How Vent Art Helped Me Process My Thoughts & Emotions

I'm aware that this post is more on the personal side, but I never planned to shy away from more serious and personal topics that might help another artist.

To get into it I will start firstly by saying that vent art is a healthy way to process thoughts and emotions in my opinion. 

I'm not sure if it's just me or if other artists struggle with this, but I have a hard time expressing my emotions sometimes if it's not along the lines of a panic/anxiety attack. I sometimes seem unempathetic or emotionless to people sometimes, especially if they'd gotten close to me and aren't watching me mask with a light-hearted tone of behavior. 

My main way of expressing myself became my art and drawings. I most commonly draw myself as two different people clashing. I'm not 100% why I use that theme the most, but my best guess is to show how confusing it feels a lot of the time. My thoughts, ideas, impulses, and emotions are always like two different people fighting to be reality and such. I am both of them but of course one of them usually is the one that controls what is done and said. I'd assume that my mind makes it so confusing and difficult in order to protect itself and ensure I can still be somewhat functional in day to day life.

I had been drawing vent art for a long time but I recall first using it to process my emotions of loss and emptiness. I still do that today and it's a good way to process what my subconscious refuses to let me. For instance, back in august 2021 I had lost my mom. She died in a car crash after getting drunk and going to a bar and to this day I blame myself for all the things that might have led up to that night. The first few days after finding out she died, I cried and had many anxiety attacks. I was of course very sad and upset to have lost her but I also had strong immense feelings of guilt that I could do nothing with. That guilt still haunts me and is hard to manage some days. After those first few days after she died though, I simply stopped crying and would often forget that it even happened until prompted. The only times I continued to properly grieve her was when I was drawing an animatic to say goodbye to her or her funeral where I spoke what I remember her telling me she'd want said at her funeral. It wasn't even a very good animatic, but the more I drew the more honest my emotions got. My mind was foggy and I could barely draw properly, but that night I got to process some of my repressed sadness than I wouldn't have been able to without drawing. 

I still can't grieve her properly and often repress my thoughts and emotions subconsciously. Even for my recurring struggles like eating, dysphoria, depression, etc, I tend to turn to drawing it out to better understand myself just a little bit more. 

It's not a cure for my issues and mental illness' but it is one of the best tools I've had over these years of trying to figure it all out on my own. I think art is a very helpful and fun skill, but I for sure can speak well about it's use for emotionally stunted people. Whenever you can't actually express yourself, draw it out and you will feel just a little bit more seen and real.