brutallysagittarius

[brutallysagittarius]

Currently...

As for my final project, I decided to stick with the podcast due to the difficult circumstances. It was hard to create a book and I felt a discussion was the best and much more eye opening rather than my own experience in a book that reflects as a diary/journal. As I have only got 3 interviews/discussions, I felt the information I got was educational and quite an intellectual conversation. 

[brutallysagittarius]

Book/Podcast Cover

I made two covers and out of these 2 I felt the blue one with the shaped profile of a human stood out to me. 

The first one is actually inspired by my butterfly tattoo on my left forearm. I think butterflies have life and some hope to them. I was heavily influenced by my favorite singer/songwriter Lana Del Rey she has a song on her new album called “Happiness is a butterfly” this song is about trying your best to be happy and carefree in relationships and not put so much pressure on yourself to have them established. 

The title Mercury in Scorpio is an intense position in the stars and natal birth chart. The planet Mercury represents communication and thinking patterns of oneself. In particular, I chose Scorpio because I have my mercury positioned in this zodiac and the stars. This position talks about how I love to analyze, be passionate and get to the bottom of things that are ugly and deceiving however, I get hurt in the process and let my feelings get the best of me. With this project, my aim is to give others the voice and the feeling of being heard because I know what it feels like to be shut out or be in shut down. 

This speaks to me the most because I enjoy the primary colors of blue and yellow complimenting each other pursuing a bold, bright and vibrant personality. Also very simplistic. I think it catches the human eye at the right places could possibly be good for advertising this project as a whole.

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Visuals of Incerpets

I’ve experimented on procreate making digital and graphic posters to promote the podcast I’ve made about raising awareness with culture and religion in the Middle East and how it could be corrupt at most times.

This piece is represented by the first poem I wrote for this experiment and it briefly shows that I as a person have been told that how I felt had led me to my last resort and I no longer could put my emotions in control and the medication was my last shot in helping myself. 

This excerpt was about someone I genuinely have felt love for the first time and it was the toxic and wrong kind of love. I resorted and relied to Melatonin as things fell apart in this situation. The pills and crack on the pill bottle are suppose to represent the “brokenness” I felt talking about this person and hearing their name “pop up” on the tabs like a “hello” response however this journey became a spiritual awakening. 

Growing up, I was always my own worst enemy and I completely disagreed with everything around me that made me feel unhappy and I started to think my sadness was my “true reality.” I always thought to myself as “this is it, I guess.” 

The slope in this image is slanted and uneven, kind of like my life. I used texture to highlight the darker parts and distorted the text making it a little bit psychedelic and ghostly.

I’ve always liked safety pins for some odd reason and they symbolize the idea of safety and not to be afraid of xenophobia and racism. I also wanted to create an illusion with them of how “scattered” my brain is with thoughts but using the safety pin as thoughts I shouldn’t be afraid of. 

This is inspired mainly by the podcast, and how this isn’t about hiding away and its just about freely expressing yourself and not to be threatened by opinion. 

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Above are the 25 intercepts I’ve written and all are talking about how I’ve struggled in all my relationships and specifically how mental health living in the Middle East has affected me. I felt a relief writing all of it and this topic is something I’m passionate about and I’m doing this to show the world a broad perspective and it’s something that should be found upon negatively or be ashamed of. 

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Poetry and Other Emotions

The last post I’ve posted I’ve been experimenting with poetry and have been wanting it to be part of my project experimentation and when I write it’s really important to me to fully be authentic in my writing and be able to express myself freely with no caution because I don’t know how else to be somebody else. 

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medicate, medicate the birds sang with a blink of an eye it’s easier said than done no consideration just one percent of empathy is all they gave

myself

[brutallysagittarius]

Quarantine

In this project, due to the circumstances we are in due to Covid-19. I’ve felt very demotivated to create work as I feel limited to find sources at my own home and not having access to material frustrated me. I have been feeling down and the advantage I have with my project is to be able to express myself in words and as my final product is a book with incerpets and collages of people’s words. I decided to use my iPad to create sketches of the potential book cover and pages I want to represent in the final product and communicate the interviews and podcast recordings I’ve had. 

