Grade: 11

Dimensions: 8” × 10”

Artist Statement: What I am protesting about is lack of awareness for mental health. The message I am trying to bring out is that mental health is just as important as physical health. In the image I wrote on a poster something along the lines of “just because you can’t see the pain doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” I wrote this because I know that those who struggle with mental illnesses, including myself, tend to mask how we feel and it ends up coming out in different ways rather than just saying how we feel. People have assumed that once they see a person with mental illnesses be “happy” or “start doing better@ for a short period of time they think that the issue is gone or it’s “fixed” but that’s not how mental illnesses work. Just because we have issues doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to be happy or show some form of happiness. I want people to realize that we only show so much for a certain extent and that the real issues are so much more bigger than we represent on the outside.

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