Suicide Awareness & Prevention Art 1

This is a painting I did a little over a year ago. The inspiration came from my history of surviving many suicide attempts. The colors were chosen specifically because teal and purple are the colors for suicide awareness and prevention. There is a purple and teal semi-colon embedded in the design. The semicolon (;) symbolizes mental health awareness, suicide prevention, and the continuation of life, representing a sentence the author could have ended but chose not to. Popularized by Project Semicolon, it signifies that the creator's story is not over, highlighting strength in battling depression, addiction, and self-harm. This is a good way to start that "awkward" conversation with someone who is struggling. I have been told that the style is chaotic. I use this technique to show the beautiful chaos of recovery in what I call "an ecstatic collision of color". This is my favorite technique and you will probably see signs of this in most of my art. Click on the image to go to my web store to purchase the original or print of this piece. There are also teddy bears, t-shirts, and more with this on artwork on it. A portion of the profits for these items go to The Mental Health Association of Oklahoma.

 

Hello... An Introduction to my Journey...

Hello.

Have I ever told you about the time I went blind and doctors tried to kill me?

    When I was 7 years old, I took it upon myself to disregard every adult's rules for safety and cross an 8-lane highway to get to Kmart so I could buy myself a Barbie doll. Suffice it to say that I ended up being hit by a motorcycle. I don't remember much from that accident, but I ended up with a broken leg and concussion... as I was being wheeled into the hospital the doctors and nurses were a blur and I was crying for my mommy, who had been called away from work and was with me. I was screaming that I couldn't see... then the doctor said something that over-rode that fear and made me start fighting for my life. He said, "We are going to have to put her to sleep". My only frame of reference for those words were from when adults had used them regarding euthanizing the family pet. I started screaming, "THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME!! MOMMY HELP!! DON'T LET THEM KILL ME!!" I began to fight them with everything I had. It took several doctors and nurses to hold me down...Then I felt a needle go in and I was out after that.

Less than 10 years later I experienced trauma that triggered the start of my depression, anxiety and PTSD. I knew I had problems controlling my feelings and thoughts, but I couldn't bring myself to say there was something "wrong" with me because of the stigma that carried at the time.. some of which still exists today. I associated mental illness with serial killers and the people in One Flew Over The Coo-coo's Nest. I lived in that misery for 23 years. All of my relationships, old and new, suffered and many ended. I lost my daughter, had two disastrous marriages and nearly ended a third... I felt so broken and alone, I decided to end my misery with a couple of handfuls of pills....

I have attempted to kill myself 9 times. I am proud to say that I am a failure at death. From 1988 at the age of 16 until 2013 I lived with undiagnosed mental health disorders that made me lose hope, lose family and friends, and lose any sense of my righteous mind.

Then, the last time I was hospitalized, I remembered that accident... and I wondered what had happened to the little 40-pound girl who fought for her life so hard that she had to be held down by 6 adults just for an injection? Had she died? Or was she just hiding? She was real... but where had she gone? At what point had everything gotten so bad that I had completely abandoned her?... That was when I decided to fight for my life instead of against it. That was the day I finally asked my doctor what I had been diagnosed with. He gave all that agony a name, and with it came resources to help me fight, and literally get a life!

Hello. My name is Abanna Cheshire... and I am in long term, active and sustained recovery for several mental illnesses and substance use.