Photo taken by contributor Carrie Hilgert, a photographer and painter in her thirties from Northeast Kansas who was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After venturing into digital photography, she became interested in documenting her life with self portraits. This became particularly helpful when her life started to fall apart due to depression. All her other creative outlets left her, but she could always process her very dark feelings with self portraits. While she is doing much better now, she maintains compassion for those going through these hard things and hopes that her photography can give an honest insight into something that makes most people feel very isolated and alone.

About this photo: “If I’ve learned anything, it’s don’t underestimate the power of the creative process to pull you out of a downward spiral.”

Find more from Carrie at her blog or flickr.

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