Welcome to Madly In Love
"Madly In Love," is a special place all about kindness and understanding when it comes to mental health.
Our project is all about showing some serious love and uniting individuals who have faced mental health challenges, along with those who appreciate the magic and profound beauty of life. Together, we celebrate the ups and downs of mental health and the mysteries of the human experience.
We welcome anyone curious about expanding ideas of mental health, compassion, and acceptance surrounding what and how we think about mental health.
Whether you have personally experienced depression/anxiety/trauma (mental illness), have had an out-of-body experience, or love someone who has experienced any or all of madness, trauma, or mental illness, your stories, knowledge, and voices are needed.
Share your "Love Letter" in any way you see fit, to add your own experiences to our growing movement.
Join Us In Writing A Love Letter To or From Your ‘Madness’
WHAT IS MADLY IN LOVE?
Here, we can shine a light on mental health and potentially write a love letter to yourself, your ‘madness’, or someone important to you who's lived with madness.
So, what's next?
Check out our videos that break down important topics and give you cool ideas for writing your love letter.
"Madly In Love" isn't just any project; it's a group effort to rethink how we see mental health. We want to change the way people talk about mental health, moving away from thinking it's always a negative or unusual experience.
We're collecting anonymous love letters that express a wide range of emotions connected to mental health.
You don't have to focus solely on positive feelings; all emotions are welcome.
"Madly In Love" tries to create a friendly community where people with unique mental health experiences are respected and appreciated. We're using love to ensure everyone feels included, accepted, and understood, all while trying to change how people perceive mental health.
We're combining research with real-life experiences to help improve the lives of people dealing with mental health issues. It's all about learning from each other.
"Madly In Love" dreams of a community where folks with mental health experiences are seen, heard, and supported, while we work together to break down the barriers that make discussing mental health challenging.
Join us on this awesome journey of love, understanding, and breaking down walls. Together, we can create a world where mental health is something we're all comfortable discussing, and everyone's story matters.
Madly in Love is a project that explores the possibility of a mad-positive community, where Mad people are seen as valid and valuable.
What Is Madness?
It's pretty interesting to look at the differences between madness, trauma, disability, and psychic distress. They might seem similar, but they've got their own unique meanings. Let's break it down together.
Picture this:
Trauma is like a big roadblock in your energy flow, stopping things in their tracks.
Madness is like a current of energy that takes you beyond everyday perceptions of what is normal.
Think of them as separate circles, like Venn diagrams. Trauma and madness have their own circle, and so do psychic distress and disability. And often they overlap. It's like when a tough experience (trauma) makes your mind go into overdrive (madness) or when your body reacts to all that with psychic distress. It's all connected, and by digging into these differences, we're learning more about the physics of the human body, our psyche, and the world around us.
And guess what? We've got even more awesome stuff to talk about on our podcast, "Madly in Love," available on Spotify. Dive in for some fascinating conversations about madness, trauma, psychic distress, love, and the Mad community.
Love and Madness
Love isn't just a feeling; it's a powerful force that can transform us down to our very cells. Think of love as a kind of energy that flows through your body. It can activate or deactivate certain parts of your body, like flipping switches, allowing your DNA to do more things and connect with the world and the people in it in deeper and more loving ways.
By recognizing the incredible power of love, we can make space for people who experience mental health challenges. We see them and understand their worth, even if they don't always fit into the box of what's considered rational.
This way of looking at love is about how we exist in the world and connect with others. Historically, love hasn't always been part of our way of life, and sometimes it's even been treated as something bad.
But when we make love the center of our community, we can explore mental health and the experiences of Mad people without letting logic and reason decide who's valuable and who's not. Instead, we create a space where everyone's experiences matter, and we all learn more about ourselves and the world around us in the process.
Remember, we talk about love and madness in much more detail on the ‘Madly in Love’ podcast available on Spotify
Love Letter Submission
I watch my son scream in the bath, spikes of saffron aura torrent out from his body puncturing the moist air around him. I sit back on my heels, hands heavy with suds, dripping with distress. The weight of the washcloth is almost too much. I model regulation, breathing deep slow breaths. I don’t break eye contact. His stare is hot, burning memories of my brother, young and full of shame into my vision—a photo double exposed. His feet stomp desperate water on the walls. I am baptized by rage. I refuse to feel the water turn cold and penetrate my jeans, a sensorial vice grip. I let go further, putting all my weight in my toes, rooting to ground electricity, taking his madness and moving it through my body and into the floor. His fists shout as they seek my arms, demanding to be seen.
He is so little, and I am old. I’ve had millennia to learn the art of unfolding. I know how to hold my breath under the waves of madness. I know that even though my body is screaming for air, the frantic flow of energy won’t kill me—not yet anyway. I chant a holy mantra: “I’m here, it’s going to be ok. We will make it through this. I won’t leave you. Keep breathing. Let it out.” He doesn’t know to fight only makes it worse. He doesn’t know how to make his body go slack, give over his body to his madness, observe how it moves, take note of the shapes, sounds, mark its edges. He is not skilled in learning through reverent observance.
I’ve had more time with my madness, we know each other, how to live in the same body together. He still thinks they are the same, his madness and his soul. In this moment he is his madness. He is so little, and I am so tired, yet I hold steady for him. I watch the madness recede from his eyes, final moments as mad energy is rinsed down the drain, seeping from toes into the tile. Scared, his little body used up, I chant the last part of the mantra: “Can I hold you?” Heart chakra to heart chakra, I fold the frequency of my body around his, envelope him the frequency of love.
Love Letter Submission
Love letter to my mental illness: Sometimes I wonder what the world is supposed to look like. But I am grateful for the lens you've given me. To choose between reality and madness is not an option. No matter how many well-meaning people say I am not defined by my mental illness, my life revolves around you. You make me feel whole; I would not be completely me without you. I am still learning that my mind doesn't have to be a battlefield. My mind is my home. You are my home. You inspire me to be better. I want to grow WITH you. It may be a lifelong work in progress, but you are worthy of the love I offer to everyone else. And if one day, parts of you show up in my daughter, I wouldn't love her any less.
With love, E.
Love Letter Submission
Madness,
If I had known you’d been here this whole time, I would have tried to find you. I would have searched for you. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so crazy or so alone or so…unworlded.
Had I known what you know, I wouldn’t have been so afraid. You are another of my shadows, a child of my shadows. You are a tiny organ grown inside my heart or my stomach.
I love you just the same. Madness, had I known it was you knocking at the door after trauma: father pinning for the mother, fists plangent like roots upon the brother, the dark parts we can’t remember. Madness, thank you for making the invisible visible. Even when your remembering is sharp. At least I know I am not alone.
–Me
templates for writing mad love letters to:
your madness
someone else’s madness
from your madness to you
Video Love Letter Example
It all begins with an idea. A way to see your madness, your experience, through your own ‘eyes’. There is no right or wrong way to share your experiences.
“I want to know about the meaning of love beyond the realm of fantasy-beyond what we imagine can happen. I want to know love’s truths as we live them”
-bell hooks, All About Love, xxvii