We’ve all heard of the ; campaign or the “semicolon project” that started spreading awareness about mental illness. Their main initiative talks about how “a semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.”
Depicted in many ways, we have seen mental disorders through animated, short films and through gory illustrations, forcing us to face the hard reality that mental health is crucial.
In an another campaign like that, Eisen Bernardo started the paperclip initiative called #KeepItTogether. In the artist’s own words, she says,
Through minimalistic illustrations, Eisen hopes to create awareness about the most common mental illnesses and disorders people (especially the youth) are facing today.
1. Depression
2. Anxiety
3. Bipolar
4. Dissociative Identity Disorder
5. Substance Abuse
6. Eating Disorder
7. Obsessive Compulsory Disorder
8. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Mental health is real and no, the patient suffering isn’t paagal as opposed to what our society deems them to be. These illnesses need to be recognised and treatment needs to be sought just like one would for a physical illness.
Isn’t this exactly what Dr. Jehangir Khan taught us in Dear Zindagi?
Mental health awareness could help save a life, so can we finally start acknowledging that it exists?