These four beautiful crochet mandalas come to the Mandalas for Marinke project from Acacia Copley. They are all made using Wink’s crochet mandala patterns. Two of them are the spoke mandala, and two of them (including the plarn crochet mandala) are made using Wink’s “Make a Mandala” tutorial.
Acacia shares:
“I chose to contribute to this project since I not only love to crochet, but I am also surrounded by depression and mental illness. Everyone in my immediate family suffers from some sort of depression. It is quite common to have depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder up here where I love (in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.)
Also, I was taught how to crochet at a young age by my grandma, who happened to suffer from schizophrenia.
As you can see, this project really hits home for me, and I am glad to be a part of this. I chose to stick to Marinke’s original patterns as a way of honoring her memory.”
Acacia mentioned schizophrenia, and we haven’t discussed that yet as part of this project, so I thought that would be the right direction to go for today’s depression awareness portion of the project.
In a 2000 article called, “The symptom of depression in schizophrenia and its management“, the authors write that people with schizophrenia often experience symptoms of depression. WebMD elaborates that depression is not a specific symptom of schizophrenia but that about 50% of people with schizophrenia will experience a depressive period; Current Psychiatry puts the number at closer to 25%.
The study authors add:
“Depressive symptoms in schizophrenia are important not only because they contribute significantly to the suffering caused by the illness, whether ‘positive’ psychotic symptoms are active or quiescent, but also because they exacerbate deficits in psychosocial functioning and commonly precede attempted and completed suicide. It is important to define and clinically assess such symptoms accurately as there is now increasing evidence that they can be treated successfully.”
The authors also note that there are different types of depression that can impact people with schizophrenia, and further that it’s important to differentiate this condition from other similar conditions. For example, some people are instead diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, and independent diagnosis for a condition that has symptoms of both schizophrenia and mood disorders
If this is a topic that interests you, there’s a great first person article online titled Insight from a Schizophrenia Patient with Depression.
