Hi! We're Janne & Femke

At the age of 12, Janne Schellingen (20) created a Tumblr account. She got to meet people who experienced the same feelings of loneliness, sadness and depression that she felt. Posting about these feelings were a way of coping with them. By now, Janne has gotten better, but she sometimes still struggles with it. Definitely when she’s watching a tv show that brings up the problems she faced when she was younger.

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Two of Femke Lippens' (22) biggest passions are movies and television. Ask her if she’s seen the newest Netflix original and she probably binged it the day it came out. She often watches a season in a day, which easily makes her get emotionally invested in the characters and stories. Although that may be a positive thing to write reviews, it can also have negative effects on her. Watching shows that deal with topics like mental health can influence or trigger Femke, as she dealt with depression in the past. Shows like Skins had a long-lasting effect on her mental health.

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With both having a history of mental health issues, we knew we wanted to do something around the topic for our final work. After digging around for a bit, we found that there’s often a problem in the portrayal of psychological illnesses in the TV industry. Mental illnesses are often romanticised; the characters’ lives seem more appealing and aesthetically pleasing than how mental illness is in real life.

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With this blog, we’ll be looking into this phenomenon and trying to open up a conversation about mental health.