Let go of the need for perfection – perfection bought at a high cost. Embrace imperfection, acknowledge mistakes, claim the lessons they provide. Embrace change.   ~ Bo Mackison

I’ve had an on and off affair with the label “mental illness” — a label that defined me for many years.

I hated it; I needed it.
I pushed it away; I pulled it close.

That label deprived me of the basic experiences of choosing life and living it fully; it also allowed me to abdicate taking full responsibility for my life and the choices I made.

Behaviors, lived over years, became habits. They settled deep within me:

• as a child when I developed highly creative but pathological methods for body, mind, and soul survival
• as an adult while I was in the throes of deep depressions and slow recoveries,
• while I was fighting demons from my childhood,  searching musty rooms in my mind with a dimly flickering match light.

Defenses and behaviors I erected as walls of protection were no longer functional, viable, needed, wanted. Yet, it was what I understood.

I had to let go so I could grab onto a better way. Caught in the pause between the two trapeze bars, I was  dangling in a mighty discomfiting place.

Eventually I understood that letting go of the behaviors that mark even a functional mental illness would grace me with freedoms I wanted, but hadn’t fully experienced:

• not as a child in a puzzling environment
• not as an adolescent who carried demons in her hand luggage wherever she wandered
• not as an adult trying to function in the challenging world of careers and marriage-with-children, while burying the past and eventually losing the ability to even acknowledge it
• not as a woman in the prime-time of her life who suddenly crashed head-long into reality, suffered a total collapse, and a crushing breakdown.

I worked for years to repair my body and mind; I worked even harder to repair my spirit.

Living under the shadow of the statement “I had a mental breakdown” provides a certain cover. Even after the initial stages, after in depth therapy spanning two decades, and after reclaiming a life of wholeness, doubt lingers and unwelcome questions pop up.

There is the voice that harbors deep in my sub-conscience, occasionally breaking through to my awareness. It questions my actions, my motives, my plans, my challenges, my courage, my decisions, my art, my life. It questions my EVERYTHING.

I must then re-affirm my strength, stand on firm ground, and repeat:

• I am responsible for my thoughts, my words, my actions.
• There is no one else to blame for my failures, short-comings, errors in judgement.
• I take full ownership of my mistakes and claim them,  but I also claim the lessons these mistakes teach.
• This is no excuse living.

It is hard, excruciatingly so as times. It is necessary. It is the only way.

Because as long as I blamed the past for mistakes I made in the present, as long as I didn’t acknowledge the mistakes and accept them for what they were, I did not learn the lessons. I had an excuse to push away change and healing.

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Why am I writing about this? Because during the years I focused on creating photography for public display, photographs for art shows and festivals, photographs for art centers and museum shows. I also created photography and other art as a process for healing.

Creative activities are healing. I use art and nature as components of my healing practice. I want to share my art and my story with you, my dear readers.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  This is the first photograph in a series of twelve.