This is Kate. She's an 18-year-old high school student, artist, and Sebastian Stan fan who was diagnosed with schizophrenia last year.
To help cope with the diagnosis and to deal with the intense visions she was experiencing, the Los Angeles native decided to start drawing her hallucinations.
Kate credits her art teacher with helping her unlock her hidden talents and connect with her creative side.
"The world often feels cold and distant, like I'm looking at everyone through a pane of glass," Kate said of her drawings. "Sometimes reality doesn't feel real and I get empty."
She often draws a bug character to represent the way she feels about herself.
This drawing is of a creature she's seen crawl out of vent in her ceiling or out from underneath things. Kate says it sometimes makes clicking noises.
Sometimes she sees disembodied eyes.
"I see my drawings connected to my hallucinations because I started to use art as a way of communicating what I see, hear, and feel," she said.
This drawing, says Kate, "is how I feel about myself."
Kate hopes that by sharing her drawings she can bring comfort to others who are struggling with mental health issues. "My goal is for people to see my art and feel connected to someone who understands the pain and struggles they have to live with," she said.
