Painting, Peanut Butter, and Prozac

‘Have you taken your meds today, Dad?’ asks my 13-year-old son while spreading peanut butter on his sandwich. We are in the middle of our morning routine getting ready to leave for school, and there’s a little bit of wiggle time, so I probe.

‘Why’s that, what would happen if I didn’t?’

‘You’d be Cranky-Dad,’ he answered without skipping a beat or adjusting his voice. We both know he’s right. But it’s also a rare day that I forget, as it’s been a daily routine for me for most of the last twenty years—and while the medication helps, my kids will tell you that Cranky-Dad still visits on a more frequent basis than I’d like.

The next evening, with the experience of the previous morning still fresh in my mind, we head off in the car. Always the bargain hunter, my wife had booked discount tickets to visit a local immersive experience called, ‘Van Gogh Alive’. So, at eight o’clock we donned our jackets and mismatched beanies, packed the four kids into the car and headed into town.

I confess to being ignorant of Vincent van Gogh’s life and paintings, aside from those that crop up in popular culture. I knew about the ear incident, that he was a struggling artist and something to do with mental illness, but I didn’t know the details.

Thankfully no knowledge was required to enjoy the outdoor show, and under the starry night sky, we listened to an emotional musical journey to match the multiple slideshows projected onto every surface you could see. Vincent’s art—full of colour details, shapes, emotions, faces and places—flooded our senses for 45 minutes.

I’m glad that my son can speak freely to me about medication, and as a family we can talk openly about mental health. While as a society we are continuing to gain understanding and insight into behaviours and disorders of the mind, we still have work to do. We have come far in the time since Vincent’s death by suicide. We have come far since I struggled through my teenage years and was plagued by thoughts of the same. But even today, Aotearoa has much room to improve the wellbeing of our young people and we haven’t got it altogether just yet.

It can be difficult to know how to help those who are struggling. They often strike out in anger, grief or pain without even knowing why. Cranky-Dad can be a hard guy to love. I try my best to keep him under control, but it is a battle I don’t always win—and I’ve had the benefit of years of working with a therapist and being on medication. (Yes, my wife is amazing.)

Perhaps an easy yardstick is to remember these words by van Gogh: ‘There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people’. It sounds a lot like the encouragement of Jesus to ‘love one another’, or, ‘to love our neighbours as ourselves’. So, love each other well—grab a paint brush, get stuck in and get messy.