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My painting, "Growing Up," captures feelings of sadness and hope. The green colors represent these feelings, like bubbles floating up. Even though it's sad, there's a sense of warmth and kindness in the colors. The blue and yellow add a bit of brightness, showing that even in tough times, there's still hope. When people see my painting, I hope they feel comforted and reminded that sadness doesn't last forever, and there's always a chance for things to get better.

Painting is therapeutic for me. I express my trauma, recovery, fear of improving, hope, despair, profound shame, anger, true joy, newfound sexuality, and qualities in myself I never knew existed. I am breaking through and processing. I love seeing my artwork evolve with my mental health. Sometimes, I imagine breaking through a black-painted window and escaping a dark room, a lightless place filled with razors and broken mirrors. Outside, there are shards of glass everywhere. It is still painful, but I finally escaped. And the wounds will heal. They are healing. I pour my soul into my paintings because I must stay grounded. My parts, my emotions. I urgently and compassionately create visual representations of them because if I don't, the...