For yers, I've been suffering from depression. Last summer (July 2019), my partner wanted to divorce. It became even harder. I have really bee nstruggling, most of all in my efforts to build up something that could pass as a social network.

In September, I continued attending tango classes and I also started painting classes: as a child and adolescent, I was always drawing, working with clay, etc. I really missed this and for most of my adult life my inner artist - if I am allowed to even use that word - was always in conflict with the engineer my parents wanted (and forced me to become).

With covid-19, tango and painting classes were suspended. I tried painting at home but is was hard: I missed my peers and the inspiration I got from seeing their work (strangely enough, people seem to think the same about me) but most of all, the place where I'm living is in fact inhabitable (i.e. if I was a landlord, I could be sued but as I am the owner, I'm free to live in the only dump I could afford).
It has been quite the struggle: on one hand, I had more social contact than ever when I went out for a walk. On the other everything that was supposed to help me cope with my situation was ended. Eventually I started cycling again. This has always been a lifesaver and all went well until I fainted during excercise two weeks ago. I was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and got the advise to stop doing sports altogether ...

Ever since, my head has been bursting with ideas for paintings and drawings. Most involve self portraits in which I am I'm not sure what to do with this. These images are haunting me but I'm scared that if I bring them to life, they will be more confronting than I can handle. In a way, I believe that, if I'm ever going to paint something again, this will be it. But I don't want anyone to see these images. I even doubt whether I want to see them myself and it's probably not a good idea to have them lingering about.

Has anybody experienced this before? How did you handle it?