I started the three year program and took a year off in between so I was 37 when I finished it, significantly different than when I had begun.

At 43, this orientation at this new program felt so different from the one I began at 33. I could see all of the things that might have stressed/annoyed/overwhelmed me at this thing … from being age-different to my peers, to being worried about putting my foot in my privileged mouth, to the really annoying red tape logistics and lack of organization that I swear every higher education institution has to a ridiculous degree … but none of it stressed or overwhelmed me. I felt very clear about why I am there, what I am hoping to get out of it, what I want to give back within it, and how to just let the rest go. This is not to say I’m some perfect human being now … far from it, I had my moments of self doubt and immediate regret about things said awkwardly and exhaustion from so much peopling in a day … but I am so much more gracious with myself and others about simply being human. I am so much more capable of saying to myself, “you feel really overwhelmed right now and what you need is to eat, rest, and breathe.” Rather than “oh my god this so overwhelming and you should be better at it and what’s wrong with you and push harder and maybe you should quit and all of these people are awful and …”

At 33 I had certainly come a long way from 17 and 23 and 27 but I was still in that space a lot of the time and at 43 it is so significantly different. I am different. I know that the only way out is through but I wish it were possible to go back and give that younger girl more peace and grace; she had no idea that she would be where she is today.

I Live Here: SF photo shoot, age 28

Several things have coincided to inspire me to look back at different stages of past me. In my recent roundup of great writing here, I shared Sara Campbell’s piece about LA and that inspired me to look back at an old project that I participated in here in San Francisco when I first moved here. One of the things I love about Substack is that it reminds me so much of the best parts of the early days of blogging - authentic writing by real people with conversations continued in the comments and in Notes. Opening my Inbox reminds me of how excited I was opening my Feed Reader in those days to connect with my online friends. We were friends and admirers and collaborators, not “followers” and “fans”. I loved it then and I love that it is coming back in this way here. 

I share this because the project happened then as a direct result of that blogging time. I had started looking for blogs about Buenos Aires before a trip there (my first international trip) and I found one called TangoBaby from a local San Franciscan, a photographer who was just launching a project called I Live Here: SF. The idea was that she would do a photo shoot of people in their favorite places here and the person would write about living here and she’d put it together on the blog. I was one of the first participants in that project, meeting photographer Julie right at my own house (unwise: meet in public first people!) and letting her do my makeup and taking photos in my apartment in North Beach that I loved so much and then at Macondray Lane here in SF which is rumored to be the real life Barbary Lane featured in Maupin’s Tales of the City books, which I was reading voraciously then. And then on towards Fisherman’s Wharf area because the water always drew me in.

I Live Here SF, age 28

I looked back at the original article I wrote for that project using the Wayback Machine. I laughed because at the time I hated the weather here; being from Arizona, I was cold all of the time, and now these days I really only travel other places in April and October because I’m so spoiled by our amazing weather here and don’t want to go places when it’s uncomfortable in them. I laughed because the blog I’d just started was called San Francisco is Sexy and I’d almost forgotten I ever wrote that so long ago.

But so much of that post is still true today. I wrote about how San Francisco is “the one” for me … and seventeen years later I absolutely still feel in love with the city in that way. She’s my soulmate place and I’m grateful to have found her. I wrote:

“I love the sudden striking views and the hidden mural-filled alleys. I love the museums and the galleries and the boutique stores. I love the uniquely creative people you meet here in cafes and bookstores and bars, at open mic poetry readings and burlesque shows and tech conferences, online and through others who are here. I love the moments when I look at something and suddenly just feel gripped by the hope that I will have this love forever.”

That and more are still true here. One of the things that I love most about this city is that no matter how long I’ve been here and how much I explore, there’s always something around the corner I hadn’t discovered yet. My new grad program is in a neighborhood I almost never visit and I’m so eager to explore around there over the next two years. I’m so enamored already with our little gardens on campus in the midst of the industrial neighborhood. I’m so thrilled to be at an art school with creative people focused on creative things.

