I have decided to offer some background; not to justify my designs. These designs are hardly the crudest ones offered by designers through Print On Demand websites. Balancing my First Amendment rights with a desire not to blindly inflict hurt on fellow humans is not always easy. I tend to be ‘snarky’ and ‘inappropriate’ and push boundaries. Most of my text t-shirt designs are offered without apology or explanation; they speak for themselves.
Regular readers will know that I’ve repressed most of my childhood before about age 6 or 7. There are stories about those days that others tell, but my own memories not so much. I do recall fainting spells, which a sibling has confirmed. I was able to talk with a therapist for one year; the limit of my insurance coverage. There are other facts, which are not mine to tell. This blog has a number of posts on my mental journeys, Teddy Bear Tears being the most recent.
After graduating High School in rural south-western Ontario I lived in a nearby small city until I Came Out in the Spring of 1978 and returned to Toronto; city of my birth, always and forever my home town. Within a few years what would become known as hiv/AIDS appeared in my tribe; gay communities were decimated. Initial deaths were so sudden and mysterious that panic was wide-spread. Speaking not as a medical professional, but as one who has survived decades of ongoing devastation, I find many significant parallels between those experiences and symptoms of what is known now as PTSD.
Raised in an environment where comedy and wit (especially of the ‘dry British’ type) was valued, along with an atmosphere of no taboos, my affinity for ‘gallows humour’ should be a surprise to no one.
The following designs touch on mental illness- not including designs of political nature that arguably call some folks’ mental stability into question.
To Insanity And Beyond on Apparel;
I Love Humanity… [revised];
I Let My Mind Wander… [revised]
