Walled in by psychosis

Artwork by Andrew Field 28 July 2023

Comic

Panel 1 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. A crudely drawn head with large circular black disc-like eyes fills most of the panel, staring out at the viewer with a blank expression. To the right, left and below the head are rectangular grids, representing walls. A block of text above the head says: "In 2007, when I was psychotic, I moved between three walls”. Text below the left wall says: "The Wall of Stigma". The text below the right wall says: "The Wall of Delusion" and text between the bottom wall and the head says: "The Wall of Reality".

Panel 2 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. Three crudely drawn heads float in the panel. Text at the top of the panel says: "That means I was ping-ponging between three statements". The head to the left of the panel is of a balding male with heavy, creased eyebrows. A speech bubble coming from him says "You're crazy!!!" and immediately below the head is text saying: "Wall of Stigma". The head to the right of the panel is of a younger male with short hair and glasses. A thought bubble coming from him says "You're all-powerful!!!". Directly under this head is text, saying "Wall of Delusion". The third head, at the bottom of the panel is of a female with shoulder-length hair. A speech bubble from her says "You're ill!!!" and beneath this, the text says "Wall of Reality".

Panel 3 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. A white text area at the top of the panel says "I felt so bewildered. Everything overwhelmed me - stores, people, noises, light, like some bizarre circus that did not speak my delusional language". Below the text, two crudely drawn figures sit in chairs facing each other across a small round table with two coffee mugs on it. Speech bubbles from the seated figures each contain a small pale pink daub of colour. A young male figure with glasses stands alone, to the right of the seated figures, with a sad expression on his face. A thought bubble from him contains a daub of pale purple colour.

Panel 4 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. The top quarter of the panel is filled with text saying, "My delusional language dawned on me slowly, and developed into a system, a psychotic way of life". Below this is another area of text saying, "There were levels of consciousness". Below the text is a drawing, reminiscent of a musical stave, with seven narrow, horizonal black lines, parallel to each other and stretching the full width of the panel. At the left of these lines is a thick black vertical line with a black circle at the top, which cuts across the horizontal lines. A small smiley face floats above the lines, next to the vertical line. Along the horizontal lines are 6 evenly spaced daubs of colour, arranged like musical notes. The two central 'notes' are orange, and sit on the top couple of lines, to the left and right of these are two purple 'notes' sitting on the middle lines, and outside these are two green 'notes' sitting on the bottom few lines. Below the drawing is another block of text saying, " I was at the top of the levels, and I could see what level you were at based on a colour I hallucinated".

Panel 5 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. A crudely drawn make figure with short hair and glasses stands looking out at the viewer. A thought bubble coming from his contains a seven narrow parallel lines, reminiscent of a musical stave. Across the lines are three 'musical notes' in the form of daubs of colour, arranged in ascending order: green, purple, orange. A block of text at the top of the panel says "My mission in life was to literally raise consciousness, turning it from one color to another."

Panel 6 of a six-panel comic called 'Walled in by psychosis', consisting of thick black line drawing on a mottled grey background. A block of text at the top of the panel says, "There were also secret messages behind people's words - what's known as "ideas of reference". " The crudely drawn head and shoulders of a figure with large eyes and short curly hair fill most of the panel. A speech bubble coming from the figure says "[in black text] hi, how are you doing? [and in blue text beneath the black text] You are Him, You are Jesus "

Walled in by psychosis. © Andrew Field for Wellcome Collection.

About the artist

Black and white photograph of the head of a young white man with short dark hair and large black-framed glasses. He is smiling and looking into the camera.

Andrew Field

(he/him)

@AndrewField48 on Instagram

Andrew Field is a cartoonist, poet, singer-songwriter and librarian based in Southeast Michigan. He is currently finishing up a graphic novella about living with schizophrenia called ‘The Light-Haunted Museum’, which can be found on his website.

Walled in by psychosis

About the artist

Andrew Field

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