RAINBOW PROJECT
'Rainbow Project’ is a catch-all title for a collection of personal projects around mental health and the work I’ve put in to make friends with my mind.
I am a neurodivergent woman, with a connective tissue disorder, which means I can find working with my body really hard. Since my ADHD diagnosis at the end of 2022, I have learnt to embrace my neurodivergent body, initially by learning all I could about neurodiversity, and more recently, how I can personally champion myself as a neurodivergent person. This has taken the form of adding to my knowledge of the human body (working Nutritionist) with short courses (Mental Health First Aid course, and Neurodivergent information and coaching), copious amounts of research, following key voices in the neurodiversity spaces here in London and online, and integrating (albeit slowly) actions and protocols that support my health. I use top-down nervous system support techniques, talk and somatic therapies, and daily routines and tools to help me recognise my daily needs, and what works for me to have a happier, healthier mind.
One of these needs is the drive to create. I have a brain that is full of ideas and things it wants to try, and I have made a lot of varied art throughout my life. This need to express myself creatively I would consider crucial to my ongoing mental health, and when I don't have the opportunity to do so for long periods of time, it can contribute to higher levels of anxiety. It is a key part of my nervous system regulation, and one I have learnt not to ignore.
There are three parts to the Rainbow Project -Art I make that is about the power of phrases or words, that can promote my mental health and remind me of how I want my life to look; digital nervous system regulation tools that I have made for myself; and photography projects, for when I need daily access to easy creative wins.
DAILY RAINBOW PROJECTS
In 2010, I decided to take a photo everyday of something I thought was beautiful. I uploaded each photo daily to a facebook album (creatively) named ‘The Beautiful’, and each day I would try and find something, an item or a moment, that spoke to my idea of beauty. It’s a project I think about often because of how, though I didn't know this as these words at the time, it was highly regulating during a time of high environmental stress. The photos themselves, taken with an old Nikon camera, aren’t particularly good or highly artistic, but the project still serves its purpose -capturing a moment in time, and direct access to the thought and feelings I was having during those days.
Last December, I decided to do a similar project. A good friend of mine passed away in November, and having not experience death related grief as an adult, I found my mental health taken into a space that felt completely new and scary territory. (I have written more about my friend and grief here: )
So I gave myself a rainbow project, where each day I would take a picture of something during the day, making sure to snap the colours of the rainbow red-pink. This project was to make sure that at least one moment each day I chose to focus on something creative, and give myself something regular, if small, to do, and take myself out of my buy, sad brain.
Below are my colourful grief days.
I love colour. And I love a pithy saying. I thoroughly enjoy little phrases that help to quickly articulate my current mental state. And I love to paint things in abstract, high colour.
I started making banners of words and sayings, some self-composed, using painted card, cut into letters. This developed over time into wooden letters and then in digital forms.
I used words and phrases the approach mental health in a way that both seeks to normalise poor mental health and connect those of us who suffer from it.
I’ve built up a practice of creating these little supporting pieces of art, for myself and friends, and putting some out into the world in a wider way. My aim is to create enough pieces of mental health-promoting pieces to sell as part of a wider ‘Rainbow Project’ -with proceeds going to mental health charities.
This is a WIP, but one that I really care about putting together.
REGULATION TOOLS
I’ve put a lot of work into making friends with my brain.
After getting my first neurodivergent diagnosis in 2022, I set my science-loving mind to learning all I could about mental health, with special focus on neurodiversity, and what exactly constitutes a ‘neurodivergent brain’.
I have learnt so much about my brain and body, and why it works the way that it does, by following mental health experts online, reading books, blogs, essays, and diving into research on the proven and hypothesised physiological differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent systems.
My original goal, when I set out on this journey, was to learn how best to look after myself, but what I’ve realised is that there are tools that I have integrated into my lifestyle that could benefit anyone. Some of these tools I have made into digital sheets, and look like the two below.
I am currently writing a series of personal essays on my journey with my neurodivergent mind, which I will share soon.
RAINBOW WORDS
