The Changing Aperture of Bo Mackison’s Life • by Quinn McDonald

The light in Bo Mackison’s eyes was too bright. The camera pointed at her, watching her lie on a thin mattress on the floor. She wanted the light to go out so she could sleep. It was useless to use the intercom on the wall. No one ever answered. The light never went out, the camera always pointed at her. Down the hall, at the nurses’ station, the image from the camera was one of many that showed each room in the locked ward of the psychiatric hospital.

Bo wondered about her husband and kids. Outside the hospital was the world she didn’t understand. And this world — this 6 x 8 foot, tile-floor room — was a world she hated. She didn’t remember how long she’d been here. They had taken her clothes, shoes, and watch so she wouldn’t hurt herself. She got no information about what happened or when she could go home. She wasn’t allowed a pen or notebook because she could use them to hurt herself. She was given a sheet to cover herself and a mattress to lie on. That soulless room was her life for the next month. The next three, in a locked hospital ward, weren’t much better.

The Breakdown
Bo was 36 the year of her first admission, a mom of three who worked part time as a physical therapist. Weeks before, Bo had been active in Brownie Scouts, taught religious education, lived a normal life. Now she was in a mental hospital, helpless on the floor with a bright light burning above and a camera watching her.

She tried to find the thread of her life that had unraveled the careful weaving of days and years of being a wife, a mother, a neighbor, a friend. She remembered being on jury duty that fall, listening to her fellow jurors discus the testimony from a rape trial. The victim has testified how, during her rape, she had dissociated — her mind left her body and watched this terrible thing happening to her from somewhere safe above. In the deliberations, the jury argued over the truth of the woman’s testimony. Left her body? Floated over herself? The argument divided along gender lines — women believed her, men didn’t.

Bo remembers feeling fear during the victim’s testimony, feeling sick. The dissociation story seemed eerily familiar. She couldn’t recall the verdict, but she could recall how the time from Halloween to Thanksgiving seemed distorted and swimmy. Her thinking took a dark turn. It made great sense not to bother her family or her friends with her problems anymore.

She began to have flashbacks of her own childhood’s sexual abuse. She couldn’t control her thoughts suggesting escape from her shame and rage. Bo tried suicide late that November and was taken to a psychiatric hospital where she stayed till March.

It wasn’t her last suicide attempt, and it wasn’t her last trip to the small room with the mattress on the floor and the bright light and camera high above her.

The Overwhelming Path Back
As the years went on and Bo unraveled the story of her abusive childhood, she returned to the hospital for days or for a week, occasionally for several weeks. The first hospital employee to show Bo hope was a kind and generous occupational therapist. As soon as Bo would obey the necessary rules, she was allowed to go to art therapy. She painted; she made sculptures of people, then hammered them to dust. She began to draw — dark memories of an abused childhood.

Over the next few years, she created more than 1,000 pieces of art. Her first exhibit was on the Art of Healing held during a psychiatric meeting on child abuse. There were dissociation paintings, slashes of anger and art, framed on the walls.

Art heals, but it could not cure. Bo hated the label “mentally ill.” It frightened people away, as if she were contagious. If she hid her illness, she had to lie to explain gaps in her life. If she talked about it, people treated her like a particularly grisly car wreck — something to gawk at, offer opinions on. The questions from strangers were intrusive, personal, invasive. Questions were followed by whispered comments behind her back, then exclusion from social events. Even when she was out of the hospital, she remained isolated.

Some Illness Can’t Be Cured
Bo wanted a cure for her mental illness. Like a diabetic who wants a cure for diabetes but must be satisfied by controlling it, Bo would remain mentally ill, dependent on medication. After 20 years of mental illness, she chose a goal of ending the days in the tiny, bright room in the locked mental ward. She wanted a life of purpose and joy. She had a therapist and a psychiatrist, but the focus was forever on her illness. She wanted a new focus.

