Here are some examples of written messages people have provided to accompany their creative images (with those images). These will be required as explanations to go with the some of the images, should be no more than 150 words, and will ideally be included in the consent form we will provide for each entry. They can also be clearly hand-written (no bigger than A4) or included as part of a "Behind the Labels" piece or other artwork.
Example messages
THIS IS A MESSAGE FOR ALL PSYCHIATRISTS AND MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS:
I want to tell the psychiatrist who diagnosed me with psychosis, and had no interest in who I was or what I had to say about what I needed, that I wish he had viewed me with compassion, as a human being like him, looked beyond my symptoms, with curiosity and respect, and listened and reassured. He could have found the intelligence and deep understanding that cowered beneath my incoherent terror and saved me from the continued distress that brought me to the brink of suicide before I finally found the support to I needed to recover. I now support people in mental health distress, and am painfully aware that, in some areas, little has changed.
PLEASE – Be the change! (Accompanying poem here)
I want to tell the psychiatrist who diagnosed me with psychosis, and had no interest in who I was or what I had to say about what I needed, that I wish he had viewed me with compassion, as a human being like him, looked beyond my symptoms, with curiosity and respect, and listened and reassured. He could have found the intelligence and deep understanding that cowered beneath my incoherent terror and saved me from the continued distress that brought me to the brink of suicide before I finally found the support to I needed to recover. I now support people in mental health distress, and am painfully aware that, in some areas, little has changed.
PLEASE – Be the change! (Accompanying poem here)
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The abstract contents of these images seem to be a reflection of the neurologically untypical mind trying to grasp an unfamiliar reality and failing.
In the making of them I have felt I found a way to be myself, to escape the pressure of the normal world, and that probably the images themselves seem odd in the same ways that I am odd; they are awkward and hard to understand, they are off to one side in an isolated corner, outsiders; though, they are just what they are and nothing more, and because of being abstractions they consistently surprise me when I make them. I find solace in working out how to make them and the retreat into the solitude of this. Even finding words to explain them is hard, just as words to describe my own autistic relationship to the typical world are extremely hard to find. Thus, if the images seem hard to grasp, then this for me, is what it is like to live in a neurologically typical world when one is not neurologically typical. Living in this world is like always finding oneself in front of a disorientating abstract image. |
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