Eating disorders are far more common than people think; they're just easy to hide. They cause compulsive lying and anxiety about being caught. Confrontation is scary for someone with an ED because they have nothing stopping them from collapsing completely. My friend told me that it's portrayed completely different in the media to her experiences, it's not a voice telling you not to eat, the voice is yours. Eating disorders are caused by a corrupt way of thinking combined with an obsession of food. It's a coping mechanism for a lot of young people, whether that is through B/P episodes or just not eating, it calms them.

     EDs come with friends, often it pairs with anxiety, depression, derealisation, OCD, body dysmorphia and has links to ADHD and HFA. This image is representative of eating disorders as it shows the stress it causes. Eating disorders are hard to recover from and often end in relapses. The disordered thoughts never really go away, you just have to learn how to cope with them and ignore them.

          This image represents how controlling mental illness can be, It takes over your life with compulsive thoughts and actions. Mental illness has such an awkward stigma surrounding it that it makes it difficult for people to talk about it and share their experiences with it. Mental illness is something that makes us feel uncomfortable and so thats why I feel we need to open the conversation. For me, mental illness if affected when I am under stress, I feel alone or just down in general.

     This edit was to show how mental health can morph and disfigure our personality, It can make us moody, sad or overly happy to the point it is scary. Honestly, some days when we wake up we don't know what we will be like that day and its terrifying especially for the people around us. 

     

     

     

      Anxiety often feels like someone is always with you telling you that everything you are doing is wrong. The stress is causes can send you down an endless cycle of panic and worry. It pairs hand in hand with other mental illness such as depression, eating disorders and other disorders. In this image, I tried to represent how anxiety can take over the mind. It engulfs us whole and takes control of our social lives leaving us lonely. The word Anxiety is commonly misused, I find this inappropriate because often these people have never actually experienced anxiety over anything. Panic Attacks cause further panic, it is such a paralysing state when there is nothing you can do to stop them. I think that people should stop misusing the word Anxiety and understand it’s a real disorder that affects real people.

          Sometimes it feels like we don't have a future. Distressing thought such as suicide can occur when depression is present. When we feel we have no choices left some of us take this sad route. Suicide is a last resort for some people where we feel we have no option left. It’s a scary truth that lots of mentally ill people attempt suicide as they see it as a way to end their pain. Sadly, a lot of those people are teenagers and young adults with a whole life ahead of them, but they don't see this.

     The message behind this edit was to show how suicidal teens feel. When they look into a mirror they don't see anything looking back. A friend of mine told me that she can’t picture herself settling down with a family or being a successful business woman, she can't see a future for herself. The thought of not being able to dream about the future makes me sad. Depression rips away childhood and replaces those dreams with a harsh reality. In the image I left the reflection blank. Personally, I can't speak from experience of suicide, I can only quote those experiencing it around me. But although I don't understand how difficult it is I truly believe that if you’re struggling with your mental health, you should try to reach out for help.

     

         Monsters aren't always how we perceive them. Often we are the monsters we fear so much. They can slip out our reflections becoming our reality. Reflections can be too real and yet be completely unrealistic at the same time. Understanding our reflections is difficult especially if they don't replicate anything in the real world. Nothing is like our reflections, however they can be altered and distorted by our minds. There is nothing we can do to control this meaning most of us will never truly know how others see us, this idea can disrupt peace leaving people unstable and vulnerable.

         This edit presents how we see ourselves different to others. The monster was used to pursue this idea. Though we don't all see ourselves as an orange cartoon beast, many of us focus on a small flaw which the mirror only emphasizes. This distorted perception can escape into our real world only to affect us there. We are often left feeling insecure about a flaw that doesn't exist, making us feel like living monsters; when we look into the mirror that is all we can see.

      We can often feel like we have two personalities. Our normal personality that we put on to face the world and our true personality that is always trying to escape. We lie to ourselves when we are asked simple questions like 'How was your day?' and 'Are you okay?’ We give one worded answers, our only chance to convince someone of our normality. We do this to convince convenience them, but why don't we talk about our emotions? Our generation is at a fast moving pace and we don't have time to talk about why we didn't eat yesterday or why we didn't leave the house last week. Mental illness affect more people than we actually know because not everyone talks about it. It makes us feel uncomfortable and awkward, but if we spoke more freely about it mental health wouldn't have the stigma it has currently.

     The idea behind this image is to represent someone who isn't okay but doesn't know how to start talking about it. By fading the subject it shows how weak she feels when it comes to this topic. She is reaching out but isn't confident in doing so. Personally I believe we as a generation should be able to talk about anything, including mental illness; it would make it easier for these people to ask for help.

     Often we slip out of existence, so consumed by our reflections. The mirror is our enemy and our savior as we do anything we can to see our ideals. As humans we seek perfection and when that cannot be done we blame ourselves. It is not our fault. The media disguises normality in order to distort our brains further. These actions cause millions of people over the world to struggle with mental health issues.

     Although we cant completely blame the pressure society applies to young people, but most people also have a perfectionist trait that also adds to these issues.

    This edit was to present how the world can seem colourless and lonely, especially to those who have these disorders. I took the colour out of this image to show how Anxiety, Depression and Eating Disorders doesn't only affect one gender or one age group. They effect everyone and don't isolate themselves to one specific type of person.