Neuropsychologist Discusses the Benefits of Art Therapy and Therapeutic Art

I have mixed feelings about this article. They interview a neuropsychologist who touts the advantages of art therapy, and how it is helpful as a clinical treatment, especially with anxiety.  She posits that artists are likely to be more open to art therapy because of their familiarity with the materials, but I have found often that artistically-inclined people can actually be the most resistant (changes how they do art with the introspection involved, for instance).  She even quotes some research about how art making for 45 minutes can reduce anxiety, which is great that she is familiar with the study.

Later in the article, however, they switch to discussing art-based hobbies that you can pursue on your own at home and have the same effect as art therapy.  That is a fine line because similar effects can be felt, but they don't get into the difference of making things creatively that have a therapeutic effect and what art therapy is by definition, which is clinical treatment facilitated by a credentialed professional to address specific treatment issues.  In fact, at the bottom, they include the suggestion "Want to try art therapy at home? Check out these artistic kits to help you get started."  I just hope it doesn't mislead people into thinking they can knit or paint themselves out of a severe depression on their own.  Those kinds of approaches I would rather call therapeutic art making.

Regardless, I'm happy for some positive reports about art therapy in the news. Perhaps I'm too strict and sensitive on this issue, so if you have your own opinions on the article, sound off below!

Does Art Therapy Really Work? We Asked a Neuropsychologist

written by AMY LAWRENSON

 UPDATED JAN 29, 2020

Paint brushes

PEXELS / DEEANA GARCIA

Art therapy is a creative way to tackle anxiety, but does it really work? We live in a society where low-level (and sometimes full-on) stress and anxiety is a daily given. From the constant sensory overload of social media, an ever-increasing inbox and the pressure of an almost always-on social life, we're more stressed and anxious than ever. And those niggling feelings are hard to tame. According to the American Psychiatric Association, almost 40 million Americans have an anxiety disorder (yes, you read that number right), while around 40 percent of the population admitted to feeling more anxious in 2018 compared with the year prior.

Art therapy has been used since the mid 20th century as a way for people to use creative exercises like painting and drawing to enhance feelings of mental well-being and to promote healing. Of course, you can sign-up for a pricey pottery or jewelry-making class, but finding something that you can do easily at home is a great way to get going too. And while art therapy may sound a bit out-there, it is, in fact, a legitimate form of therapy. Anxiety UK tells Byrdie that "most arts and crafts, such as knitting or baking or similar activities, are mindfulness activities which are a proven way of helping with stress, anxiety and/or anxiety-based depression."

Intrigued? To find out more about art therapy and how you can reap the benefits, we called on Dr. Sanam Hafeez to get us up to speed, so keep reading.

MEET THE EXPERT

Dr. Sanam Hafeez is an NYC-based neuropsychologist and faculty member at Columbia University. She is also a member of Byrdie's Beauty & Wellness Review Board.

Byrdie: Could you tell us about art therapy and whether or not it actually works?

Dr. Sanam Hafeez: Art therapy (AT) as a treatment option for anxiety is regularly employed in clinical practice, but scientific evidence for its effectiveness is lacking since this intervention has hardly been studied. Art therapy has been used for about 50 years.

Byrdie: Can artistic pursuits help everyone dealing with stress or does it only suit people who are naturally artistic? 

SH: People who are artistically inclined will likely be more readily open to it. For those who are not, there might be some initial resistance. Nothing about art therapy is “results” oriented or has any element of competition or evaluation. Once those are not “born artists” realize this, they tend to be more open. Art Therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress. 

Therefore, it is suited to almost alone open to the process.

Byrdie: Why does art therapy help people feel relaxed?

SH: Results of a 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association found that just 45 minutes of creative activity can reduce your stress, regardless of artistic experience or talent. It fosters relaxation because when you are focused on creating, it takes your mind off things, even if you are just doodling and not painting like Picasso. It can put you into a “state of flow” which is a near meditative state. It calms the nervous system, encourages self-expression and self- awareness. It also gives me time to themselves in a relaxing environment.

