Photo taken by contributor Jaeda DeWalt, a conceptual self-portrait artist in her forties from Seattle, Washington. Her battles with mental illness hearken back to her earliest memories, at age 4, when she became obsessed with the number four and performed exhaustive rituals in patterns of four. During her teen years, she began noticing extreme mood swings, manic one moment and depressed the next, and in her late 20′s she finally sought treatment and was diagnosed with Bipolar, OCD, PTSD, Anxiety, and ADHD. Her doctors told her they believed the mental illness was brought on by a severe concussion she sustained at age two, along with the trauma of being sexually abused as a child into her young adult years. Her life was filled with self-destructive coping methods until she went full force into creating, in her mid-twenties. The process of creating and putting herself in front of the camera felt cathartic, liberating and healing. The photographic medium opened up a new world to her and ignited a kind of passion within that she didn’t even know she was capable of experiencing. She has been on an ever-evolving, healing journey, ever since.

About this photo: “A Prison Without Bars: The anxiety can be so crippling, the depression – dark and suffocating… like a prison without bars. Too many well-meaning people offer up things like, “Will it away, stay strong, think positive, pray”. If only it were that simple! Instead, mental illness can be a plethora of internal trap doors and private torture chambers. It is not a one-size-fits-all experience, neither is the path to wellness. It is an individual disease, treatment is a trial and error process. Compassion is what is needed, not condemnation.”

Find more from Jaeda at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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