This is a charming pink, white and red thread crochet spoke mandala made by Carolien Huysmans from Belgium. She blogs at Coupe-Woolly, sharing her craft work including her love of amigurumi.
Carolien, who is in her early thirties, says she’s lucky to have a lovely, understanding husband. She herself is struggling with depression and finds that crochet and knitting help her a lot. She says, “it isn’t easy. You go one step forward and then something tiny/ stupid happens and you go one step back. And so it goes, on and on. Hopefully one day you are back to being the person you were before the depression”.
Carolien chose to join in the Mandalas for Marinke project as a homage to Wink, whose colors inspire her, and also to bring attention to people dealing with depression, since there are many who don’t understand what depression really is. She writes, “When someone has a broken leg, you can see it, but when someone has depression, you can’t see that.” It still hurts.
In addition to this mandala, Carolien also made herself a Wink cushion cover and bag, both in cheerful colors, to always have something to remind her of Wink.
For the depression awareness portion of the project today, I wanted to share this article / interview with comedian Ruby Wax who is one of more than 200 people who have signed an open letter to the (UK) Government calling for greater help in regards to mental health issues. She says:
“Any professional in the field will tell you that what is mental is physical and vise versa – the activity in the brain affects the entire body so why is there such a stigma if the most important organ in your body is malfunctioning?”
