My Mind Was Never Mine To Control

Artist Statement

"The gold is an illusion. The darkness is the truth." I made this piece from survival and brutal honesty. This maps my internal war. No recovery arc, no hope message. I fight that war each day. I have to win.

I crushed my antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and anxiety medication into sand for gritty paint. I regulate volatile chemistry from the inside out. These fragments hold months of prescriptions and dose changes, each one a step toward stabilization.

From a distance, the black looks flat with a slight shine. Step close and you see the truth: I ground the pills enough to strip their shape, not enough to hide them. Jagged fragments sit under the surface, unnatural and unnamed. They record my desperate push for stability.

I boxed the darkness. I taped perfect lines, laid the heavy mix, then peeled the tape for a razor sharp white border. I quarantined the chaos to stop it bleeding into the rest of my world and exposing what I hide.

This piece attacks society. You demand a performance of getting better: sick, treated, stable, so you can stop thinking about me. I refuse that climb. No cure exists. I live as permanent fluctuation. You feel uncomfortable because your peace rests on solid ground. Mine dropped out. My mind lies and says it holds.

The gold letters veneer the piece, delicate and deliberate. I cut them from cardstock embossed with ghosts like "Keep Calm" and "Enjoy the little things." The finished letters hide one phrase you can read: "KEEP HAPPY." That leftover gaslights you with an impossible demand.

See the gold for what it does: I lied to comfort you. You cannot handle the jagged texture of my survival. I built this decoy to manage your comfort. Without it, the system around me breaks. I pin the safety on a weapon you cannot carry.

I scorched "MIND" and "CONTROL." Each failed grab for control over my thoughts burned something off. Control lies incinerated here. I will never hold it whole. Ash and paper scraps remain. Next time fire takes the rest, wind will carry it like a forgotten prayer.

I am the fire and the one setting myself on fire. I am the firefighter. I am the arsonist and the extinguisher simultaneously. You are just a bystander, standing in the unearned safety of my labor, complaining about the smoke while I keep the atmosphere from igniting.

Part of the medication series. See also Stable Enough to Bloom, Starting Over, Take Me, and Just Fucking Sleep.