When you are focused on creating, it takes your mind off things... It can put you into a 'state of flow' which is a near meditative state.

Byrdie: When looking for an art-based hobby, have some things been proven to help more than others? 

SH: Aside from art, there are similar types of (non-sporting) activities that can have the same effect as art therapy, such as knitting or crocheting, writing, gardening, playing a musical instrument and volunteering with animals.

The most important thing is to choose something that you enjoy so that you will be engrossed in the activity and stick with it. If your mind is focused on an activity, there is much less space for your brain to be anxious.

If you have tried painting as a means of art therapy and didn’t like it, don’t give up. The next time, try pottery, collaging, digital art, textiles, or perhaps jewelry making. There are many different types of art. Find the one that best suits your interest and diverts your anxiety.

Lack of Long-Term Psychiatric Treatment Leads to a Mental Health Crisis

This is an interesting article. Treating mental health has run the gamut over the last century or more. Even though there has been criticism about past asylums and how they housed and treated patients, now the pendulum has swung where there is such limited availability for treatment that it is starting to contribute to a national mental health crisis. We need to find a way to have the supply to fit the demand to help people individually as well as have a healthier society.

How The Loss Of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals Led To A Mental Health Crisis

November 30, 20171:15 PM ET

SAMANTHA RAPHELSON

When the Northville Psychiatric Hospital closed, many of the patients either had to leave southeast Michigan for hospitals elsewhere in the state or ended up in community programs that haven't always met their needs, an advocacy group says.

Paul Sancya/AP

A severe shortage of inpatient care for people with mental illness is amounting to a public health crisis, as the number of individuals struggling with a range of psychiatric problems continues to rise.

The revelation that the gunman in the Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting escaped from a psychiatric hospital in 2012 is renewing concerns about the state of mental health care in this country. A study published in the journal Psychiatric Services estimates 3.4 percent of Americans — more than 8 million people — suffer from serious psychological problems.

The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care at the University of Pennsylvania.

"State hospitals began to realize that individuals who were there probably could do well in the community," he tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "It was well-intended, but what I believe happened over the past 50 years is that there's been such an evaporation of psychiatric therapeutic spaces that now we lack a sufficient number of psychiatric beds."

A concerted effort to grow community-based care options that were less restrictive grew out of the civil rights movement and a series of scandals due to the lack of oversight in psychiatric care, Sisti says. While those efforts have been successful for many, a significant group of people who require structured inpatient care can't get it, often because of funding issues.

A 2012 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization that works to remove treatment barriers for people with mental illness, found the number of psychiatric beds decreased by 14 percent from 2005 to 2010. That year, there were 50,509 state psychiatric beds, meaning there were only 14 beds available per 100,000 people.

"Many times individuals who really do require intensive psychiatric care find themselves homeless or more and more in prison," Sisti says. "Much of our mental health care now for individuals with serious mental illness has been shifted to correctional facilities."

The percentage of people with serious mental illness in prisons rose from .7 percent in 1880 to 21 percent in 2005, according to the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights.

Many of the private mental health hospitals still in operation do not accept insurance and can cost upwards of $30,000 per month, Sisti says. For many low-income patients, Medicaid is the only path to mental health care, but a provision in the law prevents the federal government from paying for long-term care in an institution.

As a result, many people who experience a serious mental health crisis end up in the emergency room. According to data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, between 2001 and 2011, 6 percent of all emergency department patients had a psychiatric condition. Nearly 11 percent of those patients require transfer to another facility, but there are often no beds available.

"We are the wrong site for these patients," Dr. Thomas Chun, an associate professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at Brown University, told NPR last year. "Our crazy, chaotic environment is not a good place for them."

Most hospitals are unable to take care of people for more than 72 hours, Sisti explains, so patients are sent back out into the world without adequate access to treatment.

In order to bridge the gap between hospital stays and expensive community-based care options, Sisti argues for "a continuum of care that ranges from outpatient care and transitional-type housing situations to inpatient care."

While President Trump and others have claimed a connection exists between mental illness and the rise in gun violence, most mental health professionals vehemently disagree.

