I am tormented by this sadness, which wells up in my stomach, burns up through my lungs, and tears through my throat. I have struggled with depression since seventh grade; only in my freshman year did I begin to experience relief from this pain. Up until that point I had to perform certain rituals to keep my heart beating. When I woke in the morning the first thing I would do was think of everything in life that I loved, my friends, my family, my dog, and I had to think and decide if these things were worth living for. I would stare at my ceiling and think of my future, of college, and getting a job that I loved, falling in love with someone, dreaming of the day when my present turned to future and I left that burning sadness behind. I would lay in bed and pray to a god I could not trust, and ask for help, ask for an end to this suffering, and ask for an end to everything. There were no words for the suffering, none, the closest one that could equate was hopelessness. I could not tell a soul, my shame like spines keeping loved ones away, I asked for help in an unconventional way. I began scarring my body, matching the disorder of my mind, razors became my best friend, they were trauma, they inscribed it on my skin, mimicking the trauma in my head. These scars were signs, they kept people at bay, but begged for help.
In my painting class, I experienced my first true exposure to painting. It was like being shocked by a defibrillator. It jump-started my heart, my veins pulsing with adrenalin, mind racing, I took my first drag of art; I pulled it up from the brush; I was addicted. It filled my mind, replacing thoughts of hopelessness and terror with images of maelstroms of color, of beautiful people. I began painting, more often than ever. It replaced my razors as my best friend; it pulled me in. Instead of cutting the trauma through skin and staining my clothes with blood, I stained pages with storms of reds and blues. They danced in clouds, charged with lighting, a great, colorful soiree. They danced about the heads of portraits I painted; they act as the subject’s emotion. Explosions, and splatters, swirls of color, they comforted me, they could portray the trauma better than words and far better than cuts ever could. I filled my portraits with my misery, with my sadness, hopes and dreams. I filled them with me, each a self-portrait in their way, they taught me the gift of sight. I saw the great beauty of the world, which laid so long unbeknownst to me. I saw beauty in graveyards, in the wrinkles of the face of an elderly woman. I no longer prayed for an end to all of this, or an end to myself. I prayed for a better day. I prayed for a better life. All of this is what painting gave me. Painting gave me my life back.
If I had not made this discovery, I would be doomed; I would not have been able to carry on. Painting gave me strength, it gave me something to look forward to. In my depression I could paint a thousand sad people and not have to shed a single drop of my blood to pay for this portrait of my emotion. Painting breathed life into me, it let me live.
This is going to be my college admissions essay, so let me know what you think
