“Once Upon a Time”-

Four simple and powerful words. From an early age we are exposed to the power of storytelling.when we hear a story, our bodies produce the hormone oxytocin, and we instantly start to connect with the person we're listening to. Stories bind us together and help us make sense of our experiences.

Each year, millions of people face the reality of living with a mental illness. Nearly 450 million people worldwide live with a mental illness, yet nearly two-thirds of people with a known mental illness never seek treatment.

Now, how do these two phrases relate to each other? We each have our own unique story. We also have our ways of dealing with troubles, whether that's singing a song, writing in a journal, or painting.

So why don't we bring this all together to form an all-inclusive community? That's when the Obscure Sorrows Project comes in.

Maxwell Mandell created the Obscure Sorrows Project in 2018. It originated just as an album with a narrative of what it's like going through depression, or other forms of mental illness. Not only to explain to others who haven't been through it, but also to support those with a mental illness. It slowly grew bigger and bigger until the concept became the beginnings of a community.

A community that comes together to tell their stories, and construct creations inspired by stories told.

But why tell stories? Especially stories from darker days? When we run from the past, we lose our identity, no matter how successful we become. When we remove emotion and purely replace it with logic, we lose our humanity. There's no base 10, base 2, or other numbering scheme that can add up each individual person's experience. That is what makes us unique.

Not how you invented something, or created the next best thing. Our experiences and dreams mold us into the people we become. When we look back on the past, it allows us to study the nature of ourselves and helps us recognize why we do what we do.

Sure it's not healthy to look too much into the past, or keep your mind there for too long, but it can help change the way we think about hardships from the past. In addition, it can help us construct redemption narratives that focus on how we've triumphed over adversity, learned something valuable, or made the best of a bad situation. The randomness inherent in many adverse events can be incredibly distressing. Nostalgia can help us make sense of them and give them purpose. And that is precisely what the Obscure Sorrows Project is for.

The Obscure Sorrows Project:

Helping you make sense of your past by giving it PURPOSE and CREATIVITY.