How Creativity Helped Me With Chronic Illness
In 2015 I got the shingles virus, initially I didn’t feel that ill, I was on summer holiday from work as I worked term time in education. Feeling a bit wobbly I returned to work in September thinking I’d be OK as signs of the infection had healed. Over the following months up to Christmas my health and physical energy became worse, but I kept on pushing myself and trying to ignore how I was feeling until my health completely crashed. I had no physical energy, brain fog, I couldn’t think, it took massive energy to talk, I had dizziness, I could hardly stand or walk for any length of time, I appeared extremely withdrawn. It was like my life or at least my health had come to a big full stop. Eventually I was given a fairly vague diagnosis of Post-Viral Fatigue later followed by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This is one of those diagnoses that describes something, but does not explain anything! There is more to this story, many lessons learned, much hindsight about my life previously gained, many alternative health methods tried, and many changes and adjustments made to get me to where I am today. I am not completely ‘recovered’, but I’m in a much better place than I was.
I want to focus here on just one part of ‘the story’ and perhaps it will resonate with you although it is personal to me. This is the part my creative practice has played for me as I was gradually able to re-include it in my life. Creativity in the form of visual art, design and craft has always been inherent in my personality and interests since childhood. I studied art throughout school and textile design at university. Since then my relationship with my own creativity and artistic practice has been a kind of rocky on/off affair. It has always been what I told myself I wanted to do and yet I ‘failed’ to make it my career and it was often sidelined, lost to the demands of ‘normal’ life and the internal drivers of self-doubt and self-criticism that I now recognise. Between these phases I have had some very creative periods when I produced a lot of work and felt ‘more like myself’. This is a key point — creativity (and I’m aware ‘creativity’ is a big word with many interpretations, meanings and definitions and theories contained within it) — when it’s going well, makes me feel more like myself, more connected to something that is inherently me, or maybe even connected to something greater than me.
I kept a symptoms and activity diary for 2016, looking back through it, I can’t see any references to making art. Actually I don’t remember that much about the year and I was surprised when I looked to read how bad I had felt and a bit shocked at how I had continued to struggle through going to work. Creativity and making art were not featured, and that makes sense really, how could I be creative when I was mostly just surviving and feeling unwell? I seem to have started creating again around September 2017.
I started by photocopying some embroidery transfers of the alphabet and flowers, the kind you iron onto fabric and then hand stitch the pattern, they used to be common free gifts in women's’ magazines. My grandmother must have given them to me when I was a child. My Nan as I called her died in 2006, she was the one who taught me to embroider and sew as a child, this connection felt resonant and meaningful in some way. A connection to my grandmother, my past and my younger childhood self. I played around with copying on my small A4 size printer/copier, changing the scale and overprinting. This was something creative I could do which produced interesting results fairly quickly and didn’t involve too much energy. My creative output was very much limited by energy, so it mainly occurred in short bursts. The next thing I did was colour in the printouts. I printed onto different papers, acetates, sticky vinyl and paper backed cotton and silk. Working sporadically and for short periods of time. It was like I’d recovered a process that gave me joy but also an inexplicable sense of purpose, maybe you can relate if you’ve ever had a creative idea you felt compelled to follow.
Looking back there were some smaller and bigger moments of achievement. In 2018 I was asked if I had any work to submit for an exhibition for a group I used to be part of, as it happened, I did have a couple of pieces and it felt good to have them included. In 2019 I submitted two pieces of machine embroidery for an exhibition in a gallery and they were accepted. That felt really exciting, I felt almost like a professional artist, a label I still feel uncomfortable with applying to myself (that’s another blog post I think). This prompted me to put together a website. In the summer of 2019 I went off on another tangent inspired by an online conference on creativity as spiritual practice and I spent August journalling and doing daily intuitive paintings. I applied for another exhibition this year at the same gallery but it was cancelled due to the Covid lock-down. The time in lock-down was actually beneficial to me in a way as I was able to do my part time job from home, thus using less of my energy. Maybe this is why I found myself feeling more spontaneously creative and experimental and I fell across a method of producing repeat pattern designs from my photographs. In the last few weeks I have been revisiting, reorganising and consolidating the creative work I have done over the last three years and it’s enabled me to reflect on the work and the process.
It has not been a linear path, I have gone off on tangents, followed up on different ideas and dropped others. I have had periods of producing a lot and other times of not so much. Reflecting on the last three years of creative practice has made me aware of some personal breakthroughs, I’ve realised I am able to concentrate and have the energy to work for longer. I have more sustained energy and I can see the ‘journey’ and the progress. I’ve also found a more peaceful relationship with my own creativity, I’m more aware of the psychological and emotional pitfalls and dead ends I can find myself in.I have found a re-connection to a core identity. Chronic illness or any major health challenge has been likened to a spiritual crisis and awakening, dark night of the soul stuff. Part of this involves a shedding of the old identity. Being so unwell I found myself questioning and lost with my sense of self, meaning and purpose. Creativity for me is one way of connecting back to my core self. Piece by piece as that core self was buried deep and difficult to find beneath the physical and mental fatigue and the emotional murkiness.
In the last few weeks, re-visiting my work from the last three years, I’ve realised the creative process is a lot like the healing process. It is not linear, more circular with foggy and unclear bits, where you feel like you’re going backwards, painful bits that you can’t go round or bypass, the only way is through. Times for rest as well as action, times when you have to trust and surrender to the process even when that’s hard to do, especially when it’s hard to do. You need to be cautious of the harsh and critical self judgements and the judgements and expectations of others, perceived or explicit. It will take the time it takes. Engage in the work and trust that good outcomes will come. Know that they may not look like you expected.
Amie Wiberley — Creative — Artist — Mentor — Wellbeing Enthusiast