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I Live Here: SF started as a blog project and became a big thing with multiple gallery shows and a show at City Hall. I remember feeling so fancy that my portrait was hanging in the City Hall of my adopted home. And also that I didn’t go to the opening reception for that one because depression kept me in my bed. I remember when I did go to the opening reception at one of the galleries, a photo was taken of me next to my photo and when I saw it my first thought was, “I’m so fat” because I really didn’t like myself then. But also I met some amazing people at that show and we are still friends today. How lucky I am. In the years to come, I would give my own book readings at my own art gallery shows.

I Live Here SF, age 28

Randomly this week, I also was in a different neighborhood that I’m almost never in, and I walked past the law school that I attended for a single semester when I first moved to the city at 26. I moved to San Francisco because I needed to change my life and I knew I loved it here but I justified it to myself and funded it by going to law school. I quit after the first semester, much in the same way that I had quit high school, so depressed that I couldn’t go and hating myself for not going and feeling like a failure and not knowing what was next. Walking past that school now, 17 years later, I have fond appreciation for the persistence of that young woman who knew she had to leave Tucson to save herself and did everything she could to get there. And I have patience for how she couldn’t see that law school wasn’t for her until she did see it and how she moved from there to here having never regretted dropping out of that program. She became a full-time writer which is all she ever really wanted to be anyway. What I’ve learned through life and these programs is that a lot of would-be writers end up becoming lawyers and/or therapists because all of these things have words and thoughts in common.

Taking a brief look back at my educational, creative, and mental health experiences by the decade:

2023, age 43

At 43, I am a full-time writer who is thrilled that my newest book is on its virtual tour here on Substack and that I’m dedicated to full-time writing here in the niche of where art meets mental health … but I’m also supporting myself with business and school loans in order to make that shift from the content writing I was doing before, and there’s a lot of financial stress as a result. I’m starting school full-time in the aforementioned program, a Visual and Critical Studies Masters that somewhat fulfills a teenage urge to go to art school. I am excited to get back into therapy since it’s offered on campus and I see a psychiatrist periodically to monitor my medications. I feel creatively and educationally fulfilled and like I have a good set of tools for coping with ongoing mental health challenges. If I sit on a spectrum of 1-5 with 1 being not well and 5 being amazing, I’d say that I’m at about a 4 in terms of creativity, education/work, and mental health.

Age 33

At 33, I was just starting my first Masters in Psychological Studies. I had been on anti-depressants for a long time then gone off them then just gone back on them as I started the program. I had worked with a terrific therapist and then stopped working with her. I was doing some really great writing work in the niche of crochet as therapy that I was very excited about. However, I was beginning to really hate content writing, which is what paid the bills, and I couldn't see a way out of that, and I wondered if maybe I’d like to become a therapist. On that 1-5 spectrum, I’d say my mental health wavered a lot between 2-4, my creativity was also wavering between those, and my education experience was at a 4.

2003, age 23, at a community college campus event to raise awareness about child abuse prevention

At 23, I was completing a 4-year Bachelors program in 2.5 years while interning at Child Protective Services and parenting tweens as a foster parent. I thought that I was doing well but what I was really doing was trying to outrun my depression that I didn’t know at the time was depression. On the 1-5 scale my mental health was probably a 2. My education was happening but I was barely there with it mentally, also probably a 2. My creativity was moving around 2-3 … I was writing for school and getting little inklings that I’d like to go back to creative writing but I just couldn’t do much with it since the mental health was so low

At 13, I was just entering middle school which was one of the worst periods of my life and probably the first time I experienced full-fledged depression. My mental health was a 1-2. My education was not on a scale because while I did fine academically I wasn’t even paying any attention to that part of life. But my creativity was actually high, maybe a 4, because I was doing a lot of writing/journaling. I would go on in the next years to begin to get pen pals, eventually corresponding via handwritten letters with over 100 people all around the world, getting into the land of zines and prolific creative letter writing that would carry me well into my twenties. Come to think of it, what I loved about the early days of blogging is how much it reminded me of the relationships formed in those pen pal and zine days … so what I love about Substack is really dating back to that experience.

Going back ten more years …. well, at 3 I probably had it all figured out :)

I am so curious to see what the next decade will bring and what 53 will look like.

At what age do you feel like you were at your most creative? Is it the same age that you feel like you were the most mentally well? In contrast, what age has brought you the least wellness and least creativity?