How Painting Helped Me Curb Anxiety.

I suffer from anxiety. I have suffered from anxiety for as long as I can remember. I have many early memories, and all of them are of me being anxious. There aren’t many pictures of me as a child, mostly because I “ruined” most of them by frowning or looking nervous. My dad hated this. He loved photography and was always trying to take a good picture of me. One year, when we had a particularly harsh winter, he walked me out onto the ice of a small lake. In his mind he had the perfect picture of his tiny daughter standing on this vast expanse of ice. The pictures did not turn out the way he wanted: all of them are of me looking down at the sheet of frozen water beneath me, worrying it would crack and swallow me. This was long before the days of digital pictures and film was expensive. Daddy was mad. In the pictures below, You can clearly see how anxious I was as a child. It took about a hundred shots of me with that birthday flower crown where I was not crying. In the picture of me with my friend, Fatima, I am looking over my shoulder, worried my mother would fall too far behind. And the baby picture? Well, the expression speaks for itself. I have zero memories that don’t include anxiety.

It is safe to say that anxiety is part of my being. If it was a learned behavior, it was learned very early. If it was inborn, so be it. Suffice to say that I do not believe this condition is something I can be cured of; it has always been a part of me. The best I can hope for is to find ways to cope with it. I can get very bad, and I do mean VERY bad. When I have an anxiety attack, I feel it shooting down my spine, and my legs will actually give out on me. I will have trouble standing, let alone walking. I have no opposition to anti-anxiety medications, but for the majority of the past 15 years I have been either pregnant or nursing, so daily medication was not an option for me. I had to find alternatives to coping.

About two years ago, when I was at the playground with my children, Corvus brought me a rock that had been painted to look like a ladybug. I didn’t know there was a whole rock painting movement and told him: “Oh that must be some other little child’s treasure or art project. Best put it back where you found it in case they come looking for it.” I soon learned that people paint- and hide rocks, to spread joy, commonly referred to as the Kindness Rock Project. I thought it was such a lovely idea, but I had no artistic experience at all… and then I thought: “Well, I’ll try it anyway.” As I started painting rocks to spread joy to others, I discovered that I am not anxious when I paint. There’s something about the required concentration of focusing on the brush and paint making shapes that pushes everything else aside. For me, at least.

Rocks are a very forgiving medium for beginners to paint on. Since most rocks have a smooth surface, mistakes are easily fixed with a touch up. I used cheap acrylic paint and clear acrylic spray. Since the little artworks were just meant to make other people smile, I never worried about making them look perfect. I’ve painted a lot of rocks over the past two years. I liked painting pop culture themes and little puns, like my “Rock me, Amadeus” rock.

It was at times hard to let go of my creations. I’d worked so hard on them, and they were such fun to look at, I decided to keep some of them in a little rock garden around our guest cabin. It is then that I discovered that not all paints are equal. The rocks painted with cheaper, acrylic paint would start to flake after a while, even with the clear acrylic coating. I discovered that rocks painted with Folk Art brand and DecoArt brand held up better, and if you really want to keep your rocks from fading or chipping, you should coat them in resin (I like Art & Glo brand). The resin gives the rocks a glass-like shine and will preserve the artwork even if they are outside in a rock garden.

Soon my friends began asking me for rocks with certain subjects. And while it might seem that would make me more anxious to do a good job, I found that was not the case. Painting still calmed my mind.

I have since moved on to painting on other media; various paper types, canvas, wood, and ostrich eggs. I enjoy the challenge of the different textures, and how those affect the paint. I enjoy playing with paint. Some times it is hard to find time for this hobby. When my anxiety gets really bad, I leave the dishes and the laundry, and pull out the paints. It always makes me feel better. I do sell my art pieces these days. It’s mainly just a way to keep buying more paint! The side effects of painting are much more tame than those of the anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals I some times take, but fair warning: painting *is* addictive.