Indiana; Monday, March 3rd, 1980. The day began just like any other, and shortly after 10:30 am Derek Baxter entered this world after a mere 20 minutes of labor – I, obviously, had things to do and goals to accomplish. I was born into a privatized religious community and was secluded from society until I was twelve years old. We left the commune and moved to Florida. I attended public school for the first time and became aware of the fact that there were other religions, tv, movies, and even people of other colors than just white. To say I had been sheltered was an understatement. This led, eventually, to some major mental health issues, PTSD, and escapism through any means possible, both drug use and suicidal ideation. Living as an individual with an undiagnosed addictive personality and began using “recreational” drug-use to escap was not a good mix. I fell into many of the stereotypical pitfalls that come with addictions and lost a few close friends and family relationships. The last of three suicidal attempts in my life were due to the shame and darkness created by my own addictive behaviors. That was a tipping point for me. I was exhausted and very upset with myself over three failed suicide attempts. I figured if I can’t successfully kill myself then I must be here for a reason. A rare spark of clinging onto the light within a world of darkness but I figured nothing else was working so let me try that. Today, at the age of 42, I find myself a completely different person than that very lost and damaged 20-year-old. Through years of work, I have repaired my relationship with myself, my parents, my siblings, and my friends. I spent a lot of time learning how personalities, addictions, past trauma, and brainwashing work and I hold no grudges or animosity towards anyone in my family or myself any longer. The biggest skill set I learned that truly shaped my hopes for the future was empathy. I was finally able to understand where other people are coming from, how their life experience affects them but doesn’t have to affect me, and how to live right here, right now. This current moment is the only moment that matters. I even learned how to have empathy for myself and not think that my life was cursed or that I was just a horrible awful person with too many issues to fix. I began to take pride in who I was, and how I was different. We all strive to be a unique voice in this world, but I didn’t have to try. My past, my experiences, and my diversity made me, automatically, a unique and interesting person – I simply had to live up to it. Once I began to realize I only needed to be myself I began to blossom. Now I work to guide others through a journey that may mirror my own struggles with sexuality, addiction, or social seclusion. I work with at-risk queer youth, I work with marginalized voices, I work with addicts at every level of their process. I learned very quickly that therapy wasnt the way I got to make those connections, instead the arts were. We make art, theatre, dance, and music together. I give them a space to be seen and heard, both literally and figuratively. When I discovered the arts I discovered avant-gardism and I discovered an entire group of people that work in a world parallel to popular culture. They worked in a world that spoke to me. While that work isn't specific to my upbringing, I still saw myself in them. I use avant-garde work to help the individuals I work with now find and take pride in their unique selves. A voice that has been silenced due to bullying or a body that has been difficult to accept because it marches to the beat of its own rhythm are the friends I journey beside everyday. I now see such a bright future for myself and my art therapy work that as a 42-year old I am going back to school to take the next steps to get a college education in order to obtain better jobs and make an even greater influence on the lives of the marginalized and work to lift their voices even higher and help the youth I work with achieve their goals much sooner than I did. I am proud of my history. I am proud of my journey and I hope that others can see there is hope in dark situations, relationships can be repaired, and understanding the world doesn’t require understanding and fitting in with popular culture but the true definition is understanding the world in the true and honest way you fit into this world. I have found my fit, and I can;t wait for everyone in my future to find their fit too.

Indiana; Monday, March 3rd, 1980. The day began just like any other, and shortly after 10:30 am Derek Baxter entered this world after a mere 20 minutes of labor – I, obviously, had things to accomplish. I was born into a privatized religious community and was secluded from society until I was twelve years old in 1992. We left the commune and moved to Florida. I attended public school for the first time and became aware of the fact that there were other religions, tv, movies, and even people of other colors than just white. To say I had been sheltered was an understatement. This led, eventually, to some major mental health issues, PTSD, and escapism through any means possible. Not to be shocking or sound dramatic but lots of drugs and three suicide attempts later I finally got help. Today, at the age of 42, I find myself a completely different person than that very lost and damaged 20-year-old. Through years of work, I have repaired my relationship with myself, my parents, my siblings, and my friends. I spent a lot of time learning how personalities, addictions, past trauma, and brainwashing work and I hold no grudges or animosity towards anyone in my family any longer. What an impact that had on my outlook on life and my hopes for the future. The biggest skill set I learned that truly shaped my hopes for the future was empathy. I am able to understand where other people are coming from, how their life experience affects them but doesn’t have to affect me, and how to live right here, right now. This moment is the only moment that matters. I now have integrated into society and serve as a fully functioning member of society, hold a full-time job in the arts.

