December 2 2018

Exposure

One year ago, I presented my graduating thesis project to the world — Exposure: Exposing the Myths & Realities of Living with a Mental Illness. To graduate from the IPFW Visual Communication and Design program, every student must complete a year-long thesis course that showcases what you’ve learned during your time at IPFW while highlighting your concentrations.

Thesis Statement: As mental illness continues to grow as a societal issue, we have to explore a more creative method of how to address and present the problem. The goal of this project is to increase public understanding of mental illness while at the same time allowing people to therapeutically share their stories.
One-on-one interviews have been combined with expressive portrait photography and compiled into a finished print piece, which has incorporated elements of graphic and layout design.

Exposure is the culmination of 18 interviews, 15.6 hours of interview audio, 119 pages of transcribed interviews, 44,355 words, 16 photo shoots, 1,685 raw images, and 164 edited images. Within its pages, this book has stories from individuals living with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, and a myriad of other mental health diagnoses. There is spoken word poetry about time spent in a mental institution, criticisms of how higher education treats those who are mentally ill, and stories of how mental illness can change someone’s life. There are resources for those who are seeking help as well as eight pages of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-V criteria and information about the mental illnesses mentioned within the project.

With the photography, I focused on the person’s personality and stayed away from harmful and stereotypical imagery that typically associates itself with mental health projects. I included ring light portraits of each person as well—forcing the viewer to look into the eyes of a person who has seen struggle and stigma. I kept the layout design clean to allow the story to flow clearly and not compete with the imagery.

On a personal level, this project was exhausting. People think art school is a breeze, but if you really want to thrive and kick thesis’ butt, you have to work hard for it. We all had to meet with faculty at 25%, 50%, 75%, and finally have a big 100% final presentation. We have to do research and find creative ways to tell the story of our thesis, showcase our own talents, and build a display that will house our project during the final gallery art show. I was also selected to be a part of a small group of students to give a separate presentation to our university’s Chancellor, representatives from ad agencies, and local business owners.

Writing about and listening to stories about mental illness while struggling with my own depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts was really freaking hard. It sucked; there’s no getting around that. Even with the looming deadlines and daily reminders of how close we were to finishing, there were days that I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. I kept kicking myself and asking, “Why would you willingly decide to do a project that is so personal to you? You knew this would happen. Why did you do this to yourself?” Here’s the thing about thesis — you have to spend a whole year working on one project, so you better make that project something you care about and something that is important. So, I had to get through it.

About a week before I was scheduled to give my final 100% presentation to the IPFW faculty, my Mamaw suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Coincidentally, this was also a week before my 25th birthday and about a month before the holidays. The night of our exhibition show, I had a panic attack while driving to the gallery. I was minutes away from the parking lot, but I turned around, drove home, and cried in my driveway for a good thirty minutes before finally forcing myself to drive back and show up for the show. I’m all about humility and staying humble, but the entire process and journey was rough, so I’m proud of what I accomplished and am really glad to be on the other side of thesis.

My final project was a 152-page book, designed magnets with resources, business cards, and a website. Competing against professional agencies and individual submissions, my project won Judge’s Choice, the Gold Award in Collateral Material Publication Design, and the Gold Award in Elements of Advertising for Photography at the 2017 American Advertising Federation Advertising Honors.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Exposure, click here. If you’d like to view the publication, click here.

: “Even though people may not be struggling with a physical illness, they may be dealing with the physical effects of their mental illness.”

: “The only thing I ever wanted to do with my life was to make people happy, because I know how it feels to not be happy. It’s so cliché now, but a lot of times the happiest person you know is going through some deep shit.”

: “Mental health is just as important as physical health. In school, they have health classes where they teach you about what foods to eat and how your muscles work, but they don’t teach you about your brain and how the chemistry of your brain works.”

: “When you live in a culture where sadness is romanticized, you’re almost encouraged to stay sad. Sadness is familiar and as bad as it feels, you’re comfortable and you know what to expect. It’s hard to go out of your way to change the way you think and the things you do.”

: “I learned that with military members, nobody really talks about stuff like this, you know? The topic of mental illness is coming to light a lot more now and that’s good, especially for people who do need support. I think it’s a bigger problem than people want to believe it is.”

: “How do I show physically that something is wrong with my brain? Do I need to wear a sign or a special bracelet? Apparently, we’re all visual learners because if you can’t see it, then there’s nothing wrong with you.”

: “I think our society needs to understand that General Anxiety Disorder is a real issue. There’s a difference between being an anxious person and being stressed and having an actual anxiety disorder. I wish people knew how severe it can be and how much of a toll it can take on someone’s life.”

: “In the media, I think people who are depressed are portrayed as characters who self-harm or try to commit suicide, and that’s not always the case. There’s this ‘typecast’ of depression. If we’re exposed more to the truth of mental illness and educated, I think that will help even more.”

: “He harassed me and said I was adopted because my parents didn’t want me and he accused me of lying about my sister’s death. He said, “So, I hear your sister died? I bet you’re lying about that. If you’re telling the truth, I bet you caused it.”

: “Talking about your depression with people who are also living with it helps you build that support system. Talking about your depression with people who don’t know what it’s like helps build understanding.”

: “I think it needs to be talked about more, especially in education. A lot of time, teachers see their students more than their parents and a lot of times those teachers can be the positive role models in student’s lives.”

: “Having a mental illness for me is like always having this annoying passenger who’s always with me. It’s always annoying me and causing problems and it’s honestly crazy to think about how there are people who don’t have that passenger and they’ll never really understand what it’s like.”

: “Don’t be afraid of looking crazy. There are many times during my diagnosis that I lied to my doctors or refused help because I was afraid that if I told the truth, I would sound “too crazy” — which resulted in a dosey-doe around prescription drugs and otherwise easily avoided battles.”

: “I wish kids had better access to real counselors and real psychiatrists at school. I feel like if schools also took it upon themselves to train their faculty better to spot the signs of someone who is mentally ill or suicidal, that would help save a lot of kids.”

: “It’s my go-to to put on my comedy face, so that helped hide what I was going through from a lot of people. Being the funny person ant the person who always had the joke really made it possible for my mental health issues to go unnoticed for as long as they did.”