My Mental Friends

Role: Creator/Illustrator/Animator

Scope: During COVID in 2020, isolated in a different country from my family, I kept thinking about how alone everyone must have been feeling, cut off, scared, struggling in silence. One night I dreamt that mental health disorders became actual characters who could speak to us. I woke up and thought, we have characters for everything, why not for our mental health? That was the beginning of My Mental Friends.

For two years the idea lived in my head before I finally committed, creating the first four characters and launching the page in 2022, bringing each disorder to life as an approachable character, friends, not threats. Then came True Self, which stopped me in my tracks. How do you depict someone's truest self? I sat with that question until 2024, when I realised I was overthinking it, True Self is a mini version of you in your purest form, and from there the page and the comics truly began. If it helps even one person feel less alone, it was worth every second. (I did this before Inside Out 2, just so we're clear.)