This blossoming crochet mandala comes to us from Cassie of Cassie McSassy Crafts. On Ravelry she shares, “I love crafting, Doctor Who, reading books, and watching TV 🙂 My favorite thing to do while crocheting/knitting is listening to audio books.” In her note to us she shares,
“Wink used inspiring color combinations. I chose to contribute to this project so that her beautiful art may continue to inspire others.”
She adds,
“I suffered from depression when I was in middle school, after dealing with years of sexual abuse. I found comfort in my education, religion and close friends. I wish the best for Wink’s family and friends and hope that they can find peace. The crochet community is strong, and I hope that this project is successful!”
For the depression awareness portion of this post, I want to encourage you to read Holly Elmore’s article called, “Faking happiness on social media helped me cope with depression“. Much research has shown that pretending social media can exacerbate depression, but this is an interesting take with a different spin and it’s a strong personal story.
In the beginning of the article, she writes,
“I didn’t have to manufacture good news. Between 2012 and 2014, I got engaged, got married and enrolled in a PhD program. I took pretty pictures and shared happy events. Yet on the inside, I was flailing. Each positive development in my life only intensified my feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Who was I to get a research fellowship? And how wretched was I that even that didn’t make me happy?
This resonated with me because I’ve often added up my accomplishments as a way to combat depression. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. And it also interested me because I think it’s notable how much we can achieve and produce and successfully “do” even in the middle of depression. I can present those things to others but if I don’t believe in their worth myself then it doesn’t fight the depression.
The article goes on to make several great points including that we should be gentle with others when we see that they are sharing their good news on social media, even if we “know” that there’s more to the story, that we should consider the “fake it til you make it” option, not because we need to lie to others but because sometimes it helps us to craft the story that we want our lives to be. And I love, love, love the point she makes that, “for what it’s worth, my Facebook feed was actually a more accurate record of my life than my own depression-tinged experiences” … because depression lies to us and makes us feel that we’re terrible all of the time but that’s not the truth either.
This post is part of the Mandalas for Marinke remembrance project.Â