I know that these circumstances happen due to everybody’s own physical bodies’ needs and I think this is the time to highly take care of ourselves and being stuck at home can cause negative aspects for our mental health making us feel depressed and lazy. I know I can get restless and annoyed by this a lot. So, I thought why not express myself through visuals of boredom and the melancholic feelings we are all probably facing. 

Word of the Month:

(n.) an intense and irresistible desire for freedom.

I drew these faces as a representation of the feeling of comatose, numbness, neutrality, and mainly fearing the unknown of this pandemic. Always hearing opinions of one another and it has just become the talk on and off the dinner table like life didn’t cease to exist before. Worrying I feel doesn’t get anyone anywhere, it’s the perfect destructive distraction whilst you can in that mean time stressing out can be the perfect way of recognizing that, that area needs to be worked through healthily. 

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My Third Interview with Hayma, Zaina and Aya

Hayma is from Bahrain and Syria, Zaina was raised most of her life in Syria and is Syrian and has lived in Dubai for most of her educational life, and lastly Aya is Turkish and Lebanese has lived her whole life in Dubai. These 3 represented more of a religious than cultural approach as they each differently experience their lives very divergently compared to one another but share common grounds of the same religion, Islam. From the interview, having 3 people to express and just being only 1 interviewer was a challenge yet I felt weirdly successful keeping the balance amongst all 3 of them to freely discuss their outlook. They’ve equally shared about gender equality, becoming a problem and how unjustly it is for women to be seen as being a disability and men having a name in power is the “utmost” important singular thing in this part of the society. 

As the recurring theme of corruption has become a misconception and a disease in labelling, and trapping others into a box. For example as social media has varied complex opinionated platforms which can become misleading and overused having us self-question our inner thoughts and feelings. As the toxicity has become unbearable. Disorders have become a fantasy for younger generations which is a concerning contributing factor for deadly intentions and attention for a wide audience. Personally, this is offensive and shockingly no one should have to prove a point because they think having a mental illness is “cool.”

Feedback

It was a really good discussion amongst the group

Should add on and elaborate on difficult questions as some of them are too broad and confusing

Topic is good and the path taken for a serious issues like this is good and eye opening

Questions are really open minded and have a good analytical stance, really stimulates the brain at a time like this having not much to do. 

Follow up questions just for guiding and giving more of an understanding to the questions

Overall, this is by far the most deep discussion I’ve encountered on a subject like this because, I think I chose to surround myself with people I didn’t really know of deeply but, now having the knowledge helps me embrace different people’s ideas. The collaboration was a huge success!.

[brutallysagittarius]

My Second Interview: Yazan

I had my second interview with my Jordanian friend Yazan, he is 18 years old and currently lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He’ll be graduating and moving out soon to San Francisco for university studying Business. Yazan is gay and being part of the LGBT in Dubai it is not allowed to be freely expressed and is oppressed due to religious laws that are implemented by the government. The talk I had with Yazan was quite interesting and eye opening because as I’ve said being part of the LGBT community is left unsaid in the Middle East and stereotypically and lawfully not accepted in the Arab World. He made it very clear that he is very happy with his environment and is optimistic about the rapid changes of mental health and acceptance with self-growth and self-confidence with himself happening currently in the Middle East specifically at a global pandemic.

Coming from and graduated from the same high school, he talked about how the education system is trying to gravitate towards the subject of mental health and emphasized that school is definitely making a change and creating equal open awareness. 

Feedback:

Overall said he found it pleasant and enjoyable

He felt at times I was too pushy with the questions and felt I was expecting different answers by inserting by opinion

Don’t put personal experience on the line - he said I was putting emphasis on my personal life by adding oppositional answers that are neither agreeing or disagreeing with his statements. He said that since it’s an interview, he gave an example of a celebrity being on an interview and mainly we expect that celebrity to answer the questions not the interviewer to insert themselves into that celebrity’s shoes.

