Turning Your Demons Into Art

In 2013, I would have assured you that my life was over. My beloved teen daughter had just committed suicide in the next room as I slept, and I awoke to a horrible nightmare that became my constant tortured reality. In my journal I wrote: "An atom bomb has been dropped, and I am melting in the blast." I had already been through enough in life; I was no stranger to suffering. My childhood was abusive and traumatizing as the result of an alcoholic and Bipolar father, and a single mother who insulated herself behind the veil of religion. I endured disabling clinical depression until I was in my 40s, had weathered a divorce, and thereafter had a string of unsuccessful relationships. The only thing that kept me going was my teen daughter, until without any notice, she walked out of my life forever. 

After her suicide, I was reduced to a heartsick, empty-handed, open wound, a shell-shocked mess. I became 80 pounds overweight; I started binge-eating to cope. Because I'd been trained as a mental health counselor, I was suffering from a double-dose of survivor's guilt and shame; this wasn't supposed to happen to educated people like me. When I tried returning to my counseling office, I was daily triggered by my client's problems. When they talked to me about depression, grief, and eating disorders, common topics in a counseling room, I'd wither inside; an eating disorder had triggered my daughter's depression, and the depression had caused her suicide. Professionally, I knew I was dead in the water, because my wounds were immense and were interfering with my client's treatment. After 10 years as a mental health professional, I closed my practice because it was the only ethical and sane choice to make. After that, I was adrift at sea. 

My grief was the immense, dark and endless as the sea I was lost in. For over a year I was engulfed in a private "dark night of the soul." I wandered the endless halls of my unraveling mind trying to make sense out of chaos, trying to find purpose in the pain. That first year I decided to write a book about my journey through grief; I thought maybe it would help somebody. Besides, I had to write to save myself from drowning. I'd been raised in the Christian faith and taught that every problem was a trial and test designed by God to perfect our characters; ultimately, the tests would forge us into better people. But this trauma wasn't making me into a better person. Instead, it had made me into a shame-riddled, insecure, phobic, unemployed person whose hair had turned grey overnight. It made me into an angry and demanding partner, and had unhinged my spirituality, leaching out every last bit of hope in a Higher Power. I reasoned that perhaps scientist-like aliens who were cruel, cold and calculating were controlling us all in a demonic experiment and we were just unfortunate and unwitting amoebas in their cosmic petri dish. In truth, the only demons were my own dark thoughts, and they stood taunting me, dutifully reminding me at every turn of what a big fat phony, failure I was. The confidence I'd always had was stripped away. The protective outer-skin of self-respect that every person needs and deserves, what keeps our self-esteem intact, was peeled away revealing a hyper-sensitive open wound that couldn't withstand reality.

I'd completely given up on the idea of a benevolent God and all this nonsense talk of God's love and mercy (where was the mercy in my life?). Not long after her suicide, I went for a "grief walk," and found myself chucking rocks at the sky in an open field. Cars whizzed by with incredulous looks at the dippy woman screaming obscenities and throwing rocks at...nothing. Yes, I was having a breakdown. Long overdue and it felt...wonderful. For the first time I was really telling the truth about how angry I was at God (or the aliens) or whoever was up there engineering this whole mess. I broke down in a heap and sat in the middle of the dusty field sobbing, my voice hoarse, my arms wobbly. I half expected a lightning bolt to strike me for the names I'd called God; in truth, I would have welcomed it, it would have put me out of my misery. But no lightning bolt was sent, and in the stillness of that moment which I now understand as sacred, I saw that I was going to go on living. For some unfathomable reason, I was meant to go on living, even though my reason for living had vanished. 

I stood, brushed the dust from my jeans, and started chuckling through the blur of tears. What a sight I was! And while on the outside I had gotten my jeans dirty, on the inside I felt squeaky clean, roomy, and new. The words of an old hymnal flooded me then. Perhaps some empathetic angels were singing the words: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..." and although I'd heard that song in church many times, the words sounded new; they made sense to me like they never had before. They meant that somehow, there was grace for me. Whatever I blamed myself for had all been erased. My daughter was free now, and she had wanted me to be free. I hummed the hymn as I wrapped my arms tightly around my shaky body, hugging myself as I stumbled home. It was a pivotal moment, because I gave myself permission to love myself again. 

I tell you this story of my undoing, and the beginning of my rebuilding, because we all have the ability to turn our demons into art. We can transform our pain into something useful, something meaningful, something helpful, something brave, and something beautiful. It will require one necessary ingredient: forgiveness. We must find a way to forgive ourselves and forgive each other for the ways we have all let each other down. The power to forgive only comes once we have stopped demanding that life be a certain way. Joy fires up the moment we abandon our unrealistically high expectations and fully accept the reality of our humanity. Embracing my humanity means that it's okay to admit when I'm human: I make mistakes, sometimes big, irrevocable mistakes. You are human, too-which means you will make mistakes, sometimes big, and irrevocable. And I'd venture to say that even the Universe has and will continue to make errors on occasion (hey, nobody's perfect). We will have to forgive the Universe, too. 

Turning your demons into art is the definition of bravery. Bravery doesn't mean being perfect. It means dusting yourself off after the storm is over, and rebuilding; that's the definition of bravery. Turning demons into art means forgiving yourself for mistakes of the past and believing in your potential-because that's all and everything you are: pure potential. Life is a do-over; a blackboard with a giant eraser with your name written on it, an empty slate eagerly awaiting your unique signature. The thing about demons is that they are more frightened of you than you are of them, because they know who you really are, you demon slayer, you. 

Click here for all of Nina's books: http://www.amazon.com/Nina-Bingham/e/B008XEX2Z0