[LAUIL601] Reflective Report 2 (376 words)

I don't really feel like my project is developing as well as it could be doing at this time, on the subject of art and mental health. 

I started rather open-ended with researching terms and sources, attending a webinar and an inside the studio with artist and musician Brando Boyd who touched briefly on mental health with an inspiring quote, but it hasn't progressed much since. I'm not on track in terms of the written or research aspects and I feel like I'm drowning in my own personal mental health problems. 

The only thing keeping me afloat in my little boat of the tempestuous sea is creating practical responses that I will submit for this module, to demonstrate as a strong case study how art does, indeed, benefit and promote your sense of self-worth and wellbeing. My brain just really cannot focus on anything academic right now and wants to shut it out and shut it away and close myself off as a self-defence mechanism. I feel like I'm in survival mode because of how isolated I am and how Tami, my Guide Dog, isn't home yet - much later than originally projected. I have no contact with the outside world with family, I've never had any friends to begin with here, but having my freedom lost because of not having my Guide Dog for 3 months is starting to impact me. I'm sure there is science or theory behind this and I can research it when Tami is back and I feel mentally up to it.

Because of my personal circumstances, far out of my control, the practical aspect has developed beyond my expectations with poems and many abstract expressionist works. I don't need to develop a plan of what to do, the work is there and demonstrates how art is giving me some kind of value to waking up to loneliness and four walls each day. 

My next steps are to keep surviving, keep creating any way I can and to return to academic work when able. This includes accessing texts, podcasts, videos, and journals with relevant quotes for my dissertation, building up an essay plan, Harvard referencing my bibliography, and marrying together the practical and theoretical to make sense of my own lived experience.