For most of my life, I’d been living with undiagnosed mental illness. I grew up thinking that my feelings were bad and that I was weak for “letting my feelings get the best of me” and that it’s “all in my head.” For the longest time, I thought something was wrong with me because my emotions felt so intense and uncontrollable. It also didn’t help that this was the 90s & 00s when mental health was not prioritized as much as now. The feelings I tried so hard to ignore and push down manifested into anger, rage, envy, resentment, and cruelty. In my 20s, I learned that it’s better to let my feelings out than to hold them in, but by this point, I had developed unhealthy ways of coping with my intense emotions. I spent too much of my adult life disliking who I was, envying people who seemed happier than me, constantly seeking external validation, and feeling I would never be good enough. Not being able to get pregnant really exacerbated my mental illness. I started seeing my therapist when we moved out to rural western NJ, because I struggled to cope with switching art teacher jobs from a charter school in Harlem to TWO public elementary schools in suburban NJ. Soon after, she was helping me deal with the emotional fallout of learning that I had primary infertility due to Stage 3 Endometriosis. When I was going through IVF, I begged my doctor to put me on psychiatric medication because I couldn’t handle the emotional roller coaster of (what felt like) everyone I know getting pregnant around me. Then came the moment that would change my life forever: Aurora’s tragic, unexpected death just 3 days after she and her identical twin turned 2 months old. My entire existence was decimated the moment the ER doctor told me he couldn’t do anything more to revive my baby. It sucks that it took this immeasurable and heartbreaking tragedy to get me to prioritize myself and my mental health. I continue to see my therapist who’s helped me to gain more insight on my layers of trauma. I did not intend to make a painting that perfectly encapsulates my daily struggles with mental health. However, the longer I looked at it, this is what I saw: The top 2/3 of the painting is what it’s like to live with anxiety, depression, and all the intense emotions that accompany mental illness (& not to mention, grief & trauma). But among the trees, there’s one tree standing alone, underneath the vibrant, colorful Aurora Borealis. The other trees seem unaffected and unmoved by the explosion of colors up above, as if the lone tree is the only one seeing the Aurora. I think this tree is me.