"Silhouettes"
A mental health project.
It's no big news, but still a sad one to say and write : there are so many stigmas about mental illness, even if perceptions about it have evolved... Not enough, however. I thought it would be interesting, and useful for people who can't understand what those diseases or disorders might be, or to bring face to face a reality to those who deny it, to offer a representation. Shawn Coss, who's kind of a pionner in the "mental health advocate with art" to me, inspired me to work on this project to destigmatized at my level. As someone having mental health issues, I decided to campaign for mental health.
Everything is based on DSM in order to have an genuine idea of pathologies.
But first things first : I faced some issues while wanting to illustrate this topic, and all of this explain the graphic style, and the name of my project.
• I'm also campaigning for LGBTQIA+ rights, so I couldn't draw "a girl or a boy", in this cisnormative society. What about trans people ? Non-binary ones ? The more neutral representation I could think of was a Silhouette.
• And it suits another idea I need to highlight : people are not their illness or disorder ! I thought if I draw something too realistic, people would mistaken the human being and the mental health issue. Sometimes I see myself only by my mental illness' prism ; I have to convince myself everytime that it's not who I am, but it's more like my silhouette because I can't have the control over it.
• And it suits another idea I need to highlight : people are not their illness or disorder ! I thought if I draw something too realistic, people would mistaken the human being and the mental health issue. Sometimes I see myself only by my mental illness' prism ; I have to convince myself everytime that it's not who I am, but it's more like my silhouette because I can't have the control over it.
• I wanted to make something not gloomy, nor too poetic because I refuse to perpetuate the romanticization of this subject. It is really hard. Even if, for those suffering of pathologies, the idea we have of it is really dark, my goal is to confront people with a reality they don't (want to) see. I know that, in order to change things, we must disturb a bit, but I was afraid that people might looked away.
French text : "C'est que dans ta tête", known as the famous "It's all in your head."
We use to hear this a lot : "It's all in your head", a sentence which make people invisible. It's a terrible one, linked with a deep psychophobic mind. The thing is : yeah, it's mostly in our head, because it is a chemical imbalance. But people, obviously, don't say this thining this way, they pretend that we're lying, that we're too much. Because mental health issues are invisible (mostly, because they can damage our body too), people think it's not real. That's what they put, being the word "crazy". And by hearing it over and over, even if we know that it's all about psychophoby, we can tend to ask ourselves if they're right indeed. "What if I was really crazy ?"
(Generalized) Anxiety.
There are so many ways to experience anxiety (to distinguish from stress ! It' completely different. Stress is reactionnal, i.e : you've got an exam, you're stressed. Anxiety isn't reactionnal, it is just like... bursting from nowhere, for no real reasons sometimes.) There are, also, so many degrees. Anxiety can generate body pains, like muscles tensions, chest tightness, suffocation, etc. It can be materialized by an unstoppable train of thoughts, ...
Mine is generalized, so I also have the social anxiety aspect. That's why I decided to draw hands ; every anxious thoughts are like hands grabbing me, and strangulating me.
There are so many ways to experience anxiety (to distinguish from stress ! It' completely different. Stress is reactionnal, i.e : you've got an exam, you're stressed. Anxiety isn't reactionnal, it is just like... bursting from nowhere, for no real reasons sometimes.) There are, also, so many degrees. Anxiety can generate body pains, like muscles tensions, chest tightness, suffocation, etc. It can be materialized by an unstoppable train of thoughts, ...
Mine is generalized, so I also have the social anxiety aspect. That's why I decided to draw hands ; every anxious thoughts are like hands grabbing me, and strangulating me.
Anorexia nervosa.
I don't get how people can think it's just "wanting to be thin to suits society's norms of beauty", it is so much more complex than that. Anorexia nervosa is, it's true, an obsession with thinness. There is a deep fear of gaining weight, and it often leads to body dysmorphia, because people suffering of it see themselves as fatter than they really are. People with this pthology tend to reduce their food needs.
There is two types of anorexia nervosa : the restrictive subtype (with no bulimia phases, not engaging the take of laxatives, or throwing up, but they can offset with too much physical exercises.) and bulimia mixed to anorexia by binge-eating but with the urge to eliminate the fat eaten.
There is two types of anorexia nervosa : the restrictive subtype (with no bulimia phases, not engaging the take of laxatives, or throwing up, but they can offset with too much physical exercises.) and bulimia mixed to anorexia by binge-eating but with the urge to eliminate the fat eaten.
