A mental health 'struggle' naturally has negative connotations attached to it and images that come to mind for this are most definitely welcome. At the same time we encourage you to also think about the brighter times regarding your mental health, maybe a day in your life when you felt you happy or calm, or perhaps how it looks like when you are dealing with a struggle through techniques you have learned to improve it.

Perhaps how your body and mind feel when you are meditating or doing a breath-work practice. When we think about the struggles we have had with our mental health, we are able to recognise that we far too often over-generalise and focus too heavily on the negative feelings we experience and we forget that actually there are always small glimpses (sometimes very small!) of positivity in your day.

By recognising these moments through your design, you are giving yourself and others belief that even during your darkest days, there is hope that there are brighter days ahead. You may have a really specific image in your head of what a particular experience, perhaps ongoing or a one off, looks like. Equally, if you are currently experiencing a strong feeling right in this moment, draw how you feel and what you are thinking.

We appreciate that to have the presence of mind to do this when you are really struggling is actually very difficult but it can be a great tool you can use to not only distract yourself and calm yourself down, but allow you to properly visualise your thoughts and feelings, which can help to reduce the severity of their impact next time. It may not help for everyone but it helps for us, anyway!

We can’t emphasise enough that no image is silly or not worthy of being seen by others on our platform. You never know, it might be exactly the thing that someone else has been trying to make sense of themselves but haven’t been able to. If your design helps you or just one other person, then it was very much worth your time and thank you!