Bianca Ceriani

"Pills" by Bianca Ceriani

This is lithium, the main medicine used to treat bipolar disorder.

Mental health, for those dealing with psychiatric pathologies, often comes through medicines. The drug is likely seen by the patient as the sign of the illness, the material proof that something is wrong. Thus, those unable to accept their disease quite naturally end up with refusing pills. Yet pills are fundamental in saving a person struggling with mental health problems and sooner or later it is better to take them.

The path of accepting medicines is the path of accepting a psychiatric disorder, one that is similar to passing from self-stigma to opening up to one’s own difficulties and seeking help.

This is lithium and I have taken it for a long time.
This diptyc symbolises passing from closure to openness and is intended to be a photographic statement on my engagement in understanding and communicating that mental illness should be treated just like physical illness.