(music autoplay) New Digital Painting - Depersonalization

Before I continue, I've decided to add a song to this blog post because music and visuals are very intertwined for me and I find that sometimes they can add extra layers of meaning or value to the experience. The song chosen here is "Disconnected" by The Wanderer Edit. She also lives with chronic illness and wrote this song from the feeling of not being able to relate to or connect to those around her as a result of being disabled. I think the feeling of being detached also goes well with the topic of depersonalization, and it's one of my favourite songs too. Please go listen to her music, she has other songs about her experiences too and they are all great!

One of the things I deal with alongside chronic illness and autism is something called Visual Snow Syndrome. Some people develop it later in life, but I've always had it. The main symptom is "visual snow", which it gets its name from. It's like if you try and take a photo in low lighting with a phone camera, you see lots of moving static, sometimes it's colorful. That's just like visual snow, except its across your entire field of vision 24/7.

But there are other symptoms too, including both derealization and depersonalization. Recently, I decided to paint what depersonalization feels like for me because it's something that is really hard to describe with words. It really is like being in someone else's body and having someone else's thoughts, while the "real you" is sitting back somewhere looking through your eyes from a distance.

The large frame around the entire image is kind of representing that "not my body not my thoughts" part, while the glasses and other window frames give you the feeling that real life is far away. I made the arm red to emphasize how your own arm can look like a foreign object in this state. The glasses are pink because of fL-41 tinted lenses and how they have been shown to reduce visual snow symptoms. They are also helpful for migraines, whether the migraine is resulting from VSS or not.

The static in the background is of course the visual snow, while the white dashes are meant to represent another symptom of VSS called the "blue entoptic field phenomenon". Essentially, when I look up at the blue cloudless sky, there are white lines moving around. Sometimes they look like actual falling snow, but usually they move in a way that makes them look like a swarm of gnats or mosquitos. It's just yet another object my eyes must look beyond in order to see the world. With visual snow, there are many such objects, and I think that's why depersonalization can happen too.

I liked having this space to talk about my art. Other social medias don't like long paragraphs so it was kind of fun to be able to fully explain it. I hope you enjoyed it :) And I really like making this kind of art, so I hope to share more in the future!