Why I Added Color Back to My World
You shouldn't hide what you love.
Hi there!
My parents did a good job encouraging their kids in self-expression.
My mom let us choose the material she used to make our quilts. They let us pick out our own clothes as long as they fit the budget, and they gave us the thrill of decorating our own rooms.
My first go round, I shared a room with my brother. He had no opinion, so I chose purple. Big, bright, the color of Grimace from McDonald’s, purple. My mom obliged, painting one wall the shocking color while putting complementary wallpaper on the other three walls.
My brother’s friends, and later my own, made fun of the purple room. When I was alone with my friends, I blamed it on my mom. I felt like I should be ashamed of the color I chose because everyone made fun of it.
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
- Marcus Aurelius
Scott Ninneman also publishes the free All Things Bipolar Newsletter (off Substack). The Sunday email features the newest content about bipolar life. Every Sunday in December will focus on closing your year in the best possible way.
Walking Away From Color
A few years later, as older siblings moved away, I moved into a room of my own.
Again, I had the choice of color. This time, I chose orange. While I again voted for a bright, in-your-face shade of hunter orange, my mom talked me into a muted pastel orange instead. My dad picked up some paneling with yellow flowers that a friend was throwing out, and it made up two of the walls, with orange glowing on the other two.
It wasn’t long and my friends and cousins made fun of my new room. The colors and flowers were “girly,” they told me. For a preteen boy in the early 1980s, that was one of the worst insults you could sling.
Right before I started high school, my family built a new house. It was just my parents and me by then. Again, my mom let me decide on how to decorate my room.
The years of taunts and jokes stuck with me. I chose a pale gray. Surely, no one would make fun of such a dull color.
Making Fun of Gray
But you know what? They did. They called it the “psycho ward” and the “doctor’s office.” I stopped showing people my room.
Sitting alone in my bedroom at night, I would look at my walls and wish they were a brighter color. I liked the purple. It always made me happy to wake up to the bright shade. The orange room was cheerful, and with the morning sun, it made the day easier to start.
No one could describe the gray room with the black window blinds and white trim as girly, but there was nothing cheerful about it. Looking at the dull color day after day taught me that my happiness meant more than other people’s opinions.
Choosing Color
Those of us with mental illnesses spend much of our lives trying to please other people. Our brains tell us we can’t trust ourselves, so we live and die on validation from other people.
Stop doing that.
Your likes and preferences matter. If you like purple, paint your world with it. If you like K-pop, listen to it every day. And if your favorite meal is pickles and ice cream, then have it as often as you want.
It’s your world, so you should be happy.
Mental illness takes too much from you already. Don’t let it steal the color and joy.
Now, colors make me happy. Whether it’s the red and yellow roses outside my bathroom window or the iridescent bluebird I often see in my backyard. There’s a joy that wells up from my heart from the beauty of color. Even the metallic green of Japanese beetles makes me happy.
I fill my world with as many cheerful colors as I can because I know how color makes me feel.
Choose to find some color in your life. Whether it’s literal colors, such as flowers or paint choices, or figurative, like practicing creative arts or making new friends, put some joy back in your life.
Color is a gift. Cherish it.
Journal Prompt: If you had to wear only one color for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Why?
Creative Writing Prompt: Write a story about a world where people are forced to wear only your least favorite color.
Until next time, keep fighting.
Scott Ninneman
Additional Reading:
The book that started it all…
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