On a trip back home to Florida, I came across a diary from my early teens. To my surprise, peppered inbetween ramblings about my latest crush and newest doll, were entries about feeling depressed and suicidal. It took me until the age of 20 to get diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and find a therapist, and I’d thought that my issues started right around then. The problem is that mental health is a taboo topic when you’re young, along with loss, illness, assault, and so on. Without these harder issues being discussed, I didn’t know that I wasn’t alone in my hard times and so I blocked the memories and feelings out.

    The Calm Is the Storm depicts this range of life experiences that seem to happen all at once, both good and bad, whether it be moving out of your childhood home or hanging out with your silly grandparents. For the physical book to be more digestible, I made it interactive with pull tabs, scents, sounds, textures, etc.