Proof that it's always okay to open up.
Belfast-born photographer Vanessa Ifediora is known for her beautifully melancholy portraits and her mental health advocacy. “I was living in Japan and I got into photography whilst suffering from anxiety,” she explains. “I found it helped me rejoin the world around me. I love storytelling through images and allowing myself to be vulnerable through my work.”
I never whispered a word of my struggle with it for the best part of twenty years, out of shame or fearing people would shun me,
Her latest project, Off-White Sheets, is a book of portraits, stories and poems relating to her experience with a condition known as Maladaptive Dreaming, which causes intense daydreaming that is highly addictive. “I never whispered a word of my struggle with it for the best part of twenty years, out of shame or fearing people would shun me, when in fact the opposite has happened. Now, I frequently receive messages from people with MD saying they feel a sense of relief that they're not alone.”
Now, I frequently receive messages from people with MD saying they feel a sense of relief that they're not alone
For the full article, check out this month's Irish Tatler. On shelves now...
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