He found my questions notably interesting and pretty good

Overall, I felt this interview wasn’t as different as my first one but, I feel very hopefully of the future in the Middle East. Yazan made me realize that things are coming to frame everything positively via the use of rose-colored glasses. Outshining negatives and having patience and communication as key to a controversial sensitive issue like this. However, I just want to see an ugly perspective but so far it’s just been respectable and lighthearted which I felt was good but not really getting to the point for this research. 

[brutallysagittarius]

My first interview: Najla and Ghada

To raise awareness about this topic even more further, on my zoom call with my 2 friends who are both from Lebanon had their own positive remarks and answers to my questions. They both were very helpful and they took this interview/discussion into a surprising direction where I wouldn’t have expected them to talk about how they’re familial expectations are frankly easy going and most of all encouraging. They shed light to the topic and expect hopeful endings for their identity and recent governmental status in Lebanon. We went from talking about superiority in men to arranged marriages to random number plate laws that are accordingly to Najla are “useless. Funny. Finally, giving hope to all those that are suffering with their mental health and to not let their culture define their mental state instead maturely embrace it!. 

Feedback: 

After the end of the interview I’ve asked for their feedback on it, they’ve said the following below: 

-  To be more specific in culture context and give an example of an experience that I’ve been through to help them understand what I was talking about. 

-  Be more explanatory in introduction and make it clear on what I’ll be talking about to not confuse the audience 

-   Environment vs culture - Their should be more emphasis and significance in social environment as culture is broad of a topic but not as broad as what one can face in their current situation. 

-   Straight to the point - the Questions are apparently a little bit confusing or a little too analytical for the person to get interviewed with as they are heavy and should be thoroughly thought about. 

In my opinion, during the interview I felt I was imposing my ideas on what I go through in my culture and my intentions weren’t cruel or forcing a certain answer out of the people I’m interviewing. It’s just it was in the heat of the moment where I felt passionate about this subject and I felt as an interviewer I wanted to contrast and balance both positive and negative effects of the topic to raise that awareness and be on the lookout of possibilities. I will admit I wanted the discussion to have controversy and expose things that are not talked about but they did a good job of maintaining a positive outlook. 

[brutallysagittarius]

Interview/Subject of Matter Questions

Have you ever experienced a terrible occurrence that has impacted you significantly? Examples may include, but aren’t necessarily limited to: being the victim of armed assault; witnessing a tragedy happen to someone else; surviving a sexual assault, or living through a natural disaster?

Do you ever feel that you’ve been affected by feelings of edginess, anxiety, or nerves?

Have you experienced a week or longer of lower-than-usual interest in activities that you usually enjoy? Examples might include work, exercise, or hobbies.

Have you ever experienced an ‘attack’ of fear, anxiety, or panic?

Do feelings of anxiety or discomfort around others bother you?

Source: https://positivepsychology.com/mental-health-questions/

These questions are a sample I got to give myself an idea on how I can begin the conversation but, I feel the questions above are intense and are just not for some individuals. However, it does get straight to the point and uncover the truth. 

My research mainly covers looking at how psychologists and therapists’ counseling questions following a protocol during their talk therapy sessions with patients. I want to follow along these lines as, I want to make the participant comfortable and feel safe 

I will ask for feedback from the person and their opinion on the subject matter. 

For Subject of Matter Questions 

Before I get into the questions I want to disclaim that I will have to be asking the right questions and sympathize with the person as I said I want to make them feel comfortable. 

Questions:

Tell me about how confident you have been feeling in your living environment especially with the laws and your own capabilities recently?

Let’s talk about how often you have felt satisfied with yourself and culture over the past 6 months.

How often have you felt as though the future/culture was exposed, over the past few weeks?

Can you tell me about your hopes and dreams for the future? What feelings have you had recently about working towards those goals? 

What could be stopping you from pursuing these goals in terms of your Middle Eastern family’s beliefs and traditions? 

Do you struggle with opening up to your inclusive family? 

What kind of cultural dogma that makes you frustrated do you face in specific? and Why?

Do you believe in going against your cultural beliefs to do what you want to do? 

Do you believe religion plays a role in culture if so, why and how?

How do you currently feel about the idea of change in the Middle Eastern culture? 

How would you approach mental health awareness in the Middle East? 

To be sensitive and open minded, how can we be accepting of this topic?