Call Us MENTAL
From I to We, Illness Becomes Wellness
You Are NOT Alone. Write. Share. Connect. Heal.
What’s y(our) MENTAL Story?
Make a stand for mental health.
Dork Dancing is creating a storytelling project: “Call Us MENTAL.” We would like to capture your “Mental Health” story but we can’t capture that story, unless you write it. There’s nobody more qualified to tell your story than you. So what does this story look like? What is the project, and how do you begin to write?
● Tell the story of a “Mental Health” challenge you have faced in your life.
Mental health challenge does not necessarily mean mental illness! A mental health challenge can be anything that you faced in your life that was difficult to overcome. We are all human here!
The key is to share a vulnerability, a struggle, of some sort. A struggle, or vulnerability, that typically is kept private. The point of sharing this is to “break free,” to share a story of resilience and strength in response to a pain.
Examples of vulnerabilities and pains include mental illness (depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.) but also include so much more:
Relationship breakups, abuse, challenges with drugs and/or alcohol, unexpected death of friend or family, bullying, getting in trouble, assault and/or harassment, a moment of intense embarrassment, overworking, exhaustion, loneliness, feelings of being misunderstood or not fitting in, academic struggles, etc.
There’s a few goals with this:
1) explore a pain to heal a pain, for ourselves. The writing process can be a helpful one in interpreting our past and processing past challenge.
2) humanize mental health. This is not an exclusive issue. We all have pains. We all have ups and downs. If you are human, you have a mental health story. A journey of struggle.
3) inspire others with your openness, courage, and strength. By sharing your story, (accepting & overcoming pain), you will inspire others to do the same. There’s incredible power, and release in opening up, and when you understand how those stories may impact others, it gets even better.
This is your opportunity to advocate for YOU as a human and MENTAL HEALTH as a cause
This is my story. I was 6 when I first started to face challenges. My parents divorced when I was younger and we had to leave our mum to live with our dad I remember the day they told us with every detail. After that I was 11 and my brother got on top of me and assaulted me and it affects me a lot because I cant remember anything about it apart from how old I was and how old he was.