(Picture: Kate Fenner)

18-year-old Kate Fenner, from Los Angeles, was diagnosed with schizophrenia – a severe, long-term mental condition described as a type of psychosis – at the age of seventeen.

As a deaf woman, I've been failed by the mental health system

Symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, muddled thoughts and changes in behaviour.

Kate was having issues with her thyroid, and it was assumed that she was suffering psychological symptoms as a result.

Kate followed the symptoms up by speaking with her doctor, who explained to her what it all meant.


‘The hallucinations give me anxiety and a sense of malice,’ Kate told Metro.co.uk.

‘They do happen regularly. Auditory hallucinations are an everyday occurrence, so it’s a constant stream of noise.

‘I can’t sit in silence, so I always have music playing. Tactile hallucinations are sometimes accompanied by visual, like spiders and bugs.’



While the hallucinations Kate suffers from can be scary, she’s found a way to channel them – by bringing them to life through art.

Kate told us: ‘I wanted to turn them into art so people could see the benefit of creative expression, and how it can be therapeutic.

‘I’ve always been an artist. I really got into it around 8th grade, and kept it up at a slow pace over the years.

‘I started drawing my hallucinations when I felt trapped and suffocated by them. It often feels like everything is fake, and the world around me is a big conspiracy. So drawing started to become comforting.’

Kate draws everything that her hallucinations make her see, hear and feel. And then she uploads it to her Instagram account for her 34,000 followers to see.

Kate says it is particularly ‘daunting’, to share the drawings with such a large amount of people – especially as she says people can be ‘cruel’ and can ‘pick her apart’.

But she says this doesn’t impact her enough to stop her from posting her work.

She said: ‘I’m not bothered by any negative comments; if I can live through schizophrenia I can handle someone’s harsh opinion. Overall, people have been very kind to me and tell me I inspire them, which is my goal. I want people to pursue the things they love despite any challenges they face.’

Kate feels creating and sharing her pieces has really helped her deal with her mental illness.

She explained that schizophrenia is an incredibly lonely illness to live with.

Kate said: ‘Living with this is like being isolated from everyone else. My head is above water, and everyone is swimming below me.

‘I can see them and feel them, but there are things above water they aren’t able to see. The depths they can swim go beyond what I can see in front of me -which is why I feel isolated. It’s like living on an entirely different plane. I’m an outsider.

‘It also feels like everyone is lying to me, and they have an ulterior motive. There’s a sense of sarcasm to their tone, and someone is always in the next room talking about me. I have to remind myself that people are genuine despite how I perceive them.’



But what Kate does understand – and what she wants her thousands of followers to know, too, is that mental illness affects all sorts of people from all walks of lives.

And, knowing this, Kate wants to use her artwork to raise awareness and to help others dealing with a similar illness to her know that they’re not alone.

Kate explained: ‘I wasn’t too nervous to share anything, just because I didn’t feel like it was something I should have to hide.

‘Mental illness is common, in many forms. Suicide is an epidemic amongst teenagers and young adults (as well as veterans).

‘I’m being open about this in the hopes that someone will come across it and not feel alone in their pain and struggle, and they get a sense of hope.’

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