Shay Doodles

07/15/2024

Didn’t feel overly creative so I went with a pretty standard collage button design that never gets old✨

01/14/2024

On reclamation art (CW.)

There are very few pictures of myself as a child that I can look at without feeling a deep sense of self hatred. It’s when I recognize myself and my own abundant naivety of that era that I long to reach out and shake that child by the shoulders - to tell them to talk less, be less, tidy themselves, control themselves, don’t they know how despicably messy they are?

These older photos, where I cannot recognize myself at all (I have no memory), and I only see a child who doesn’t match the things they will one day be told they are, that I feel a sense of overwhelming grief.

This child will learn to mask their feelings so well they will be seen as “irritable,” unreasonably “angry,” and “very difficult to engage with” before even spoken to. No one will ask why, but the child will be blamed.

This child will learn through professional “care” and intimate relationships that they cannot see reality clearly, that they cannot trust others - will be harmed by others, but cannot function without others. Their learned distrust and deep sense of never really knowing what’s real will be put back on them as dysfunctional traits - “help seeking and rejecting.”

This child will be repeatedly harmed by authority, by supposed “love.” Their vulnerability demanded - excised on an operating table of scrutiny; a coagulated wound re-opened for examination. When the mess is revealed; hot blood pouring once more, it will be regarded with judgment. The child, wide open and exposed, will be left to stitch themselves together again.

“Resistant,” “treatment refractory,” “severe” emotional dysfunction, “difficult to work with,” “over-sensitive” - add another 5 personality disorders to the pile, until this child is half the DSM (15 zebras makes more sense in psychiatry than one underlying answer - trauma). “Chronic,” two-faced, “playing the victim,” “cold,” “manipulative,” someone who “leads people on” and is only to blame if their silent freeze response is interpreted as consent.

This is the written narrative that will follow me forever. Stored in hospital vaults. The work of reclaiming and re-authoring in the only way I can is easier some days than others.

12/30/2023

A little baby (sea glass) whale tail for a little baby Wilco 🐋
gunz 🤍

12/22/2023

A special su***de feature / I navigate between two worlds from mental health and substance use to eating disorder services / rinse and repeat, forever dissected between services /

I was told I would be a chronic case at 22 / some people say if you aren’t recovering (whatever that means) you’re dying / maybe that works for them, but I think my life matters in it’s messy unfolding and whatever I am or am not to others, I only live now, in this wild moment, alongside everything happening all at once /

***deawareness

12/17/2023

The hope that there still might be opportunities for change // most days I vacillate between exasperated love and simmering rage // hope lies in rediscovering our hidden narratives // reclaiming our voices - our stories

12/07/2023

Continuing on the collaging/reclamation art journey has been so healing of late. While not pictured in the collages I share - I do take my own health records and reclaim them through this process.

While I cannot change what has been done and the harm I’ve experienced from the healthcare system as a “problematic” or “too complex” mentally ill person, I can reclaim my story for myself and it continues to be healing to do so.

I am grateful and privileged to have encountered a psychiatrist who supports this kind of endeavour and recognizes the harms inherent to the system (particularly around involuntary care).

The words for these two pages are below, but first - CW for vague mention of r*pe culture, SA, involuntary care involving police (and just the police in general )

“Nothing says safety like a gun at a wellness check.”

“How can I explain that the reason I cling so tightly to my truth is that labelling my very real emotional responses as pathological traits feels like saying ‘it wasn’t that bad’”

“A freeze response is not consent (right?)”

So many of my traumatic experiences in the mental healthcare system have mirrored traumas from my personal life (and often made me more prone to these situations). The most damaging part relates to not knowing what is objectively true (not that anyone can) or knowing what’s “real” and looking to authority as the only one who knows what is best for me because I have been taught that I am unable to engage with and perceive the world accurately. I don’t really have words for how destructive that process is, but I am finding my voice through art which has been a powerful way to reclaim my story even if I can’t change broader systems (though I certainly try).

09/14/2023

In other art news I finally finished this sunflower (acrylic on canvas) that was meant for World Su***de Prevention Day.

08/21/2023

One of the images (the final image) for the 2024 NWT fundraiser I’m doing is this image of fireweed - a plant I grew up alongside in Northern BC.

Instead of the invasive broom that lines the Malahat and island highways it is endless blooms of bright pink fireweed that grace the roadside in the north. In the cut blocks of forests taken, it is firewood that blooms early, and in the devastating aftermath of fire, it is fireweed that takes root among the ashes and begins to colour the land again.

Fireweed thrives in disturbed soils and participates in the early restoration of such areas, making it possible (amongst numerous other species)for forests to one day grow tall again. Like many early plants on the scene of disturbance, it’s incredible importance in the health of the land is often overlooked by modern day forestry practices and the free to grow policies that continue to create highly vulnerable forest conditions for future fires, unstable soils, and decreased ecological health.

Fireweed is a favourite of many pollinators and grazers. It also has many edible and traditional medicinal uses by Indigenous communities across BC.

I grew up on L’heidli T’enneh Territory (part of the Carrier Sekani) and images of the plant have become one of my strongest associations with Northern BC. It blooms here on Wsanec Territory too, where this image was taken.

Fireweed to me, symbolizes hope and the resilience of life. The reminder that if we can let it, life finds a way.

I hope with the donations raised from this calendar, we can do some small part in building back hope for the people devastated by these recent fires, and for the Earth who needs us now more than ever.

I will be sharing final details on the calendar in the coming days and how you can order. But regardless, if you can, please donate to relief efforts for those impacted in BC, Maui, and the NWT.

08/19/2023

From now until September 30th, 2023 (National Truth and Reconciliation Day), all proceeds (above the cost of production) from my photography (prints and cards) will be donated to United Way's fire relief efforts in the Northwest Territories. You can contact me directly for more information or if you have any questions.

Prices are set to include the cost of printing with a small margin of profit to make this sustainablee for myself. Mailing costs are not included; however, if shipping costs are a concern I am able to print the items at any local London Drugs for you to pick up (thereby eliminating any mailing costs...

07/18/2023

I know birthdays can be layered in emotion, but I’m so grateful to know you each and every year I have the chance too 🤍

Can’t wait to see you again so I can give you this and many hugs.

̱sánećtraditionalterritory