"There is no real connection between an individual with a mental health diagnosis and mass shootings. That connection according to all experts doesn't exist," says Bethany Lilly of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

Sisti says the stigma around mental health is "systematized" in our health care system, more so than in the public view.

Health care providers are "rather leery about these individuals because these people are, often at least according to the stereotype, high-cost patients who maybe are difficult to treat or noncompliant," he says. "I think the stigma that we should be really focused on and worried about actually emerges out of our health care system more than from the public."

Looking at Art Could Help Police Officers Pay Better Attention to Details

A while back, I posted about how art is being used to help doctors pay more attention to details for better diagnosis. (see https://arttherapist.blogspot.com/2018/12/looking-at-art-could-help-med-students.html)

Now they are using the same course to help police pay attention to details at crime scenes. Art can reveal a lot, and in this case, help people hone their skills on finding details that may be very important.

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/police-using-art-artsy/

Looking at Art Helps Police Officers Pay Attention to Details

Jessie O’Brien
Dec 24, 2019 8:00am

 

Amy Herman. Courtesy of TED@BCG.

A New York City detective was called to a crime scene in an industrial part of Brooklyn, New York, where he was told a female prostitute was found dead, rolled up in a rug. When the detective arrived, he noticed a small, unusual detail: The victim had matching well-manicured fingernails and toenails, an uncommon feature in the investigator’s experience with sex workers. The perfectly polished nails hinted that the Jane Doe was someone else. And she was: The woman turned out to be a missing criminal justice grad student. The detective’s eye for detail directed him toward the truth.

The incident with the Brooklyn investigator is a real example credited to art historian Amy Herman’s seminar The Art of Perception. The course utilizes fine art as a tool to test and strengthen perception skills and challenge inherent biases. Herman’s 2016 book Visual Intelligencealso employs art’s unique ability to nudge viewers to think about what’s in front of them. In the case with the detective, Herman recounted, “When he got to the crime scene, he said, ‘I remembered from your class: Look at the big picture, and look at the small details.’”

The Garden of Earthly Delights
Hieronymus Bosch
The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1490-1500
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Famous works such as Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500)—with its absurd, unsettling creatures—are used as lessons in objectivity: Explain what’s there without emotion. Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) is an exercise in standing in someone else’s shoes: Look through the bartender’s eyes. What does she see?

Dulled perceptions can just as easily lead us to the wrong conclusions, without any awareness of our delusion. Herman, a former lawyer, was privy to malfunctioning human machinery in the courtroom; eyewitness testimonies are surprisingly inaccurate. With this in mind, she developed the course known as The Art of Perception while working in the education department at New York City’s Frick Collection in 2001. The program initially came about solely for medical students—a career where a wrong observation can mean life or death—but Herman knew her course applied to professions beyond medicine. “Medical students don’t have much peripheral vision,” she said. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Comtesse d’Haussonville (1845)must be suffering from IBS, and Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert (ca. 1476–78) is surely in the midst of a psychotic break.“They kept saying, ‘Who has cancer? Who has an illness?’” Herman recalled.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1881-1882
The Courtauld Gallery, London  

In 2004, Herman began cold-calling the New York Police Department (NYPD) about The Art of Perception, and today, she has taught the course well over 1,000 times—and she still teaches it at museums. Beyond the NYPD, her impressive list of clients includes U.S. Special Operations Forces, the U.S. Department of Defense, the FBI, Google, and more.

Credit Suisse’s investment banking division invites Herman back every year for its professional development program. “We’re moving so fast. It’s hard to not make assumptions,” said campus recruiter Rachael Schutzbank. After participating in seven of Herman’s courses, Schutzbank said what stuck with her is the importance of fighting those assumptions when communicating with others.

This is a lesson the police know too well. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) uses an image right out of Herman’s Visual Intelligence book to incorporate in their bias training. The image is of a white English bobby running behind a black man in plain clothes. Most people assume the black man is running from the bobby, when the truth is, he is a detective in everyday wear.

 

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Countess d'Haussonville, 1845. 

