Making Space - A Mental Health Series

@kayrizi writes for the final Sane&Fable story from Dublin, for the time being at least! Take some time in your Christmas haze to read this beautiful piece ❄️✨

‘I feel like i have been growing alongside the Irish creative scene, almost like we are best friends. There are various talents in Ireland and I think simply being able to be there and share my love for art with others brings me joy. Supporting creatives and being supported by other creatives feels like I’ve created my own mini village. 

Growing up I’ve always felt like an outcast as Ireland isn't where I’m originally from. I wasn’t particularly treated as an outcast, but the difference between me and the locals was so clear that it was as if it was natural for me to be an outcast. For a long time I felt like that was my role in the community, to be an outcast. At around the age of 19 I started to find my own community - people with the same values as mine but who shared different perspectives. Then I realised that no one should be an outcast, there is a place for everyone somewhere. We all need our own community for our spirit and mental health.

Mental health is not a simple straight line, sometimes it feels like you’ve finally found balance but then you find yourself falling again. I think understanding that finding peace is an ongoing journey will help a lot of people. Believing that you will finally be completely okay someday is a toxic mindset to have. We never know what will happen in the future and how it will affect us. We just need to have faith in ourselves, love ourselves and surround ourselves with people that love us as we are. I also believe that is the same for creatives too. If you are around people who support you, your errors will be just be another part of your journey.’

- Lulit 🧡

‘Colour! That’s what I adore about fashion, clothing and creativity. The freedom of throwing on an outfit, mixing materials and collaborating colours…(yet, all usually with the foundation of Doc Martens) never fails to bring me joy.

As someone who has struggled with an anxiety disorder for many years, having an outlet of creativity has been an incredible soother particularly on darker days. Personally, my faith is what gets me out of bed in the morning; when I combine that with the liberty of looking through my wardrobe (or ‘that’ chair) to choose an aesthetic for the day, feeling a tad more confident in my capabilities as a human being, I’m ready to walk out the door and approach life. Dressing in fun colours and patterns adds that bit more colour to my day.

I do believe mental health and creativity, whether in fashion or art, are integral to one another; it creates a space for wandering thoughts to be calmed, it allows anxieties or fears to take a form so they can appear more manageable and less scary and it helps recognise the good and pretty parts of life that we’re often quick to forget exist. Creativity is good for the soul, feeds the mind and isn’t restricted to anyone; whoever first created ‘creating’ knew what they were doing!’

- Katie Young

‘Mental Health can be seen as a vague concept, difficult to define and often too subjective to try and understand. Of course, mental health varies from person to person and not everyone’s experiences are the same, however I assume most of us would agree that mental health in university can be particularly challenging. When I started in UCD, I suddenly found myself launched into a student body of over 30’000 high achievers.

Perhaps I have a biased viewpoint, but I found on campus that a large amount of the emphasis was on your academic ability and physical appearance. I felt inadequate almost immediately. I had always struggled with my mental health over the years, from self-harm to extreme body dysmorphia and disordered thinking around food and exercise. I feared relapse and doubted my ability to stay afloat.

As I have progressed through university, I have learnt the values of less superficial concepts. Mental health is still a dynamic and daily struggle as I understand it is for most people, but I am slowly changing my mindset and opinions and growing into the person I believe I truly am. Understanding that we all are of infinite worth apart from anything we have achieved or done is a concept that I need to remind myself of daily. I believe that once we understand this concept, it removes the unhealthy pressure that we have placed on ourselves to consistently overachieve and allows us to learn and express ourselves even more successfully.’

- Ruth Mckenna