This article originally appeared and was published on AOL.com
Instead of letting her hallucinations take over her life, an 18-year-old with schizophrenia has found an original way to cope.
The Los Angeles native, whose name is Kate, draws her hallucinations and shares them on her Instagram account.
Here’s one of the scarier ones:
“I have depression, and get suicidal thoughts,” Kate told BuzzFeed News. “I used to compulsively self-harm (not intentionally; sometimes I can feel bugs crawling on my arms) and now I have scars. I barely go to school two days a week because I’m afraid to leave the house, and I hate myself.”
She said that sometimes she feels cold and distant like she’s looking at the world through a pane of glass.
“Sometimes reality doesn’t feel real and I get empty,” she added.
Kate sometimes draws a bug to represent the way she feels about herself.
“Explaining what I go through can be awkward, so I decided to just draw,” she said.
In addition to drawing, Kate is treating her schizophrenia with therapy. She may return to medical treatment some day, but in the meantime, she said her art has been extremely helpful
“It took me a long time to acknowledge these feelings and address them. That’s what I’m trying to connect my art with, because I know that so many people feel the same as me,” she told BuzzFeed.
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