Navigating a personal mental health crisis requires a certain level of abstraction in language. When you suddenly drop out of school, move back home, and aren’t doing much but surviving each day, you get a lot of questions. In my case, I had supportive parents, they didn’t question me on anything except my health and happiness. Explaining my situation to friends, family, former teachers who I run into at the grocery store, and everyone else in this period of my life was the hard part. I couldn’t tell them exactly what was going on in my life. Both because I didn’t fully understand it myself and the reality of what happened was too difficult for most people to hear.
As I worked through the “pause” in my life, I found a tremendously helpful therapist to guide my journey. Together we explored what happened before, how I felt in that moment, and what I wanted the future to look like. Among others, one of the biggest outcomes was the right language to describe the situation I found myself in. One of the most helpful phrases that allowed me to begin to explain to others was a visual metaphor of how I felt at the time - “like I was always carrying five, enormous, metal blankets on my shoulders”. This phrase, although abstract and seemingly unrelated to clinical symptoms of depression, allowed me to synthesize my complex inner experience into a shared visual that others could comfortably understand and relate to. It brought the right level of detail to open the door to sharing my experiences in more depth with mentors, family, friends, and even employers. The level of openness I felt sharing my experience seemingly flipped a switch in others to share their own experiences with depression, grief and loss. Some of the most honest and meaningful conversations I have had, were born out of describing the weight of my “five metal blankets”. I was fascinated how something as simple as a mental image and descriptive language could be the turning point in my recovery and the opening for deeper connection with others. Motivated by my own experience, I sought to explore this in more depth through my INDS degree plan.
As I developed my degree plan, the importance of my “five metal blankets” began to fade. My attention had shifted to assignments, ISC approval, and finding my way at a new university. As I went on, I discovered the field of digital therapeutics. I obsessed over the idea that an app could be prescribed to someone who was in a similar situation as I had found myself in. The ease of access and low stakes means of engaging in therapy was profound and at the forefront of my interests. As I learned more about industry leaders such as Pear Therapeutics and Limbix, some of the initial mystique faded away. These companies created radically helpful products, but I was still left wondering how one connects their experience in an app to their daily lives and connections with others. The five metal blankets emerged again. I was reminded how simple it felt to examine my mental image and use that to encapsulate the complexity that was my depressive experience. None of the companies I reviewed and interviewed with had a product that offered this type of transformative imagery, and so my focus returned back to my “metal blankets”
When I reached INDS 480, answering the question of what to study for my capstone project was at the top of my todo list. I was hesitant to bring my “five blankets” into my capstone as it seemed like a far-fetched idea that had no scholarly backbone. I struggled for a while to find a meaningful topic that I could engage with deeply for an entire semester. After some much needed support and with the pressure of a deadline, I returned again to my “five metal blankets”. Something about the experiences I had with a seemingly simple concept felt truly remarkable and warranted studying directly. Thus my exploration into metaphoric language and depressive imagery began.
The purpose of my capstone project is to examine through scholarly lenses the phenomenon of my “five metal blankets”. I aim to develop a holistic explanation of how mental imagery and metaphoric language of depression can be healing and enriching. I also want to explore how the exploration of my own imagery, guided by a therapist, can be shifted into a digital medium. Although I do not aim to create an empirically backed digital therapeutic, I plan to create a proof of concept interaction that serves as the first step in exploring a novel digital therapeutic development. I want to explore and share the seemingly extraordinary power behind the words and images we use to describe our most difficult moments. More than anything, I hope to share my findings and encourage others to explore what their “five metal blankets” might be.