Once More Unto The Breach: How to keep going in the face of adversity.
Adversity is my mortal foe. Yes, I live with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, an acquired cognitive disability, chronic pain from arthritis, and autism, but they are all exacerbated by the stress of life's many adversities.
In the lead up to my debut solo exhibition @ Sol Gallery (see my events page for more details), my sleep, which is bad at the best of times, has become so appalling that in the rare occasions I do sleep, I am bombarded with dreams that never stop moving and are filled themselves with anxiety and time-sensitive decision-making; they are exhausting; I wake up exhausted. Often, however, I do not sleep. Sure, my eyes might be closed, but there is no rest to be had.
It is more than just the September exhibition. I am planning an exhibition gala in January and in order to pay for just the accessibility alone, not to mention paying for the gallery, entertainment, drinks and food, I am having to spend upwards of ten hours on multiple grants per month, none of which I am guaranteed to receive. The stress of being poor, of eating right, of buying all my medications, of fitting in appointments, my fitness regime, and my regular schedule, on top of creating a voice I think is worthy of being heard in the art world for a cause I believe worthy of fighting for, is immense.
On Friday night, two songs into watching amazing New Zealand singer Bic Runga live in concert, I found out my ma had yet another serious fall (she has been suffering from falls for many years due to her [juvenile] arthritis and medical obesity). I spent the rest of the concert on the phone to my beloved aunt who lives not too far from my ma in the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide; and then on the phone to my sister (who is also going through her own trials now). My mother remains in hospital and will be for the foreseeable future as they remove her reconstructed (now smashed) knee and put in a new one. She is being looked after, but the stress of knowing that at any stage she could fall again once she is discharged is a huge weight to bare.
I have been telling people for the past ten years, since acquiring my disabilities from working in a stressful job I loathed, that balance in life is crucial to maintaining a happy and healthy life. Yet here I am, working harder than I have even before my mind and body broke. Yes, I am a lot happier now and doing art is a passion, I would not do anything else. However, I am failing to see the balance right now, and that must change, or I know that no matter how many pills I take, my mental illness, the disabilities, the pain, will become so much worse than what they currently are, and currently they are bad.
Science and medicine have proven the correlation between the increase of pain in the body with the increase of stresses in a person’s life. Due to unchecked stress, I can be sitting amongst friends, or attending a workshop, and by the end of an hour (or not even) I can be in immeasurable amounts of pain. Yet when I lift heavy weights and do Pilates with my Exercise Physiologist, the pain remains at a manageable level because my stress is being actively managed.
Since my multiple diagnoses I have learnt to look at the silver lining, to not catastrophise and think of worse case scenarios, so I am not dire, but I do have to be conscious of asking for more help from family and my networks. I do have to lay in bed to “nap” in a dark room with my earplugs in for 45 minutes, even if my brain doesn’t switch off. Sensory depravation is a core element to maintaining good health for me because I have tried numerous times to meditate in various styles, but it just doesn't work. Removing sensory noise is the only way I find relaxation at these times of high stress and adversity. Oh yes, walks in nature reset my wonky equilibrium, and I feel exuberantly blessed in those moments, but often, I have my camera with me with the direct purpose of working. Sensory deprivation is my only downtime of late.
Before I was diagnosed as living with autism, I masked in the face of the gaslighting world around me. I ran charities and was involved with running queer social events. They would inevitably leave me bedridden for weeks at a time as I recovered from the stress of “putting my head down and my bum up”, as my father always preached to me. You always keep moving forward and never ever give up. I now know that motto to be extremely unhealthy and unhelpful.
But my title is how to keep going in the face of adversity. We tend to think of motion, of never stopping, when we think of “keep going” or “Just keep swimming” as Dory said in Finding Nemo. Like Dory, my memory is not so good, and like Dory, I do like to think positively, but sometimes you must stop, find your bearings, and ask for directions and help from others. Whilst it may seem like you are standing still, or even having to go backwards, this is what moving forwards is truly about. Learning when to lie down for a nap, even when your brain will not shut off. Learning to handball tasks to loved ones, or strangers, in order to get a moment. Learning to listen to yourself and what your body and mind need. Due to my brand of autism, this last one is perhaps the hardest of all. Recognising my emotions, my emotional state, and then knowing how best to care for myself, has taken years to learn the basics of.
What I am trying hard not to do in the face of all this adversity, it to quit. Though I have lived through some dark times where I have literally hit a brick wall, quitting, ultimately, has never been in my nature. Now, that is not to say that stopping a project is the same as quitting, it most definitely is not. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do for yourself, especially when you live with disabilities, is place the project down and walk away. Whether that be for an hour, a day, a year. Walking away is not quitting. Walking away is giving you the opportunity to stop at the cross-roads, assess your health and your needs and either continue with the project as is but with more supports in place, or change the nature of the project itself.
So, I continue to work with my amazing counsellor and other fabulous humans in my support network to ascertain how best to keep going despite life’s many adversities. I embrace the dark room, but not the potential darkness of the situation. I keep going, even if that means I am in bed with my eyes shut.
In my second blog I asked if this level of work was sustainable. Now I ask: Am I following the right path for long-term sustainability? Follow my blog to find out.
T.Leigh
Official flyer to Teague Leigh’s debut solo exhibition “The Reclamation of Terra”, proudly supported by Pride Foundation Australia, at Sol Gallery, Thursday 7th September @ 6pm. On the left is a canvas painted in hues of textured acrylic paint. In the middle is a landscape photograph of a yellow sand dune with one lonely tree to the left side and deep blue sky above. This central image is repeated in collage underneath in three chopped up lines. Above the central image are the colours of the progressive pride flag in wavy lines leading to the top left corner. On the right of the flyer it is black with the details of the exhibition.