Imagine a tv commercial. You hear bright happy music, and you see a group of individuals dancing down the street or maybe on the beach in bright clothes and with infectious positive energy. You begin to bop along to the music while sitting on your couch with the dancers on the screen. A message appears; it reads “This is a happy commercial – not a sad one.” A young adult appears centered in the frame and says “Did you know nearly 1 in every 5 Americans will have a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their lifetime”, and then an adorable child walks in holding his blanket, scared, and says “I thought you said this was a happy commercial, that doesn’t sound happy to me.” The dancing group is now in the studio behind the young adult and child dancing and partying once again. The young adult says “Mental health isn’t a sad thing at all, learning to live with your diagnosis is something to celebrate, nothing to be scared of or ashamed of.” I believe mental health needs a rebrand. All of the articles, tv commercials, nand ews segments are always so clinical, sterile, and typically very obviously written by people who have never experienced the depths of despair in depression, an uncontrollable and frightening panic attack in public, or a severe mental break in which you wake up terrified about what you did in this most recent blackout. We need to connect to the public in a positive campaign mimicking the ways in which the capitalist machine can sell alcohol, cars, or movies. Give the audience what they want and take away the clinical stigma. See real people in real situations using real words to explain and demystify mental health.

My dearest 5, Words cannot express my adoration for your contribution to our society. Fingers, toes, and points of a star are just a few of the miraculous contributions you have made. However, if I am permitted, I must lodge a lover’s complaint about the uninformed and premature claim to my senses. I used to be in awe of your magnificence with your contribution to my autonomic nervous system and my experiences with all things sensory. The sight that helps me to see your perfect ninety-degree angle and curvaceous lines. The hearing that helps me to hear your sweet nothings whispered throughout the month of May. The divine taste and your decadent exemplary performance adds more to my life than just caloric intake and joy on a stress-induced emotional binge. The touch the I shall refrain from going any further out of respect for your fine prime sensibilities. Last but furthest from least, darling, smell. The ability to enjoy life with the morning dewy freshly trimmed grass or the stinky dog breath coming from my pleasantly pleased puppy on my lap. However my memories may serve me or however my five senses may envelop me I find it may be time for me to begin exploring my other senses as well. I want to feel my sense of balance as I stand woosie and drunk in love with someone who carries my equilibrioception. I want to feel alive in the dessert-dry heat or the chilling icy cold with a sense of thermoception and not merely numb to the enviro-sensations surrounding me, and if I may be so bold as to suggest that I need nociceptive sense. While no one wants to feel pain, without any pain and the negative sense associated with that one never gets the full experience of pleasure and happiness. Life is only worth living in the full spectrum, and not emotionally uni-sided. I write with nothing but love in my heart, 5, but I must confess I can no longer attribute the senses to your wisdom and polygonal power. I will always confirm and vow that you are the Fermat Prime of my heart but I must refrain from giving your my senses any longer as I must begin to experience other senses in this already too-short lifespan. Sense-erly yours, Derek

In May of 2003, I packed up my dorm room, walked out of 200 Water St., and knew my academic career was over. My parents had filed for bankruptcy and my PLUS Loans pulled all of their money from NYU. I had a large debt to pay that I knew I could never repay and my transcripts were locked until the debt was paid in full. I would NEVER accomplish that goal and I would have to find a way to maneuver through this world as a non-degree job applicant for the rest of my life. Fast forward to today, 2022. I am sitting here writing essays to help me cover my costs at Arizona State University, my transcripts have been released by NYU, and I am two years away from earning my Bachelor's Degree. What did I learn and how has that changed my perspective on something significant in my life? I learned that moments are only temporary. As a young adult facing a world through a momentary failure, I only saw the negative. I only saw how this would affect my life permanently. I didn't see the moment for what it was, a hurdle to make me stronger, a setback to only make me more determined, and a moment that I would get to correct 20 years later. At that time I didn't see the successes I would have, the awards I would win, and the amazing jobs I would get all without my degree. I learned through the years to be kinder to myself and to take the moment as exactly what it is; the moment. The literal second that I am standing there. I cannot correct the past, I cannot predict the future, and I know now that I can only be present in the moment.

