This is going to sound completely unhinged, but I promise there’s a real story behind it.
A few years ago, I was diagnosed with panic disorder and went through a really tough period. I eventually got to a better place. About a year ago, I hit a really dark patch again.
I wouldn’t even call it a relapse in a neat, clinical way. it just felt like everything came back hard. Constant anxiety, constant panic, that feeling of being stuck in your own head and hating every second of it. It was exhausting.
I started working through it again in therapy, and at one point my therapist mentioned that another patient had been using diamond painting to stay grounded.
So I figured i’ll try the sparkly craft.
And it actually helped. It gave me something to focus on when my brain wouldn’t stop. Something repetitive, something I could control. I started doing a few custom pieces along the way. Some just for fun, including a chaotic It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia inspired one that mostly just made me laugh (and now hangs over our guest bedroom bed (the implication)
Around that time, my partner and I had a bucket list trip planned to Iceland While we were there, we visited the Icelandic Phallological Museum and honestly, it was incredible.
You can get cocktails and wander around looking at an entire collection of penises. But what really stuck with me was the origin story. It started with one guy who, as a teenager, was gifted a specimen and just kept going. Something kind of absurd turned into something real, intentional, and lasting.
At one point, we saw that you can become an honorary member by contributing either a scientific specimen or a piece of art.
I remember thinking, well, that’s not for me, I’m not an artist. I can’t draw, I don’t paint, I don’t sing.
And my partner was like, you literally make art now. So we leaned all the way in.
We decided to create an Icelandic tourism poster… but completely ridiculous. Scenic landscape, volcano… except the volcano is very clearly a penis. A full-on penis volcano. Our mount erectna with northern lights included
I spent about 60 hours working on it. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being just a joke and became something I was genuinely proud of. So we submitted it. And they accepted it.
Not only that, they’re making me an honorary member, and I’m hand delivering the piece in less than two weeks. I’m going with my mom, which makes it even more special.
And I’m not going to lie, I cried when I got the email.
A few years ago, I couldn’t get on a plane because of panic attacks. A year ago, I was in a place where I felt like I was constantly fighting my own brain.
Now I’m flying to Iceland with my mom to deliver a diamond painting penis volcano to a museum.
It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s very NSFW.
But it also feels like one of the proudest moments of my life.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this here because diamond painting ended up being way more meaningful to me than I ever expected. It helped me get through something really hard and somehow, it led to… this.
Life is weird. Healing is messy. And apparently, diamond painting can take you to some very unexpected places.