Mental health & photography
My camera is an extension to my right arm. That little black box of light and mathematics changed my life and so much for the better. For my own personal mental health, photography has got me through my darkest hours and hardest struggles. What was once an escapism for me, is now a passion. It’s a huge part of who I am.
So let’s start at the beginning shall we;
Mental health, it’s such a HUGE topic to discuss every single day, not just today with it being #WorldMentalHealthAwarenessDay. What intrigues me about mental health, is that it’s not just our mind. Emotional pain can be displayed through our bodies as physical pain. If we have a deep sorrow, sadness or depression, if we are grieving, in intense distress. Any negative emotional thoughts or feelings, when we panic, go into a rage, feel shame and when we feel we are worthless has such an impact of our emotional distress. This can impact our body in physical pain by causing headaches and migraines, dizziness, muscular pain esp in our neck, shoulders and chest, limb pain, nausea, and stomach issues. Emotional pain can also cause us to be aggressive and angry, turn us to alcohol and substance use, compulsive behaviors like sex addiction and gambling, feeling suicidal or attempting suicide, to causing eating disorders or cause self harm.
Although physical and emotional pain are different, they are linked to the changes in the brain which in turns manifests through your mind, nervous system and merges together on how you feel. So how sh*t is it really that if we cut our finger or break a leg, we can deal with that singular physical pain, but emotional pain, can mean we get hit a double whammy if it creates the physical pain too. So how do we cope?
Because our emotional pain can feel just as strong a physical pain and cause symptoms throughout our bodies, this impacts our mental health and well being. People can turn to negative and unhealthy coping mechanisms for that instant hit of relief like using drugs or alcohol and this may work, it can numb you from not having to feel, to deal but it only makes things worse. Finding a healthy way to cope is more sustainable and helps you to process your thoughts and emotions on a daily basis.
Talking: We are human, we are designed and made to be social. We all need a person we can trust so we can be open and real. Talk to them about what’s going on in life and our heads, help us to process and soundboard. This can anybody from a family member, friends, a boss or teacher, a counselor or other professional. But we have to let ourselves be open, vulnerable and honest.
Exercising: It has been proven that physical activities improve your mood. It helps you deal with your feelings and work through your emotional pain. This is done because exercise helps reduce cortisol (your stress hormone) and boosts your endorphins (well hello you little beaut of a natural pain killer and mood lifter!) And this doesn’t mean you have to be at a gym 24/7, a simple walk around your favorite park with your family or friends, doing Yoga or Pilates in your kitchen for 30 mins a day, hitting a punch bag after work, playing football with your kids in the garden.
Practicing mindfulness: This is to let you focus on the present moment and be aware of it. It can help you when dealing with the likes of grief, anxiety, sadness and anger. It’s about identifying that emotion, but also learning that it is ok to accept it but even more ok to let it go. A way to do this is by writing things down. It can be on anything. I’ve seen me with a sharpie marker and my daughter, I’ve got her to write the emotions she’s feeling onto the eggs and then smash them all. When we write things down, we are releasing them from our minds, we reduce the power they hold and we can control what happens to the physical part of what they’re written on; paper we can scrunch, tear, shred and burn, and feeling that or watching that process can then help reduce our stress or anxiety. When we then add gratitude and find the positives from a negative situation, we are letting ourselves process and find the better side of the situation. It lets us breathe.
Being Creative: This lets you focus completely on processing your emotional pain into something creative by giving you the outlet to release what you would normally bottle up. And this is where photography can come into play.
The best camera that you have, is the camera which you have with you
Photography is accessible to everybody, whether you have a DSLR or a camera phone, you can take a photo. Photography lets you slow down and focus on the world around you. All you need is your gear, a full tank of diesel and a a great playlist! When you find something or somewhere that has made you stop, in that specific moment before you hit your shutter, you are looking at what you see in your viewfinder or screen. Your mind is destressing, decluttering of all around you and that sense of calm, with your breathing is a moment of serenity. Photography lets us combine exercising and mindfulness and even better, if we’re with someone else, we get that opportunity to talk! All helping us to process what’s going on in our head!
For me, photography has helped me think and process my mind over busted relationships, being a single parent, medical issues & my annual biopsies and the biggest one for me, my son’s autism diagnosis. When I get out with my camera, all my daily stresses are paused, I can decided if I want to take that time to process my issues, or ignore the pressures of who I am. In that moment, I am not a single mother, I am not a daughter or sister, I am not a friend, a work colleague or someone anybody knows. I am not worried about the daily grind or what has me overthinking and over analyzing everything. It’s just me, my little black clunky sounding box and what I see in front of me. This is what I can control. This is what settles me, I can breathe. This is my calm, my joy, my love and my happiness. And when I edit, it’s me, my favorite playlist and I get lost in the process.
I’ve learnt, that photography is not just about the image. It’s about the community you’ve now became a part of. You gain new friends, who push you to better your skill, your confidence is boosted, you feel like you have a purpose and your self worth increases. Your isolation is reduced and together you’re encouraging yourself and others to grow and evolve, all while creating and discussing photography and setting the world to right.
It has taught me to look at my world around me & who is part of life, esp my kids.
I learnt that in the times of darkness, there is light. This hits home more so with my kids, when I photograph their lives and see where they are now, from where they were, in how they deal with their own struggles and hurdles life threw in their path that they’ve overcame and reached their milestones, and memories made. When my boy got his diagnosis I didn’t know anything about autism. From training groups and meeting other parents, fears arose, how I thought my son’s life would turn out to be or the simple every day tasks we take for granted became battles, I felt like I had failed as a mother, I had done something wrong to him, I couldn’t protect him. All those thoughts I had which were filled with stress, worry, fear and the mother’s guilt, it’s been ok in the end. In death and decay, I can find a delicate beauty, calmness and it changes my perspective of the unknown. In beauty, it’s fickle, false and when you look hard enough you can see that beauty is flawed and has imperfections and this is totally acceptable. To take an image, we show something real. exactly how it is. When we edit, we change it, to show how we feel at that moment in time. It’s a reflection on emotional state as this is reflected in what we create, it becomes your body of art, your soul is in each photograph you take. And when you take a stand back from what you have created, sometimes, we can get that moment of release & ease of the pain because you have the end result from a healing process.
So if you feel like you need to do something, to find a release, a healthy way to cope, try photography. Go explore your world around you, be grounded in that moment. Feel how it slows life down and lets you breathe, and then come back and tell me about it! In fact, better yet, show me your photographs!!
Remember, it’'s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to talk and open up to someone you trust, and it’s ok to ask for help.
It doesn’t make you less of person, it makes you human!
Jx