Making It Through: Mental Illness Support from Those Who Struggle, 2020

Ariana Elmayan and Zachary Grossman 

A Realistic Resource for Self Help, Giving Kindness to Yourself, and Improving Your Quality of Life for Those Who Struggle with Mental Illness

Art + Ed students Ariana Elmayan and Zachary Grossman’s community book, “Making It Through: Mental Illness Support from Those Who Struggle” was created to be a resource for the silent community that suffer with mental health. People who suffer from mental illness are often blamed, told how to feel better and give self care from people who do not struggle with the same mental health conditions. Self care for someone that struggles with mental illness can be particularly difficult because it can get feel overwhelming.

This book focuses on strategies of self care and showing kindness to yourself, as well as letting readers know that you don’t need to do everything “in the nines”. It’s much better to do a little self care than none in order to improve quality of life. Many contributors- artists and people who have experience with mental illness made this book possible and what it is today. We met synchronously on Zoom, typing out what they said and for those that wanted to submit doodles, they did so live on Zoom using the Procreate App.  We had the opportunity to connect with all of our lovely participants and share some similar experiences. Now we have a free resource that will be available to all and hopefully make self care and self kindness a little easier to some.