Bo called a life and creativity coach, a perfect stranger whose writing she had seen and whose viewpoint seemed to be inclusive. “I need some help getting my poetry out,” was the first thing she said to me. My coaching practice is done entirely on the phone, so for me, Bo was the voice of a poet from halfway across the country.

Coaches Are Curious About the Present, Not the Past
I didn’t know much about her history, although she told me she had a 20-year history of mental illness. My life coach training stressed not focusing on a client’s past. I work with clients exactly where they are, concentrating on the client’s dreams, goals, and creative ambitions. I didn’t need to know what had caused the mental illness; my job was to provide a comfortable space where Bo could imagine success and build a path toward it.

Coaches replace their curiosity about the past with curiosity about the present. Questions provide the focus for the client and coach to walk the path of a creative life, for the coach to provide support, for the client to be accountable for achieving agreed-to goals, no matter how tiny or how lofty.

Poetry of Anger: a Necessary Tool
Bo began working through her past by writing poetry. I provided emotional room for her big anger, her terrifying despair, and always, always for her fragile hope. She fired me almost every session the first year, but each week we ended the phone call by making another appointment.

Some weeks the poetry was so raw and angry that I was glad she could not see the tears splotching my notes as I struggled with my own emotions. Some weeks the poetry edged toward hope.

Emerging from the Darkroom
Over time, the poetry wasn’t useful to Bo’s growing creative life. In one session, I learned she loved photography, had loved it since she received her first Brownie camera as a child. Bo had abandoned photography when she couldn’t overcome the fear of being in a darkroom.

Then came the digital camera, and Bo could show others a world she treasured and they most often walked past on their busy paths to work, to school, to meetings.

Bo loved her time outside — in snow and cold, in heat and humidity. She had the ability to transform the mysterious natural world into unfolding art. For the first time in many years, Bo could communicate successfully with others. Her vocabulary was photography. She had found her voice.

Could She Build a Real Life?
One day, during a coaching session, I asked if she would consider exhibiting her work. No. It would mean talking to strangers and she didn’t do that. But there was an interest. As so often happens with coaching, once a door opens, it’s followed by the urge to walk through that door. It took another six months before the topic came up again. Bo made a list of life skills and art skills she would need before she could manage attending an art festival. In another six months, she had mastered enough skills to think about doing a show. She chose a small show at a local arboretum and enlisted her husband’s help. She made prints of her best work and greeting cards to match. The day of the show, she couldn’t stand to talk to people, so her husband greeted people and Bo shyly admitted she was the artist.

At our next call, Bo excitedly told me that people said nice things about her photography. She sold her photography to people who liked it. For the first time in 20 years, Bo saw the hope of living a good life, of contributing to her household income, of having work that satisfied her and challenged her.

Success Comes From a Willingness to Fail
In the next several months, Bo worked on life skills with me, and on technical skills on her own. She set goals, failed, figured out the failure, tried again, succeeded. She took regular steps toward progress. I noticed how Bo’s anger showed up less often, how her work flourished, how she moved from nature photography to abstract botanical work. She began to sell her work online, she began to make profits at the shows she did, and she was invited to participate in museum shows.

“What did you photograph this weekend” I asked her recently.

“I got down on the ground and took the photograph looking up into the flower,” she said.

“I felt the solid earth below me, and this time, when I was on my back, looking up, I was holding the camera and the light was the sun. I might have a mental illness, but as long as I control the camera, I don’t have to be mentally ill.”

I smiled. Bo was right. Art heals.

Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach, writer, and artist. Coaching clients are guaranteed confidentiality in coaching sessions. Quinn received permission from Bo Mackison to tell this story.

© Quinn McDonald, 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, quoted or copied, either mechanically or electronically without the express written permission of the author. Quinn@QuinnCreative.com

Comments

[D Smith Kaich Jones]

i just read this, weeks late, almost midnight, the almost end of an exhausting week. or so i thought. incredible tale told well, very eye-opening. bo is a strong woman - thank you for her story and yours.

[D Smith Kaich Jones]

oh. and thank you for such wonderful links. :) i am bookmarking like crazy.