Slow To Anger

SLOW TO ANGER ©Jeni Fitts 2002

I painted this 12 years ago to describe how I felt being on too many medications for my health. I could think rationally and was painting all the time, but everything was at such a slow pace due to the meds. Speech was slowed, movement was slowed, and I was tired all the time. And angry. Mainly at all the "extra" medications I'd been prescribed that I really didn't need (not to say that I didn't need the primary meds, I did. But there were too many others added that did the same as the primary ones...I had a duplicate for every original prescription), and the doctor who made me take them. I was also in a clinical depression that - by definition - literally slows you down anyway. I didn't need all the extra baggage! It was a fight just to get anything done, even just around the house. To do the dishes, turn on a TV. To get out of my bed! And I was stuck here, the house was my entire world. And I hated it. So this is one of the responses I had to all of it - this painting. Slow to anger. Slow to speak, slow to move, slow to react, feeling frozen and unable to move around...like a cold zombie struggling to stand up. But angry, still...and once this zombie finally stands, get the hell out of the way. The mind was/is still sharp as a tack. The cold rigor mortis of the body was doctor-induced. But now I can finally move, and I feel better every day. This painting is of a time that has ended, mercifully.