mental health + art

I've loved art as long as I can remember. When I was three, all I needed to be happy was a bag of pipe cleaners and some crayons.

While that love for art was always there, I specifically started to turn to art as a form of self expression the summer before I came to college. My friends all buzzed with jitters of nervousness about school: "will my roommate be nice?", "what will classes be like?", etc.

I nodded along that I shared their nerves but I wasn't really nervous: I was petrified. The week before I came to school I was so overwhelmed, it seemed like nothing I could do would help calm my nerves. So I did the one thing I knew how to do: I drew something. I drew a picture of me wearing a backpack in front of a sign that said welcome freshman. Something about that experience was so calming. My worries were no longer in my head but on my paper. I needed this.

I have always had anxiety. With the onset of undiagnosed medical disorders came a whole new array of anxieties that I didn't feel capable of facing. But I can. I can put them down, somewhere that won't move: a piece of paper.

--Sabrina

art instagram: @sunnysab.creates