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

“We put that right to use,” said Commander Daniel Godsel, a 28-year CPD veteran. After reading Visual Intelligence, he began a correspondence with Herman, who presented to the CPD in 2019. Godsel was especially drawn toward her methods because of his unlikely fine art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“As I rose through the ranks, people would ask me, ‘Did the art background and training have an effect?’” he said. “There is something to that. By training in the art field, your brain tends to adapt and see things in a way people might not see.”

Godsel said that in the police academy, officers are trained in awareness discipline. They call it keeping your head on a pivot. Herman’s concepts in art take that training so much more in depth, he said. By the closing chapters of Visual Intelligence, Godsel was convinced every cop should read the book.

Earlier in Godsel’s career, he and his partner were called on a standard wellness check. It was a typical frigid winter in Chicago. When they arrived at a well-groomed brick bungalow, a young teenage girl appeared from the garage wearing socks and no jacket. She wasn’t willing to speak much to the officers before a young, clean-cut man came from the house. The man said he was watching his girlfriend’s little sister, and their stories lined up. He knew the girl’s name, age, her sister’s name, where the sister worked, phone numbers, and other details. Still, something didn’t seem right. “The answers were coming too quickly and too casually,” Godsel said.

And where was her jacket? Why was she in socks? Godsel and his partner requested that a female officer stop by the bungalow, knowing that sometimes female victims are uncomfortable speaking to male cops. As it turned out, the girl was abducted off the street, and the perpetrator had driven around with her to learn as much information as possible before sexually assaulting her.

 

Time Transfixed

René Magritte

Time Transfixed, 1938

Art Institute of Chicago

For Godsel, noticing the missing jacket represents a key takeaway from Herman’s course: What isn’t there is just as important as what is there. Herman uses René Magritte’s Time Transfixed (1938) as an example. In the course, she asks attendants to pair off. One person is asked to describe what’s in the painting, while another tries to draw what they hear. Many say there is a train coming from a fireplace and candles on a mantle. With this limited description, most would imagine candles in the sticks and a fire in the fireplace. To accurately describe the scene, however, it must be taken a step further to say the fireplace and candlesticks are empty.

According to the Visual Intelligence blog, the average museumgoer looks at a painting for 17 seconds before moving on. It’s impossible to absorb Time Transfixed without spending some time transfixed with it. A paradoxical realization from The Art of Perception is both how much we are not seeing and how much we are capable of seeing if we make the effort. Art books, museums, and galleries are worthy training grounds.

“In this disengaged world that we’re living in,” Herman said, “art from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries still has the power to engage people to look more carefully.”

Jessie O’Brien

Reasons to Go to Therapy

Some people wonder about going to a therapist. They may have a good support network or good friends/family they can talk to. But there are specific advantages to going to therapy for a range of things, anywhere from severe impairment from a condition to roadblocks in life that you want extra help navigating. Therapy doesn't have to be lengthy to be effective. Here are some good reasons to see a professional.

Self-Care is Important

This is something I tell my patients all the time. You can't give to or take care of others if you're running on empty.

 It's also great advice for us therapists to employ as well....we can easily fall into that hole of giving without recharging. It's OK to self-care.

Guest Post: My Journey to Healing

My friend Lauren has started sharing about her experiences dealing with mental and physical illness and what she has been learning through therapy and her healing journey.  She was so kind as to create a guest post for Adventures in Art Therapy, highlighting the use of creative outlets like music, art, and writing as a way of self-expression.  Thanks for your encouragement, Lauren!

Hi everyone! My name is Lauren, AKA “My Journey To Healing” on YouTube and Instagram. 

I have been dealing with chronic illness (ulcerative colitis & IBS) since 2014, as well as varying degrees of mental illness throughout my life. I have been in therapy for the past 7 months, and have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression. My main goals in creating “My Journey To Healing” are to connect with and encourage others, to raise awareness for chronic physical and mental health conditions, and to have a platform to share my feelings, experiences, and lessons that I have learned. 