I have been in the void of depression and have been suicidal in the past and honestly, as cliché as it might sound, my saving grace was my gratitude journal. It is so amazing how finding three positive things everyday has the power to transform lives. Even now, ten years later and still on my mental health journey, I find that everything I use to cope can relate back to my looking for positives in dark situations. My first step was learning to shift from a bleak outlook and to see the smallest things as a positive instead of looking at the whole picture and seeing the small step as a negative in the overall plan. That single step changed my life. I, now much deeper in my journey, have evolved into an optimistic individual because I see my mental health and my reactions to tough times as exactly what they are scientifically and emotionally. I know there is a chemical imbalance in my brain and I react to events more drastically and darkly than most. I, also know, that due to my past experiences I have automatic fight or flight reactions and have learned the signs and symptoms and trained my brain to react to bubbling anxiety in a very systematic way: I immediately do a gratitude check and list three positives in the moment. I learned to apply my daily journaling to any moment I need it. I remind myself I am grateful to have this job that is stressing me out for the moment, I am grateful that I care enough about the outcome to feel such strong emotions, and I am grateful that I know how to count to ten and see the event was in the past and I can choose to move forward.

I was in awe the first time I saw La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelor's, Even) by Marcel Duchamp. It immediately became my favorite piece of art and still is after 20 years. The piece intimidated me, confused me, and made me truly think. Why was it so rudimentary? Why was it so large? Why was it held together by a piece of tape? I was drawn to the figures at the bottom and their mechanical framework. The device spoke to me as a metaphor for day to day life, as I researched the piece more I learned that I was off ever so slightly and it is actually about nine bachelors as cogs in the machine or lust or love or relationships or whatever the unnamed pressure is that society puts on people to be involved with someone or married. As an asexual, this was exactly how I felt. Relationships, love, and marriage; are all foreign concepts to me that seem more systematic and mechanical than experienced and valued. I, then, began to compare myself to the pain of the bride in the upper panel of the piece in all her monochromatic, insect-like, and angelic exhibition. I had found the epitome of Dada; a school I didn't know existed but completely understood to my very core. These artists were speaking to my avant-garde nature, and I had truly found my people. The fact that all of this is found art, repurposed elements and objects, and just haphazardly combined within a framework of an accidental dropping and shattering that I learned made the piece “even more Dada tthanbefore.” This piece is the reason I found Dada and all things Duchamp, and I will forever cherish it for that reason.

As a uniquely diverse individual myself that struggled to find his place in the world, I want to create an artistic space for all voices to be heard. I am not the "typical" diverse voice; I am a white cis male. While that sound pretty much not diverse ; my diversity comes from deeper spaces. I was born into a privatized religious community, or what society refers to as a cult. We left the religious community when I was 12 years old and integrated to "normal" society and began attending public schools. I had a very rough time acclimating, as one could imagine, and quickly turned to the arts as an escape for my anxiety and on a search to "fit in". The arts students seemed much more accepting and open to diversity. I still struggled very much. Struggled with social norms, societal cues, and my own sexuality. I still never was a part of the group. In high school the "weird-theatre-kids" were still mainstream enough that I didn't fully fit in. I didn't know the pop culture references, scripts and plays were written for a homogeneous individual, and geared even-more-so towards the same audience. I found myself settling in with the other minority students very comfortably. While their experience as the only black student in the class or the only Muslim student in the class was vastly different then mine we quickly learned that we all were outsiders in a white, christian-based society where everyone had lived in the same white-expressive world that I could not identify with. I want to create a space for work that allows the ostracized non-assimilates voices to feel accepted and heard. A space where the work isn't for the "everyman" but for the "anyman".