Courage with Bipolar Disorder

"It takes courage to live with bipolar disorder yet bipolar has given me courage."
​Xanthe Wyse

Creative Expression 

AS THERAPY

Xanthe Wyse is diagnosed with bipolar disorder (type 1), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety disorder.

​She finds creative expression, especially visual arts to be therapeutic. Processing and transforming trauma and accessing deep parts of herself that words cannot express. Accessing emotions that have been shut down from trauma, from times which she could literally not speak.

Xanthe usually paints listening to music that fits her mood and letting the songs speak for her. She paints metaphor and moods and likes vibrant, intense colours. She often dances whiles she paints in a meditative, trance-like state which calms her mind. She has had two solo art as therapy exhibitions. Her last exhibition was called Speak.

​The artworks are all aspects of Xanthe's story in metaphor pulled apart and put back together in a new way.  Her semiautobiographical novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice is a complex painting with words.