Today, I wanted to make a video on some of my top practices that I have learned from therapy that are applicable to both mental and physical illness. These practices are mainly centered around separating your identity from your illnesses, and allowing yourself to see that there is more to your life than your illnesses. These practices have made a strong impact on my well-being, and I hope that all of you watching can implement at least one of them into your daily lives. I am more than my illnesses, and so are you.

 For additional uplifting content and updates, feel free to follow my Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/_myjourneytohealing_/

Important Questions to Ask a New Therapist

If you are looking for a therapist, here are some good questions to consider asking to find a good fit so that you can get the most out of your therapy.

How Does Making Art Affect Your Brain?

A great article about how art making is helpful - both through the act of being creative and in formal art therapy. Art Therapists Christianne Strang and Girija Kaimal are interviewed it as well!

Feeling Artsy?  Here's How Making Art Helps Your Brain

January 11, 20207:00 AM ET

MALAKA GHARIB

Twitter

Credit: Meredith Rizzo/NPR

A lot of my free time is spent doodling. I'm a journalist on NPR's science desk by day. But all the time in between, I am an artist — specifically, a cartoonist.

I draw in between tasks. I sketch at the coffee shop before work. And I like challenging myself to complete a zine — a little magazine — on my 20-minute bus commute.

I do these things partly because it's fun and entertaining. But I suspect there's something deeper going on. Because when I create, I feel like it clears my head. It helps me make sense of my emotions. And it somehow, it makes me feel calmer and more relaxed.

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This story comes from an episode of Life Kit, NPR's podcast with tools to help you get it together. For more, sign up for the newsletter and follow @NPRLifeKit on Twitter.

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That made me wonder: What is going on in my brain when I draw? Why does it feel so nice? And how can I get other people — even if they don't consider themselves artists — on the creativity train?

It turns out there's a lot happening in our minds and bodies when we make art.

"Creativity in and of itself is important for remaining healthy, remaining connected to yourself and connected to the world," says Christianne Strang, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Alabama Birmingham and the former president of the American Art Therapy Association.

This idea extends to any type of visual creative expression: drawing, painting, collaging, sculpting clay, writing poetry, cake decorating, knitting, scrapbooking — the sky's the limit.

"Anything that engages your creative mind — the ability to make connections between unrelated things and imagine new ways to communicate — is good for you," says Girija Kaimal. She is a professor at Drexel University and a researcher in art therapy, leading art sessions with members of the military suffering from traumatic brain injury and caregivers of cancer patients.

But she's a big believer that art is for everybody — and no matter what your skill level, it's something you should try to do on a regular basis. Here's why:

It helps you imagine a more hopeful future

Art's ability to flex our imaginations may be one of the reasons why we've been making art since we were cave-dwellers, says Kaimal. It might serve an evolutionary purpose. She has a theory that art-making helps us navigate problems that might arise in the future. She wrote about this in October in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association.

Her theory builds off of an idea developed in the last few years — that our brain is a predictive machine. The brain uses "information to make predictions about we might do next — and more importantly what we need to do next to survive and thrive," says Kaimal.

When you make art, you're making a series of decisions — what kind of drawing utensil to use, what color, how to translate what you're seeing onto the paper. And ultimately, interpreting the images — figuring out what it means.

"So what our brain is doing every day, every moment, consciously and unconsciously, is trying to imagine what is going to come and preparing yourself to face that," she says.

Kaimal has seen this play out at her clinical practice as an art therapist with a student who was severely depressed. "She was despairing. Her grades were really poor and she had a sense of hopelessness," she recalls.

The student took out a piece of paper and colored the whole sheet with thick black marker. Kaimal didn't say anything.

"She looked at that black sheet of paper and stared at it for some time," says Kaimal. "And then she said, 'Wow. That looks really dark and bleak.' "

And then something amazing happened, says Kaimal. The student looked around and grabbed some pink sculpting clay. And she started making ... flowers: "She said, you know what? I think maybe this reminds me of spring."

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Through that session and through creating art, says Kaimal, the student was able to imagine possibilities and see a future beyond the present moment in which she was despairing and depressed.

"This act of imagination is actually an act of survival," she says. "It is preparing us to imagine possibilities and hopefully survive those possibilities."

