Mark Stanski posted: " So many of us suffer on the inside, in our minds, emotions, spirits, and souls. Maybe your illness is diagnosed, maybe its a new illness and you are even more alone than the rest of us who at least share a diagnosis and something to rally around as far a"
So many of us suffer on the inside, in our minds, emotions, spirits, and souls. Maybe your illness is diagnosed, maybe its a new illness and you are even more alone than the rest of us who at least share a diagnosis and something to rally around as far as common ground we've fought on. All of us are made differently, so anxiety, for example, attacks me differently than her or him or they, or Ve.
Me, my secret identity showing on my chest. I'm seriously mentally ill. I'm also a powerful artist, writer and book editor.
I get held back by my anxiety, and can't stabilize a very impressive life at present. I deal with other inner troubles but the anxiety and depression are the diagnoses I've gotten and have taken medicine for. I often feel like a very powerful person held back by an equally powerful disease. Do you ever consider how strong you are just to be able to cope with your anxiety or other mental illness and not lose your life in some manner to it? It can happen. Mental illness can take your life away.
In the seventies when I was a child there was a cultural institution called Block Parents. You bought a sign depicting an adult's hand reaching down to take the hand of a child. It symbolized that you were a household that welcomed children who were lost or needed some help. I loved but also distrusted this sign and the people who displayed it. People advertising their willingness to help out with another person's crisis seemed a little, well, irrational to me when I was a child. Who would take on that big, scary responsibility, and was it even appropriate to step in as parent to a child for a half hour while she gets her bearings and you help her find her way home? Rainbow Saints are just such a risky institution. If enough people start wearing these colours in a children's toy, people who are mentally ill might begin to do more than be inspired. They might reach out to us. We have to be prepared for that and prepare to be strong and brave and available to do what we can do at the time given our frailties and powers.
So, I say we're heroes for living with something dangerous, lethal, and always poisonous. What manner of creature lives on and on with poison coursing through their soul? Someone strong. Really strong. Stronger than normal people who don't have to live normal lives while being anything but normal or healthy. We carry on, doing amazing things while we're at it, as workers, parents, lovers, and friends. We're also examples of survivors. Non-quitters. Most people who live with a mental illness have thought about giving up. They keep getting up. There should be a symbol of that getting up we do. I offer mine.
Anyone can make wearable Lego art to announce you're mentally ill, or supporting someone who is.
In an earlier post I offered good little instruction photos for how to make one. Look how easy it is below.
The makings. The wearable, plus or minus a brick or two. Snap, crackle, pop!
I want the mentally ill to see each other like the friendly ghosts we are, the kindred spirits who suffer. But we need a symbol or a flag to know each other. This is my flag. Mental illness. Brick colours, in bricks from a children's toy. Lego the company isn't involved and won't likely be but I might ask.
Any design with at least four bright colours seems to convey the message. You're some kind of special person in some way you're symbolizing with wearable art. In time, it'll be associated with mental illness, I hope. You can take your colour scheme darker, like this one, but keep some bright accents. We're all different in our mental illness--the wearable has to reflect each of us.
Some of you will want to go heavy with your design. Let me know you what's possible.
My superhero vest. The parts to make something a little like this might be $40-$50 CAN dollars ordered from the Pick-A-Brick menu on Lego.com. I'm not an employee or representative. Just a little man with a cause and a little talent with bricks.
Buy or Make Your Lego Wearable.
I'm a Lego artist and have shown my work in galleries in Toronto. I sell my work on Gallea.ca throughout the year under my name. What I want to do is get this Lego cloth onto as many chests, wrists, and necks as possible to get this movement starting to mean what I want it to.
Navigate to the Lego site and skim my instructional post "Lego Wearables and Mental Illness." It shows how easy it is to design something that pops on you and amplifies you. If you wish, you can contact me at stanskimark@gmail.com to arrange with me to buy a modest sized wearable I'll design just for you and ship to you at cost. I promise you'll not pay a dime over shipping ($15 CAN in North America) and the bricks ($20-40 CAN). I'll ask for a small partial payment to show good faith, then ship the wearable to you. Turnaround times are about three or four weeks.
Be first. Be a spark, not just the flames that come after.
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