“I want… I want to paint a mural.” He shook his spray can. “I want to release my demons. It’s like they’re caged inside of me, and I need to set them free. The only way I know how to do that is through painting.”
“Do it,” I told him. “What are those demons saying, Marcus? Let them run wild.”
Marcus began spraying the wall, and he didn’t stop, either. “They’re saying;You’re bad, Marcus, but you aren’t bad enough. You don’t have what it takes to be on this team. You’re going to fuck up, and everyone’s going to blame you.It’s black, and it’s dark, but it’s other colors, too. Where’s the blue?”
Marcus turned from the wall to rifle through the trunk. Spray cans clattered onto the pavement as he tossed colors he didn’t like aside. He found what he was looking for and began spraying again. I leaned against the opposite building, listening to the hiss of the paint as he moved across the wall.
Marcus started rambling, as if I wasn’t here at all. “My depression is a navy blue, almost gray. It’s like the color of the clouds as a storm begins rolling in. It’s a gloomy day when all the colors turn hazy and you can’t see the sun, so you don’t even know what time of day it is. I need some highlights.”
Marcus grabbed another can and began adding detail to his painting.
Oberi stepped back, coming to my side.He’s barely started, and it’s already beautiful. He’s painting storm clouds, and they look so realistic.
“My trauma… ooh, that’s red.” He popped off the cap of another can. “It’s like lava, bubbling up inside of you, searing you to the bone. Sometimes you can push it down, but it creeps up on you, and sometimes it explodes!”
Marcus let out a maniacal laugh.
He’s painting a hellscape, Oberi told me.There’s a volcano beneath the clouds, with rivers of lava streaming through cracks of black stone.
“Then there’s the rage,” Marcus continued. His voice had taken on a crazed tone. “Fuck, I already used red— no, rage is more than that. It’s like an explosion. It’s yellow and orangeand blue, colors of fire and flame… exploding dynamite. No, lightning!”
Marcus sprayed three quick streams of paint to create a lightning bolt. “Then there’s the BPD, and that’s… that’sallthe colors. It’s everything combined into one. All my emotions brewing together, until I can’t make sense of them and can’t separate them, either.”
I stood back curiously as Marcus put his borderline personality diagnosis onto the wall. I didn’t know how his BPD would show up in his art. Marcus must’ve spent fifteen minutes on this part of the painting, before he stood back to admire his work.
“It’s a monster…” he said breathlessly, like he’d only just realized what he’d done. “I know you can’t see it, Charlie, but he’s taller than I am— eight feet, at least. He’s big and heavy, with a fat belly like a troll. He’s made of all different colors. I can’t even tell what color he is, because he’s got splotches of every shade imaginable on him. He’s only got one eye, like a cyclops. I don’t know why I drew him that way. Maybe because with BPD, I can get so single minded. Once I put my sights on how I feel, it’s hard to convince myself of anything else. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. All I know is the stories I believe about myself. He’s got long claws and sharp teeth, like he’s going to sink his fangs into me and never let go. He’s not going to eat me, because that would be too merciful. He just lets me dangle out of his mouth and watch me bleed. Ooh, he likes the taste of my blood. He wants me to scream and suffer. But I’m not going to let him do that. He’s a demon on my past, and he can fucking stay there.”
Marcus gasped. “That’swhat they are! I’ve been fighting demons and monsters, not storms and volcanic eruptions. I need to start over.”
Rishi gave a cry, and Marcus took a few steps back.
“You’re right, Rishi,” he said. “I can’t calm a storm or force the lava back into the earth. I can’t fight nature. But I can fight these fucking demons. I cankillthem. I can leave them behind and keep on trudging up this mountain so I can transcend these clouds. These motherfuckers think this storm is bad? They haven’t seen the kind of storm I can create!”
A hint of a smile touched my lips, because I felt like we were really getting somewhere. I didn’t want to distract Marcus, though, so I didn’t say anything.
Paint cans clattered across the pavement as Marcus kicked a few aside to get the ones he wanted. He shook the paint can in his hand. “All right, depression. You aren’t these clouds; you’re a demon. Let’s see what you look like.”
Marcus kept on painting, personifying his demons into real-life paintings. Hours must’ve passed as Marcus worked, muttering under his breath every now and then. I remained patient, letting Marcus depict what he wanted. Oberi described the paintings to me as they were created, giving them life.
Marcus painted his depression as a gray fog monster, with empty black eye sockets and a dark pit at the center that could suck him in. “Depression fucking sucks, man,” Marcus ranted as he painted. “Some days, you’re just in this haze, void of color and all hope. And then sometimes, you fall into this deep, black pit it feels like you’ll never crawl out of. It’s funny how the brain is wired to survive, but when things get really bad, the only solution your brain can come up with is to end it all. How’s that possible? How can something that does everything to keep us alive be driven to such a dark solution? Only demons can do that. This demon sucks hours from your life, drains your will and your hope, and slowly crushes you. You don’t really want to die, but you can’t see another way out. You either lay in bed all day, waiting for the monster to claim you, or you power through thepain. Well, I’m going to choose a different path. I’m going to slay that fucking monster.”
He kept on working, painting his trauma next. “People say trauma makes you stronger, but it doesn’t. It breaks you, hurts you, makes you sensitive and vulnerable. You back off from everything and everyone, because you’re so afraid to feel that way again. You don’t know who to trust, because now you know that the people you love can hurt you… or you can hurt them. Trauma makes it difficult to concentrate or make a simple fucking decision. It gives you PTSD and nightmares. Trauma doesn’t just happen in the moment, but it latches on and sticks with you, until it literally alters who you are.”
Marcus shouted toward the sky. “Well, guess what? You can let me fucking go, because I won’t let you latch on to me any longer!”
He’s painted his trauma as a lamprey-like creature,Oberi told me.It’s a giant red eel with circles of razor-sharp teeth. It’s creeping along the blackened rock with the other monsters, as if searching for something to devour.
“Rage?” Marcus continued. “Well, she’s a strong monster. She’s got muscles bigger than my head, and fangs as big as Rishi. If she gets me in her hands, she could crush me.”
It was interesting to me that Marcus identified his rage as a woman, but I didn’t know why.
“Rage lashes out,” Marcus continued. “She doesn’t give a fuck who or what she destroys. She only knows that things aren’t right, and somehow, she needs to put it back together again. She carestoofucking much.”
Rage is bipedal, Oberi described.She’s got huge hands, bulging muscles, and teeth like a lion’s. She doesn’t have eyes, though.
“She can’t see where she’s going,” Marcus said. “She just reacts. She justdestroys. I’m not going to let her keep destroying my life.”
He picked up another can of spray paint. “Self-doubt is a tiny little monster, but he’s fiercer than all the rest. He’s a little gremlin, skittering between the others so that you don’t even notice him until he’s right on top of you. He makes you question your worth and convinces you to back down, even when you want to put up a fight. He can force you to retreat before the fight has even begun. And if you find yourself in the middle of the battle before he can convince you otherwise, boy, does this little guy make you feel like the smallest living thing on the battlefield. He can suck your soul dry, until you’ve lost everything… even the people you love. When he’s got a hold of you, there isn’t anything you wouldn’t give up, because you don’t believe you deserve it anyway. This little guy can go fuck himself, because I deserve the world!”
