Alright, so this morning I was sent a link this morning to 15 illustrations of mental illnesses represented as houses. It was really cool and thought-provoking, so, thanks to Nyla Grigsby for sending me the link. I'll share it
here. Check it out, but not before you read this post (obviously).
After looking through those pictures, I was reminded of a series of drawings I found a couple years ago with the same idea (only much more frightening - which I like). If you're not aware, every October, artists from all around the world participate in a drawing challenge called "InkTober" where they make one ink drawing a day for the entire month.
In October 2016, an amazing artist
Shawn Coss decided to make his own original prompt for the month.
Shawn wanted to focus primarily on personifying mental illnesses and disorders. These illustrations are crazy awesome, scary,
realistic. Shawn manages to capture the struggle and turmoil of those who suffer with these illnesses perfectly.
It's usually difficult for people that don't have these illnesses to understand what exactly it feels like to go through the day-in, day-out struggle. That's why these images are so potent. You can almost
feel the pain in the pictures. I'm going to go through and list the pictures here for you to see. If you're feeling disturbed after seeing these, then they did their job perfectly. I'll even go ahead and give some insight as to what each disorder is and how it works.
Hopefully, after seeing these illustrations, you will see these disorders with new eyes.
Social Anxiety Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Social anxiety disorder (SAD), also known as social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by a significant amount of fear in one or more social situations, causing considerable distress and impaired ability to function in at least some parts of daily life. These fears can be triggered by perceived or actual scrutiny from others.
Major Depressive Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Major depressive
disorder (MDD), also known simply as depression,
is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of low mood that is
present across most situations. It is often accompanied by low self-esteem,
loss of interest in normally enjoyable activities, low energy, and pain without
a clear cause.
Insomnia
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Insomnia, also
known as sleeplessness, is a sleep
disorder where people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling
asleep or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by
daytime sleepiness, low energy, irritability, and a depressed mood.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that can develop after a person is
exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions,
or other threats on a person’s life. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts,
feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to
trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in how
a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response.
Bipolar Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Bipolar disorder,
previously known as manic depression,
is a mental disorder that causes periods of depression and periods of elevated
mood. The elevated mood is significant and is known as mania or hypomania,
depending on its severity, or whether symptoms of psychosis are present.
Borderline Personality Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Borderline
personality disorder (BPD), also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder, is a long-term pattern
of abnormal behavior characterized by unstable relationships with other people,
unstable sense of self, and unstable emotions. There is often an extreme fear
of abandonment, frequent dangerous behavior, a feeling of emptiness, and
self-harm.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Autism is a
mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in
communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language
and abstract concepts.
Paranoid Schizophrenia
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Paranoid
schizophrenia manifests itself in an array of symptoms. Common symptoms for
paranoid schizophrenia include auditory hallucinations (hearing voices) and
paranoid delusions (believing everyone is out to cause the sufferer harm).
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Obsessive–compulsive
disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder where people feel the need to check
things repeatedly, perform certain routines repeatedly (called “rituals”), or
have certain thoughts repeatedly. People are unable to control either the
thoughts or the activities for more than a short period of time.
Dependent Personality Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Dependent personality disorder (DPD), is a personality disorder that is characterized by a pervasive psychological dependence on other people. This personality disorder is a long-term condition in which people depend on others to meet their emotional and physical needs, with only a minority achieving normal levels of independence.
Anorexia Nervosa
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Anorexia nervosa,
often referred to simply as anorexia,
is an eating disorder characterized by a low weight, fear of gaining weight, a
strong desire to be thin, and severe food restriction. Many people with
anorexia see themselves as overweight even though they are in fact underweight.
Depersonalization Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Depersonalization
disorder (DPD), is described as feeling disconnected or estranged from
one’s self. Individuals experiencing depersonalization may report feeling as if
they are an outside observer of their own thoughts or body, and often report
feeling a loss of control over their thoughts or actions.
Agoraphobia
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Agoraphobia is an
anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the
person perceives the environment to be unsafe with no easy way to get away.
These situations can include open spaces, public transit, shopping malls, or
simply being outside the home. Being in these situations may result in a panic
attack. The symptoms occur nearly every time the situation is encountered and
last for more than six months. Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid
these situations. In severe cases people may become unable to leave their
homes.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Dissociative identity
disorder (DID), also known as multiple
personality disorder (MPD), is a mental disorder characterized by at least
two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality
states. These states alternately show in a person’s behavior, accompanied by
memory impairment for important information not explained by ordinary
forgetfulness.
Capgras Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Capgras delusion
is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend,
spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an
identical impostor. The Capgras delusion is classified as a delusional
misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the
misidentification of people, places, or objects.
Cotard's Delusion
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Cotard delusion
is a rare mental illness in which the affected person holds the delusional
belief that they are already dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost
their blood or internal organs. Statistical analysis of a hundred-patient
cohort indicates that the denial of self-existence is a symptom present in 69%
of the cases of Cotard’s delusion; yet, paradoxically, 55% of the patients present
delusions of immortality.
Dis-inhibited Social Engagement Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Disinhibited Social
Engagement Disorder (DSED) is an attachment disorder that consists of “a
pattern of behavior in which a child actively approaches and interacts with
unfamiliar adults” and which “…significantly impairs young children’s abilities
to relate interpersonally to adults and peers.” For example, sitting on the lap
of a stranger or peer, or leaving with a stranger. DSED is exclusively a
childhood disorder and is not diagnosed before the age of nine months or after
the age of five. Infants and very young children are at risk if they receive
inconsistent or insufficient care from a primary caregiver.
Schizophrenia Disorder
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| ShawnCossArt.com |
Schizophrenia (of
which paranoid schizophrenia is a sub-type) is a mental disorder characterized
by abnormal social behavior and failure to understand what is real. Common
symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, hearing voices
that others do not hear, reduced social engagement and emotional expression,
and a lack of motivation.
I'm going to stop there, but please go to Shawn's website and see the rest of his amazing art at
ShawnCossArt.com. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a strong interest in mental abnormalities. Not in a "fun" way - which is what everyone seems to think - but in a curious way. I don't have any mental illnesses (that I know of), so I think it's perfectly natural to be curious of people that
do suffer with these things.
It's this interest to drive me to major in Psychology in college with a push for mental abnormalities. I wanted to learn as much as I can about these things. Why do some people have these things and others don't? How is it possible that someone can hear voices in their head or see things that aren't there? In one of my psych classes, my professor showed us a 4D movie that gave you the experience of someone with Schizophrenia. It was so fascinating. Scary, horrible, and downright eye-opening. I couldn't believe that there are people out in the world that can't even order a pizza without believing that the delivery guy is going to murder them if they open the door.
I hope these images gave you a new perspective on these illnesses and disorders. If you know anyone, or you are someone, that suffers with one of these disorders, please talk to them. It may seem weird or like it may make things worse for them to talk about, but most of those people feel isolated from the rest of the world. They may believe they're alone and that nobody understands how they feel on a day-to-day basis. Show them that you
want to try to understand them.
And if you are the one suffering: understand that you're not the only one suffering with what's in your head, and know that there are professionals out there that want to help you. Don't trust me, I am
NOT a doctor. I'm just an idiot writer that wants to understand. If you
do want to find help, or just someone to talk to, follow this link to the
National Institute of Mental Health.
You're not alone. You can make it through. The abyss may seem bottomless and forever dark, but there is light. Sometimes you just need a little guidance to find it.
Message me on here, or any social media (twitter, facebook, instagram, tumblr, pinterest, google+) your thoughts on this post. I'd be more than happy to chat about whatever's on your mind.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Buh-bye.
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