anxiety and depression isn’t a person – it’s a monster

A few years ago, I was sit­ting in a therapist’s of­fice. He asked me what my anx­i­ety would look like if it were a person.

He had no idea that I had al­ready thought about this in depth – every day, all day.

Anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion isn’t a per­son. It’s a monster. 

A mon­ster who stands be­hind me and whis­pers lies into my ears.
A mon­ster who lives in­side my heart, and digs its claws into my organs.
A mon­ster who claims to be my only friend. 

Headache
 

I soon re­al­ized there were many mon­sters liv­ing in­side me, and I need­ed a way to get them out. I start­ed sketch­ing, and scrib­bling, un­til I had a few sketch­books full of them.

Even­tu­al­ly, the sketch­es evolved into col­ored ren­di­tions, and I found the more I drew them, the less they hurt me.
In­stead of ig­nor­ing them, I faced them. 

Melt­ing
 

Each mon­ster rep­re­sents some­thing I am feel­ing, or some­thing I have been through. I start­ed to post them on­line with­out ex­plain­ing their mean­ings, and peo­ple be­gan adding their own descriptions. 

I start­ed to no­tice that what one mon­ster meant to me, was in­ter­pret­ed com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent by some­one else. That’s when I un­der­stood that every­one has their own monsters. 

Ted­dy Friend
 

It was en­cour­ag­ing to hear re­spons­es, and feed­back; re­quests for cus­tom draw­ings and T shirts soon followed. 

I’ll prob­a­bly nev­er ex­plain what the real mean­ing be­hind each one is, but I think the fun part is watch­ing oth­ers re­late to them in their own ways. 

My cur­rent ther­a­pist en­cour­aged me to put my work out there, and I’m glad she did. I pushed my­self out of a com­fort zone, and into a world where I’m not afraid to share my fears. 

My main goal with Melan­choly Mon­sters is to help even one per­son know they aren’t alone, and that we can fight these crea­tures together.

Head­case
 

Den­tist
 

Find Briauna’s Melan­choly Mon­sters: Art cre­at­ed from anx­i­ety on Etsy. Com­ing soon: T shirts and maybe undies.
 
 

—bri­au­na rupert

Flom­mist Bri­au­na Ru­pert is made up of 50% anx­i­ety, 50% Sal­sa Verde Dori­tos. She also does­n’t get mad, “I just make SIMS of my en­e­mies and lock them in the base­ment.” Copy­right © 2017 Bri­au­na Ru­pert. Pic­tured up top: Anx­i­ety (de­tail).

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