Lisa Barrett could not see herself. For years, she could not see her value, feel hope or look to the future. In her first art therapy class, she painted her family but not herself.
“I’m the tree,” said Barrett, a 31-year-old military wife and mother diagnosed with bipolar disorder. “I still haven’t put a face to myself yet.”
Through proper medication, weekly therapy and a recent art therapy class for military wives, Barrett is starting to see herself again.
Barrett joined the art therapy class because she wanted something of her own. “I do a lot of arts and crafts with the kids, but this was something just for me.”
The art class is just one of many efforts by AspenPointe to reach out to the military and their families. The invisible wounds of war not only impact soldiers, but also the family. The class is designed to help wives of soldiers cope with the impacts of deployment and post-deployment issues.
“It helps to get the feelings out on paper,” Barrett says. “That’s how I felt that day, and I don’t have to feel that today.”
This family portarit was Barrett's first painting in the military wives class.
It hangs proudly on her wall at home. Barrett is represented by the tree.
Barrett’s husband was a part of a special unit that deployed every year for three to six months at a time. The multiple deployments took its toll on Barrett and her two kids.
“It sucks. Especially when the kids are younger and they don’t understand why their daddy isn’t there. It’s not the fact that I have to raise them alone, it’s how hard it is to explain to the kids why dad can’t be here.”
The Barretts had to stop watching the news because the kids would see something bad on television and they would ask, “Is that Daddy?”
She received a call from the military once informing her that a helicopter in her husband’s unit was shot down. “She didn’t tell me right away that my husband was OK. My heart nearly stopped. A lot of my husband’s PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) stems from that crash. He lost close friends. I think he has survivor’s guilt.”
Barrett suffered from her own guilt and feelings of inadequacy. “I thought my family would be better off without me. You don’t really know how much you mean to your family until it comes to that point.”
After two attempts on her life, the family moved to Colorado Springs last year in hopes of a fresh start and a less demanding post for her husband, who recently sustained a serious injury in training and is now awaiting a medical discharge.
She said they have made some adjustments to her medication and she is much better now. The Dialectal Behavior Treatment she is receiving from AspenPointe Counseling has taught Barrett better coping skills and she says she is much more equipped to deal with the day-to-day stresses that once overwhelmed her.
Now she is doing art therapy once a week and has found a new outlet to process feelings that she used to keep trapped inside. “I usually come in with an issue and Kim (the art instructor) gives us a topic to paint and it usually works itself out in the painting.”
Barrett finds particular value in the interpretations of the paintings aided by Creative Program Manager Kim Nguyen. “She always hits it right on the nose, it’s just wonderful.”
Barrett described one of her paintings, a landscape watercolor containing vibrant, bright colors: “In the past it’s very busy, chaotic, there is a lot of stuff. In the present I’m sturdy, on rock-solid ground and the future is wide-open and full of possibilities.”
Barrett plans to move to Phoenix to be close to her father and some extended family once her husband is discharged.
“In the military, there is no family. You move from post to post and lose the friends you do have,” she said.
Barrett’s husband and kids are in therapy as well and they continue to work together to heal the wounds. “A year ago I had no hope for the future. Now that’s changed," she said.