Written by Kate Speer, Founder
~
It all started sixteen years ago in the psych ward. Psychotic, hypomanic, and raging against a world that never seemed to love me back, I began to scribble in one of my college notebooks:
Over the course of the next two weeks in the ward, I drew t-shirts and sweatshirts and buttons and pins. Then I moved on to collage — to the idea that the apparel could involve a community art project component — not everyone would want ‘batshit crazy’ on a T-shirt, after all, but everyone loves art.
My room in the psych ward became my art studio. Collage cutouts, doodles galore and scribble-covered paper covered every inch of the room. My doctors upped my meds at that point assuming it was a manic break. And the truth was — maybe it was a manic break. But the antipsychotics didn’t stop me. I kept scribbling. I kept sketching. I kept cutting pieces of paper into abstract art. And most of all, I kept believing in a world that would love me and people like me back. I kept believing in a future that held actual safety for people in the darkest of darkness.
I first came across my sketches six years ago. The art project framework — the idea that each collection elevated a different artist and there was a symbol to connect community — was what we used at The Dogist to launch The Dogist Shop. But dog lovers are accepted — beloved actually — so the project, although successful, did not hold the power I’d always dreamt of. My knee-jerk reaction upon realizing this was to try my own hand at the mental illness advocacy apparel — to run a beta with my incredible friend and fellow mental health advocate Taylor using print-on-demand technology because it was the only way I could afford it. But even after creating the entire project, every part of me wailed against it —- the ethics, environmental and humanitarian were out of alignment with who I was and who I wanted to be as I moved through this world. So, I stopped marketing it and paused the project indefinitely.
And then, this March, The Dogist restructured and as I wept and disappeared into a depression of self-hatred and binging, I sought out to finally finish a memoir and began by organizing the many Tupperware boxes of hospital records and college papers. One random Wednesday, I came across my sketches and scribbles. I found my bizarre collages and written ruminations about a world where there was a symbol for mental illness safety and acceptance. I’d like to say the fire to build it out immediately rekindled but it didn’t. Instead, I wept violently that entire afternoon on the floor of our garage and spent months believing that this idea was doomed – that if I failed at the Dogist then I’d fail at this too and I didn’t have the heart or stamina to fail my people, my true people.
A few months later, after a few self-affirming events with Harvard, I found myself in a bout of hyperfocus devoted to the history of symbols. That night, I read of the ancient tilde. In medieval times, scribes would write a ‘~’ to hold space for words or ideas they did not yet know. The ancient tilde literally meant to hold space and curiosity for what was not yet known. It meant exactly what I believed would most help people with mental illness – safety in presence and kind curiosity in action – and it was exactly what I wanted the symbol of safety, solidarity and support to signify.
That was the moment it all changed. It was the moment I knew I was ready to try again – to begin again – to build another company, even if it failed, because I finally had the symbol. Yes, I finally had the answer to the question I had written over and over and over again all over my college notebooks — what symbol actually means to hold safe space — to hold kind curiosity for all the colors and seasons that we are, exactly as we are?
So here we are, together, at a new beginning.
Rather, here we are, together, at the continuance of the work that so many before me have bravely done to help people with serious mental illness.
I am so gosh darn excited.
And even though that undeniable enthusiasm I feel is also coupled with a deep fear of failure and stigma, I am doing it anyway.
Yes, I am doing it anyway – with you.
Because it is time –
It is absolutely time – for us to build a world where people with serious mental illness belong safely and unabashedly.
It is time for us to fight for that place where it is safe to be fully ourselves in heartbreak and darkness, in every color and every season, exactly as we are.
Yes, it is time indeed, and holy heck – I am so grateful to have you here with me as we build this world together.
And good golly goodness, I already cannot wait to see you there.