My Story
I started a fashion blog a year ago to combat my depression...
I first experienced depression in 4th grade. It was serious enough that I began to regularly see my pediatrician and talk about “the good and the bad things" that had happened during the week - essentially, it was my first time in therapy. Since then, my mental health has fluctuated as various life events occurred, and I gradually became comfortable reflecting and talking about my mental illness to friends and family. I opened up about my own experiences with mental illness to people outside my close circles (mostly through writing) following my close friends suicide. Her death highlighted the necessity of decreasing stigma surrounding mental illness, and the importance of encouraging open dialogue about mental health. Inspired by this, in 2015, I created a campaign called “Dress to adDress Mental Health,” during which I solo hiked the John Muir Trail (200 miles through the Sierras) to raise money for San Francisco Suicide Prevention, a cause that is (understandably), near and dear to my heart.
My willingness to discuss my own mental health does not negate the fact that I still have depression and anxiety, and that the existence of them affects my life every day...
My advocacy and openness about my own experience do not make me a “success story.” In fact, 2017 was one of the longest and most affective periods of depression in my life. It was during this period of time when I began to notice the strong relationship between fashion, style, and my mental health. “Look good, feel good,” is cliche, but a real one for me. I notice that putting together an outfit can change the way I approach my day; sometimes it can make the difference between starting my morning in a ball of anxiety, or one of calm and composed confidence. When I am depressed, one of the first things to slip is what I wear. By the end of this last year, I had so little motivation and energy left, that I would just roll out of bed in a sweatshirt and leggings (I am not intending to suggest anything about folks who identify this as their personal style. I am just acknowledging it’s damaging effects on me as an individual).
I created a fashion blog to force personal accountability to get dressed in the morning...
Sound pathetic? Well, welcome to the world of mental illness (...sometimes brushing your teeth can feel like a big deal). The blog, Girl With The Horizontal Stripes, is based around honest dialogue on fashion, mental illness, and recovery. It wanted to encourage a healthy relationship to style, sense of self, and body. And it has been a personal success. I have been creating looks for over a year now, and my connection to fashion remains one of the most stable parts of my life. A few months in, I realized how much I liked giving other people makeover, and taking photos of them. A friend and I partnered up to offer boudoir photo shoots for people at our university. I did the makeup, and she photographed. Since then, I have taught myself photography, and worked hard on mastering makeup.