These four crochet mandalas are from Julie of ACCROchet who describes herself as “an avid crochet designer and crochet instructor, living in Montreal (Canada) with The Man, Two Teens, Two Dogs, One Cat and a whole lotta yarn.”
Responding to my questions posed for this project, she shares,
“What inspired me about Wink’s work? Quite simply, it was a joy to look at! She had an eye for colour. It was also lovely to read her words. Sweet and bubbly, but also honest.”
She goes on to share,
“I chose to contribute to this project because … well, I had to. I told my fourteen year old daughter about what had happened to Wink and why; her first question to me was, “Could that have happened to you?”
“I have dealt with depression my whole life but only sought treatment in my twenties after I suffered through a traumatic event. Even after that, though, I convinced myself I could fight it on my own, and I took myself off of my meds. The result was a lovely breakdown at a work function. I stopped being an idiot after that. That was a little over a year ago. It took six months unable to work, scaring my family and my self-esteem, to understand I couldn’t do it on m own. Can’t believe now how stubborn I was …
I don’t think people understand – really understand – that you can’t just snap out of depression … or that it’s not because the people around you are not doing enough. It’s about brain chemistry and it is evil!
She shares a message for Wink’s family,
“You did all you could. Never forget that.”
And she writes to Wink,
“I am so sorry you saw no way out. I hope it is all better now.”
On her own blog, Julie shared some of the mandalas shared in Wink’s memory using the #MandalasForWink tag (slightly different from the #MandalasForMarinke tag for this project but the same general idea).
In that same post Julie writes,
“Depression is a bitch (this I know for sure). She isolates & she kills.
We can beat her though, by talking and talking and talking about her until we’re all as good to her victims as we are to victims of say, cancer. We have to talk and talk and talk until we can live with her or, even better, vanquish her.”
