Despair

Flawed

Broken

Word-Fest

I have had a flurry of beastly descriptions from people after Draw that Beast was linked somewhere. I'll post the all the descriptions as a stream of thought.

Remember folks, you're always welcome to get visual and email me pictures/photos/montages/drawings/etc. Release the beasts! As always, it's drawthatbeast(at)gmail.com

Cheers
Megan


"Mine looks like a big black mess" - Anon -

"Me with an 'I told you so' smug expression" - Anon -

"Mine is a dimly lit space with no sides but no way out" - Anon -

"A black swirling mass with a frail shrieking creature in the direct center of it" - Anon -

"Grey water, with the surface out of reach" - Anon -

"A big, horrible black storm cloud that wont go away" - Anon -

"A very dark, thick blanket" - Anon -

"A glass vase filled with question marks" - Anon -

"Something out of a horror film- a dark cold scarey fog with a mocking demon that throws insults at you to keep you a prisoner" - Anon -

"Me as a child" - Anon -

"Mine is a crying dark angel who has rapped its wings around himself to shut out the world" - Anon -

"A big thumb pushing me down into the ground" - Anon -

"I see depression as a dark grey cloud - ominous, heavy, sticky and bleak. I can taste it's unpleasant features, feel it's vice like grip. At times it's a monster chasing me through the woods that have no end, over a cliff that has no bottom. It can be scary and ugly, frightening and yet challenging. Depending on what level or form of depression I have I feel like sometimes I can dance with it, play with it, wrap myself up in the cloud and burst the seams with colour and vibrancy - energy far more powerful than the depression. I can feel sorry for it and dialogue with it, make poetry to help it through its dark days. Depression is a friend not a foe. It's hard hard work but when you win it's love it is left with only the name and human meaning of 'depression'. Om shanti" - Anon -

Lines of control

As a matter of principle, this website is strictly anonymous to encourage people to be less inhibited and reserve the right to disclose their beastly battles without google getting its search engine claws all over their name.

That said, I find the comments people email with their beasts interesting and give a sense of context. In some way, it feels selfish to not publish these offhand insights but the idea is to let the beasts speak for themselves.

One contributor's comments in particular though stuck with me. They submitted art that they did to keep their beast at bay through distraction and channelling abstract emotions. The work wasn't an analogy or interpretation of their beast but closely intertwined because of the battle through which it was born.

I thought of this approach in the past weeks while I've been working on keeping my own beast contained. I wondered about trying my own hand at painting to distract. It was worth a shot and the result is below. I'm a long way from being an artist but the point is more in the labour rather than end product. Perhaps though I have graduated from considering myself a stick figure artist.

And, for what it's worth, concentrating on this piece did help get me through an ebb. Thanks to the original contributor for planting their wise words in my thoughts. You know who you are.

So, just as a side-thought to Draw that Beast, what else do you guys out there get up to to distract yourself? How do you battle your beasts?