[BLOG 02] 'HOLDING ONTO DADDY': MENTAL HEALTH - AN INTANGIBLE STRUGGLE.

'HOLDING ONTO DADDY' BY BENJI REID.

(Manchester, uk, 2018)

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This photo by Benji Reid, a British artist, was shortlisted in the Mental Health category awarded by the Wellcome Photography Prize 2020. The story behind is that Benji Reid has a strong struggle with depression and her daughter's presence keeps him continuing alive in this real world. He created this image as a 'love note' for his daughter as she is there in his time of need. Although both are indulged in different acts of escapism, Benji is tethered to his daughter, simply that, the daughter holding onto her daddy from the bouts of depression which is the main message that the picture depicts. This picture really touches my heart and it also impacts me so much in many aspects.

MENTAL HEALTH - an intangible struggle.

Mental health is difficult to tell and hard to explain, therefore, it might lead to false misunderstandings and stigmas. Suffering from mental illness is a gradual process as we keep ourselves being immersed in melancholy and depression, until one day, it becomes too hard to escape. Eventually, it influences negatively our lives in many aspects.

In fact, everyone has our own tangible and intangible struggles with different things that no one can understand and see through to the fullest except for ourselves. Therefore, no one has the right to label perceptions on, criticize, and even blame others, simply because we do not know what a person is facing and how hard a person tries to overcome devastating things that he/ she has been through.

Therefore, please always be supportive and giving hope.

It is true that nowadays, those people having mental illness do not show many signs as they find it exhausted to express and share their feelings. Actually, a person looks like a positive one doesn't mean that he/ she is always happy and optimistic as he/ she might seem. It's because he/ she doesn't want to bother his/ her beloved ones due to his/ her devastating grief; he/ she is overtired of himself/ herself enough; he/ she doesn't want to become a burden of anyone else; he/ she is too worn out to express as he/ she is fighting a battle with himself/ herself.

Therefore, please always be kind to other people even though they reveal depression signs or not because maybe someone is seeking a fragile hope. In fact, supportive relationships can be literally lifesaving to those people having mental health. Please do what you can do to people you love and be sincere with everyone. Just like the visual story that Benji Reid tells us, their father-daughter relationship is strong and his daughter is a pillar of stability holding him during his difficult period of mental health.

'Holding onto Daddy' delivers both Benji Reid's story and the stigmas of mental health issues. It's time for all of us to fight the mental health crises, think more openly, look more closely, and act more carefully. Because mental health issues are not only individual experience yet a whole society concern.

thu,

thanh hoa,

21 august, 2020.