SAD: Sensitive Adult Daily – A Zine for Sensitive Adults
Darcy L Rock
http://sensitiveadultdaily.tumblr.com/
http://www.sensitiveadultdaily.com/
I traded for this at the Festival of the Photocopier after someone at the Sensitive Adult Daily table handed Wanderer a card that had me giggling.
The mixture of humour and anxiety had me wondering what I was getting into with zine, but I had to check it out.
It’s hard to know where to start with this zine because there are so many good things to talk about. Despite it being 8 pages (not counting front and back) long, every time I thought I knew how to take it, it brought something new. First it started with quotes, then it went to art, and later it got into things like cognitive distortions. There’s even a ‘confessions board’ and classified section (both of which you can submit to).
It’s like an entire community space within a mini-zine. It’s fantastic.
I think the thing that I like the most is that it includes ‘sensitivity’ along with mental illness. I think there are a lot of people who aren’t diagnosed as mentally ill out there who hear ‘you’re just too sensitive’ (or something of the like) too often. That this zine could grab their attention, too, is an excellent thing.
As it turns out, Sensitive Adult Daily is holding a Kickstarter going toward helping the creator distrubute this zine for free. Check it out here.
As someone who’s been struggling with sometimes debilitating anxiety, I love this approach – in some cases maybe in lieu of therapy, even. I think artistic expression isn’t necessarily a cure-all for any given malady but can be cathartic and help someone gain the insight necessary to determine which approach best benefits them. Thanks for posting this! 🙂
You’re very welcome. I’m glad it could be of some service. I have an alphabet soup of anxiety labels, so I certainly understand why and how alternatives to talk therapy can be as valuable and sometimes even more valuable for a person. I’m hoping to see a lot more from this zine creator.
I know this is probably going to sound incredibly not PC but I think anxiety disorders are completely misunderstood and misrepresented. What’s more is that thanks to hack jobs masquerading as “journalism”, a lot of anti-anxiety medications undeservedly get a bad rap – just because some people are idiots and don’t know how to read the label or do their due diligence as informed patients. And the rest of us have to suffer the consequences 🙁 So yeah…art therapy is definitely a good thing if not a necessity IMO.
Oh, when it comes to the subject of mental health and mental illness, misunderstanding and misrepresentation runs rampant. Everything from medication to therapy carries with it a whole lot of people who need help and a lot more people who think they know what’s best (but clearly don’t). The ‘one size fits all’ health culture is extremely detrimental in the mental health areas.
I read this zine too. I was amazed at the insight and knowledge that the writer had of the topic. Instead of just pouring out the writers problems, they are creating a safe space for other young people suffering in silence to express themselves. This zine is there to help people. Well done SAD.
Well done, indeed!