This project is personal to me. And unfortunately, it is a global problem. By coming forward and sharing my experiences through this project, I wish to be brave in showing that the stigma around this issue must stop, and we must take action.
As a society we now experience thoughts that we have never fully addressed, neither did we have the chance to fully grasp their implications.
In these 3 photos, I was trying to reproduce how I was feeling in that moment.
The model is having dinner with her friends, she is smiling, but inside she feels lonely
Photographer: Andrei Cristian Smadoiu
Model: Alis Carolina
It all started on a Friday night when someone close to me opened an old wound from my childhood. Because I was in lockdown, I had time to tap on wound. In that moment I felt lonely even though I live with my friends. But I didn’t want my friends to see that part of me, because I just wanted them to consider me funny and crazy and so on, as I am sure most of us do.
I was still feeling that I had enough, and I thought that if I’m going to sleep and not wake up it would all be better. I had some sleeping tablets, and I took 4 or 5 of them and I went to sleep hoping that I won’t have to wake up anymore. After 13 hours, the next day I got angry that I woke up and then I started taking even more pills. While I was taking them, I called one of my friends, just to say goodbye.
This images represents pain.
Photographer: Andrei Cristian Smadoiu
Model: Alis Carolina
When he heard what I am planning to do, he tried to convince me to stop taking the pills because it’s not worth it and the life needs to be lived, but I was in such a pain that it didn’t matter for me anymore. He knew my friends that I live with and at that moment, he called them, and he said what I was planning to do.
Here I was trying to show how easy you can drown into problems getting drunk
I remember that one of my friends came into my room later in the afternoon and wanted to put his fingers down my throat in order for me to throw up the pills. He grabbed me out of my bed, and we went into kitchen and he cooked something for me because he knew that I hadn’t eaten since Friday.
Some how you can succeed to eliminate the pain, but don’t give up…
“The mirror is ‘a reflection’ of depression but ‘reality’ can overcome it”
-Kasia Kowalska
With this image, I wanted to show 2 states of mind. Depression and Survival.
By doing that, I give you (the viewer) the option to interpret the end as you want.
