In The Closet
Sleep To Dream
Domestic Duty
The Ones We Love
Just Tastes Right
Best Case Scenario
Morning Comes Again
The Fight
The End
Bipolar 1 With A Gun
This self portrait series, Bipolar 1 With A Gun, brings the viewer into my world, one where Bipolar 1 with Psychosis and legal access to guns could easily lead to terrible consequences.
These 1 to 3 second exposures depict the battles I waged against the ‘voice’ in my head (which wasn't always a voice, but a heavy feeling pushing me toward disastrously negative ideas and paranoia) before I received proper treatment. I have struggled with this other person at the controls and fought my hardest while it told me over and over to kill myself, or that the radio was on when it wasn’t, or that a severed head or disemboweled body lay just around every corner.
But people who know me would never, ever guess that something was so wrong. I purchased the gun in this series legally; when I told the salesman I had Bipolar Disorder, he laughed and said ‘everybody’s got something’ as he handed me the gun.
To give the mentally ill access to killing machines is a true demonstration of insanity...
But then, how do you actually know who is mentally ill?
Having concealed my psychosis, I am proof that you never know what’s going on inside someone’s mind. Even when a person has shown no signs, the first episode can be fatal. Those who receive treatment are far more balanced than those who hide their illness, and you cannot deter sick people from getting help by refusing a right given to others.
But why is gun ownership a right for anyone?
Why - when everyone is ‘crazy’ during some emotional or stressful period in his/her life - should any member of the public be allowed to purchase and carry deadly weapons?
For those with mental illness, professional treatment is the only way toward stability.
But for everyone, there comes a moment when nothing and no one can stop us from acting on our darkest momentary impulses.
Guns turn uncontrollable thought into immediate action... These are my thoughts.
These 1 to 3 second exposures depict the battles I waged against the ‘voice’ in my head (which wasn't always a voice, but a heavy feeling pushing me toward disastrously negative ideas and paranoia) before I received proper treatment. I have struggled with this other person at the controls and fought my hardest while it told me over and over to kill myself, or that the radio was on when it wasn’t, or that a severed head or disemboweled body lay just around every corner.
But people who know me would never, ever guess that something was so wrong. I purchased the gun in this series legally; when I told the salesman I had Bipolar Disorder, he laughed and said ‘everybody’s got something’ as he handed me the gun.
To give the mentally ill access to killing machines is a true demonstration of insanity...
But then, how do you actually know who is mentally ill?
Having concealed my psychosis, I am proof that you never know what’s going on inside someone’s mind. Even when a person has shown no signs, the first episode can be fatal. Those who receive treatment are far more balanced than those who hide their illness, and you cannot deter sick people from getting help by refusing a right given to others.
But why is gun ownership a right for anyone?
Why - when everyone is ‘crazy’ during some emotional or stressful period in his/her life - should any member of the public be allowed to purchase and carry deadly weapons?
For those with mental illness, professional treatment is the only way toward stability.
But for everyone, there comes a moment when nothing and no one can stop us from acting on our darkest momentary impulses.
Guns turn uncontrollable thought into immediate action... These are my thoughts.
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