Drawing through depression: 'The Doodle Chronicles'

‘Life in a box’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

Molly, 21, is a student – and a doodler. She started her blog, The Doodle Chronicles, a few months ago when she was diagnosed with severe clinical depression and anxiety. She describes the creative experience as a kind of therapy:

Externalising my thoughts and feelings is both helpful and enlightening; it’s helped me gain a better understanding of exactly what it is that I’m dealing with. During the worst times, when consumed by panic and despair, it can be hard to simply make it through each hour, and even harder to try to concentrate on anything or distract yourself. I found that doodling was the only thing that I could sometimes do when I was feeling like this.

After sharing the doodles with friends and family, she decided to create a public blog. She says the response has been “wonderful”:

I am really very bad about talking about myself so this was also my way of helping those who cared about me to understand what it is that I’m going through. There was a wonderful response with so many people saying that it had really helped them to understand, giving them new insight into mental illness, and almost as many others getting in touch to say that they too had depression or anxiety, thanking me for sharing and putting into pictures and words how it feels.

If you enjoy these doodles, you might want to follow Let’s Talk Mental Health, a blog on Tumblr run by the Guardian community team. We started it after receiving an overwhelming response to a callout about mental health care in the UK - more than 700 readers shared their stories. We hope the Tumblr account will be a way to build a community and keep the creative conversation about mental health going after the end of the christmas appeal. We would love to develop it with more stories and submissions from readers or followers.

Molly herself found the mental health online community to be of particular help:

The Doodle Chronicles has also helped by putting me in touch with other people going through similar things. I have found the Twitter mental health community in particular to be an absolute lifeline over the past few months.

The images below were all drawn by Molly in the last few months and are accompanied by her own captions, describing her experiences.

‘Behind a smile: even when someone seems ok, happy even, their illness is still present beneath the surface.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Despair: This is my most recent doodle. I wanted visualise the despair that depression causes; how it feels like a constant, exhausting battle just to “keep your head above water” and often feels like there’s no escape.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Small Gestures: often, mental illnesses lie to people, telling them that no one really cares. Even the smallest gesture can serve as a reminder that this isn’t true and an encouragement to keep fighting.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Life in a box: my very first doodle, trying to explain the huge impact mental illness can have on a person’s life, and its ever-present nature’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Asking for help: I’ve been very lucky in that I have a wonderful support system of friends and family in place, however I still really struggle for help. I want to encourage others to try to get past the lies that their illness tells them and reach out.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Balancing Act: My illness has had an impact on every single part of my life. I have made huge compromises, dealt with unexpected failure, and faced huge financial worries because of it, often with little understanding from those around me. With this doodle, I wanted to convey how difficult it can be to work out what the right course of action is when life is dominated by illness, and that often it feels like everything has to be put aside to try to change illness to health.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

‘Social anxiety feedback form: I drew this one after spending what should have been a wonderful evening with some close friends. By the time I got home I was absolutely sick with anxiety, and so began what was a very familiar cycle for me.’ Photograph: Molly/Tumblr

You can follow the Doodle Chronicles on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. If you are interested in creativity and mental health, you might want to look at CoolTan Arts, one of the charities we are supporting in this year’s appeal. They exist to inspire wellbeing and participation for a diverse range of people, through the creation of high quality art.

Has creativity or social media aided your mental health? Are you inspired by particular artists or bloggers? Share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments below and we will share a selection on the blog.

You can donate to the appeal here.