aside or sugar coat. My work represents my personal inner struggles as someone who
struggles with mental issues through the use of digital photography to document and re-
enact the emotions I have felt and some of the key moments that have been a recurring
issue with my mental illnesses. These images show the some of the raw emotions I
have personally felt and dealt with when going through my own breakdowns and I’m
using them to help create awareness to the spectrum of mental health. These emotions
are here to help show that not everyone struggles in the same way and that some
people react differently and are affected differently by their mental issues. With this work
I want to show people that mental health is a topic that shouldn’t always be sugar
coated because it can cause people to see it as a less serious issue or brush it off as an
easy fix, but in reality that’s not true. These images are examples of my own personal
issues and are helping me on my path of recovery. These may not be the same for
everyone, and it is important to know that mental illnesses can present in different ways
and is not the same from person to person.
I have struggled with mental issues for a good part of my life and I firmly believe that if it
was less of a taboo topic I would have gotten the help I needed when I first brought it up
to my family. This show is helping me to open up about my own issues in hopes of
encouraging other people to do the same. I want to showcase physical representations
of what it is like in the minds of people who struggle with mental illnesses. This, in turn,
can help others empathize with people who have mental health issues and offer them
the support they need to heal. I use photography as my medium because I am able to
create and re-tell my experiences to my audience through the re-enactment of emotions
I have felt previously. Photography has become an outlet for me and has helped me
through the process of overcoming my own mental illnesses.
SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)