It activates the reward center of our brain

For a lot of people, making art can be nerve-wracking. What are you going to make? What kind of materials should you use? What if you can't execute it? What if it ... sucks?

Studies show that despite those fears, "engaging in any sort of visual expression results in the reward pathway in the brain being activated," says Kaimal. "Which means that you feel good and it's perceived as a pleasurable experience."

She and a team of researchers discovered this in a 2017 paper published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy. They measured blood flow to the brain's reward center, the medial prefrontal cortex, in 26 participants as they completed three art activities: coloring in a mandala, doodling and drawing freely on a blank sheet of paper. And indeed — the researchers found an increase in blood flow to this part of the brain when the participants were making art.

This research suggests making art may have benefit for people dealing with health conditions that activate the reward pathways in the brain, like addictive behaviors, eating disorders or mood disorders, the researchers wrote.

It lowers stress

Although the research in the field of art therapy is emerging, there's evidence that making art can lower stress and anxiety. In a 2016 paper in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, Kaimal and a group of researchers measured cortisol levels of 39 healthy adults. Cortisol is a hormone that helps the body respond to stress.

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They found that 45 minutes of creating art in a studio setting with an art therapist significant lowered cortisol levels.

The paper also showed that there were no differences in health outcomes between people who identify as experienced artists and people who don't. So that means that no matter your skill level, you'll be able to feel all the good things that come with making art.

It lets you focus deeply

Ultimately, says Kaimal, making art should induce what the scientific community calls "flow" — the wonderful thing that happens when you're in the zone. "It's that sense of losing yourself, losing all awareness. You're so in the moment and fully present that you forget all sense of time and space," she says.

And what's happening in your brain when you're in flow state? "It activates several networks including relaxed reflective state, focused attention to task and sense of pleasure," she says. Kaimal points to a 2018 study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, which found that flow was characterized by increased theta wave activity in the frontal areas of the brain — and moderate alpha wave activities in the frontal and central areas.

So what kind of art should you try?

Some types of art appear to yield greater health benefits than others.

Kaimal says modeling clay, for example, is wonderful to play around with. "It engages both your hands and many parts of your brain in sensory experiences," she says. "Your sense of touch, your sense of three-dimensional space, sight, maybe a little bit of sound — all of these are engaged in using several parts of yourself for self-expression, and likely to be more beneficial."

A number of studies have shown that coloring inside a shape — specifically a pre-drawn geometric mandala design — is more effective in boosting mood than coloring on a blank paper or even coloring inside a square shape. And one 2012 study published in Journal of the American Art Therapy Association showed that coloring inside a mandala reduces anxiety to a greater degree compared to coloring in a plaid design or a plain sheet of paper.

Strang says there's no one medium or art activity that's "better" than another. "Some days you want to may go home and paint. Other days you might want to sketch," she says. "Do what's most beneficial to you at any given time."

Process your emotions

It's important to note: if you're going through serious mental health distress, you should seek the guidance of a professional art therapist, says Strang.

However, if you're making art to connect with your own creativity, decrease anxiety and hone your coping skills, "by all means, figure out how to allow yourself to do that," she says.

Just let those "lines, shapes and colors translate your emotional experience into something visual," she says. "Use the feelings that you feel in your body, your memories. Because words don't often get it."

Her words made me reflect on all those moments when I reached into my purse for my pen and sketchbook. A lot of the time, I was using my drawings and little musings to communicate how I was feeling. What I was doing was helping myself deal. It was cathartic. And that catharsis gave me a sense of relief.

A few months ago, I got into an argument with someone. On my bus ride to work the next day, I was still stewing over it. In frustration, I pulled out my notebook and wrote out the old adage, "Do not let the world make you hard."

I carefully ripped the message off the page and affixed it to the seat in front of me on the bus. I thought, let this be a reminder to anyone who reads it!

I took a photo of the note and posted it to my Instagram. Looking back at the image later that night, I realized who the message was really for. Myself.

Malaka Gharib is a writer and editor on NPR's science desk and the author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir.