Although photography came quite early in my life, here is the time I could also experience the other side and how it feels to expose such a delicate and personal matter, but the truth is we must talk about mental health and care. So, thank you already for giving me a bit of your time and attention for this project.
If there was something I could tell you right now, you know I would, but in the middle of this crisis, trying to make sense of all this, feel so lonely in here. But you know that. I am the only one hearing this voice inside my head, the only one feeling these heartbeats in my chest, the only one with all these butterflies in my stomach. All this pain, all these thoughts, all these questions. But you also know that.
You’ve probably been there yourself at least once. Isn't it? You too have been questioning: Who are we? What makes us, us? Uniquely us? What drives us to play that role, to believe what we believe, to set our values, to experience life the way we do? And simply like this, we build our identities along the way, along our unique journey that makes us who we are.
“A note to myself” is a visual exploration that starts in 2019, on how I tried to cope with my identity crisis followed up by anxiety attacks, going deeper into the emotional rollercoaster that life often puts us through.
The project came up as a supportive way to help me deal with this matter myself, ending up also as an intimate visual exploration of such a delicate matter, trying to share the constant struggles and abrupt feelings along the way.
If we think that still nowadays, we hardly speak about mental health, being personally related to the topic, gives me a deeper connection and helps me on how to share such a personal experience. Adding an important extra layer to all my years and skills as a photographer on been more careful about certain nuances, allowing me to explore more respectfully and with all the care the matter demands to be treated.
And yet, the truth is that we, humans, are still struggling. Still, there are moments in life where we face ourselves doubting and questioning ourselves. We still, sometimes, lose the perspective of who we are, especially due to radical stressors changes in our lives. Just like this, we go down the spiral into an identity crisis. Sometimes, in real life, it is just too hard to find our own place, to make peace with ourselves.
But I do believe this is one of the most important conflicts of our lifetime, where we can honestly interpret and investigate different ways of looking at ourselves. Especially in times like this one where we are living in a pandemic, that adds so much more uncertainties to our currently troubled lives, where mental state and health can not be ignored or be left aside.
Now more than ever is crucial to become aware of mental health. Only during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, did the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increase by a massive 25%, according to a scientific brief released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The brief also shows that the pandemic has affected the mental health of young people and that they are disproportionally at risk of suicidal and self-harming behaviors. It also indicates that women have been more severely impacted than men.
So, let this journey, through images and writings, document and explore my conflictive feelings, and let it fulfill its purpose. Let it gives us an opportunity to share and acknowledge our mental state of mind, maybe it will make us rethink all the taboos about mental health. Let me through this experience share with you my journey and may it lead us back to ourselves.
