Hey my Zero Fuckers,
I don't think I used to call you that and, boy, did I miss an opportunity. It's life affirming to be able to call someone a "fucker" and mean it with nothing but love and affection.
It's been a while, that I know. A pandemic and, I think, three lockdowns (which we started to call 1.0, 2.0 etc. like they were some sexy new iOS release) have happened since. While lockdown one renewed my vigour and passion for making the most of life - I started an Instagram cooking show called 'Cooking with Jacs' and I think you even got a couple of ZFs newsletters out of that strange time - by the third, I seemed to be crawling through the days. And not a sexy crawl either.
So this time last year I was in a massive hole. I was actually calling it a pit. I languished there for some nine to ten months, thinking that somehow life had become irreparably awful. Not because it funademantally was, but because somehow I no longer knew how to make myself enjoy it, or even tolerate it. If life was the square hole, I was the round peg, and trying to jam yourself into an ill-fitting hole every day is, well, quite painful.
Thankfully by the end of the year, my mental health had given itself a shake-down, and I'd found the version of me I thought I'd lost. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the magic of life is that so very few things are permanent, and, sometimes we are even lucky enough for it to be within our power to change things for the better.
I won't pretend I managed to turn things around effortlessly, in a timely manner, or with any conviction whatsoever that it was possible. I'd sooner liken it to that scene in Squid Game where that dude licks the shape out of the sugar cracker: it was sloppy, messy, unconventional, there was a bit of friction burn, and most of the time I thought "what the fuck am I even doing here." But it ended up working for me and I didn't get shot in the head (apologies for those who didn't watch Squid Game. Also I've just realised how dark that metaphor is, but... zero fucks).
I hadn't forgotten that feeling of being in a pit, though (you never do). In fact, by Christmas I could hear my inner hyper-sensitive mental health monitoring monster, slightly traumatised by the year it had had, coming at me saying "oh, you're in a bit of a hole again, Jacs." But it was cool; I always have a dip at Christmas and it really was just the very shallowest of holes compared to others I'd been down. A mere puddle, in fact, and I knew I could get through that with the right footwear. To remind myself of this, and the fact that our mental health exists on a spectrum, I quickly, and scrappily, drew out a spectrum of holes and asked “Which mental health hole are you in?"
I sent it to a couple of best friends. The replies came back: I'm in a sandy golf bunker or I've hit a pot hole. The visual imagery seemed to be relatable and provide an easy way for people to conceptualise and explain where there head was at. Somehow telling people you're down a dried-up well feels much easier than "my mental health is in tatters." Hmm, funny that.
I felt like I was onto something. With the encouragement of someone who has helped me on my mental health journey since the beginning (ok, fine, it's my therapist), it felt like perhaps I shouldn't stop with my spectrum of holes. I have always felt drawn to writing about mental health (you'll know that there was always an element of that in this newsletter), but it seemed that there was a power in those little sketches that connected people with the ideas I wanted to share. Plus, people enjoyed that it was a little silly and sort of light-hearted: mental health but make it laughable. So the idea for a visual self-help guide to looking after our mental health came, cautiously but optimistically, into being.
One month on, having disproved my worry that I may never have more than one idea I could draw, I have a handful of sketches, a whole list of ideas I plan on bringing to life, a contents page (shhhh), and a god damn instagram account. I'm calling the project My Sketchy Head (for now), as it takes us through the lessons I've learned about how to look after my own mental health, which is, at the best of times, pretty damn sketchy.
Here's a flavour:
And so, yes, you've got me. I've come crawling back (in a sexier fashion than the lockdown depression crawl, I like to think) to share my idea and ask for your support if any of the content resonates with you. This is the start of something (remember that contents page I mentioned...) and I'd love to have all, or some, of you along for the journey.
You can follow me at @mysketchyhead on insta to see more of my content as I release it. And, not gonna lie, this will probably give me the excuse I've always wanted to end up making tiktoks. First idea: tiktok dance of me trying to shimmy out of a hole.
I know I keep popping up sporadically (some of you will even be here from my Salomé magazine days - props to you for sticking with me). While that's my prerogative as someone who built a god damn newsletter list and is keeper of your email addresses (all strictly within GDPR regulations), mwahaha, if you've even opened this email, I'm really so thankful. It's been about eighteen months since I last blessed your inboxes, and I promise you I wouldn't be doing it if My Sketchy Head idea didn't truly mean something to me.
So I'll leave you with my parting shot, which is simply another reminder to please follow @mysketchyhead (no one gets a publishing deal without a social media following these days). I hope you'll join me on this journey, and maybe learn a thing or two about how we can all feel empowered to look after our own mental health in the process.
Forever giving zero fucks and imploring you to do the same,
Jacs x
Living the Zero Fucks values:
I give so few fucks, that I’ll shamelessly re-purpose this newsletter any time I see fit.
so well said and so true. I think I'm going through a puddle...but then again I could do doing an "ostrich". Anyway, knowing people like you that can add humour to mental health already makes my days brighter! Mil Gracias for comparator tush's talentos