An artist has opened up about her journey of healing after a mental health crisis, praising the services of a treatment facility that is hosting her collaborative art show.

Kimberley Fisher worked on the exhibition with her close friend, Ishrat Yakub Corday, to help break down mental health stigmas and raise awareness of the holistic services at Dignity House.

Ms Fisher and Ms Yakub Corday originally planned to work on a collaborative art project at the start of the year exploring the imagery of emotions.

However, Ms Fisher was battling some longstanding challenges and experienced a mental health crisis in May.

Concerned for her wellbeing, she checked herself into Dignity House, which provides support and treatment services, helping people to regain mental and emotional balance through “compassionate care”.

Ms Fisher, who took part in a four-week intensive inpatient programme at the facility, nestled in a neighbourhood overlooking North Shore in Pembroke, said: “People are feeling desperate and they are doing such good work at Dignity House. It was such a healing process.

“It doesn’t have that clinical feel; they have psychologists, psychiatry and the talk therapies, and they also bring in the metaphysical, which is cool — so we go for beach meditations, we do personal training and yoga, which is all part of the programme. It’s very holistic in that sense.

“Another thing I really loved is that they integrate your family so it's not like you check out and you are back in the world on your own; they bring in your partners, your parents even your children.

“That helped me to integrate back into work and family life.”

During her treatment, Ms Fisher’s counsellor, Alexis Swan, suggested that she work on an exhibition as an assignment for her therapy programme.

Ms Fisher considered Dr Swan’s advice and decided to revisit the idea of collaborating with her friend on a creative project.

“My counsellor said, ‘I see you drawing a lot, let’s channel it into an exhibition here’.

“That’s when I felt, we are still going to work on this together and now it’s an assignment for my health. We worked for a month and created all ten pieces.”

Ms Yakub Corday added: “We shifted to focus not just on emotion but depicting the different traits of mental health.

“It became a way to express emotions and process them as part of a healing journey. It added a lot of depth to it.”

Ms Fisher, who is introducing therapeutic arts as part of the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art’s education programme as its education officer, had experience in producing cyanotypes, a photographic printing process that creates blue, monochromatic prints using the sun’s rays.

Ms Yakub Corday, who is studying for an online Photojournalism and Documentary Photography master’s degree at the London College of Communications under the University of Arts London, took photographs and wove a narrative through accompanying passages that described different feelings and mental conditions, while Ms Fisher collaged the images and created the cyanotypes.

An intimate showing for invited guests took place this week at Dignity House.

Ms Fisher and Ms Yakub Corday said the show was not only a collaboration between the two of them but also with the sun, the exposure from which influenced the tones on the chemically treated paper.

They said the final collaborators were the people who came to view the art because they were invited to share their interpretations in the absence of any artist commentary, aside from the exhibition title, Mentally (Ill) Well.

Ms Fisher explained: “It’s like a blind study; there are no write-ups when you go in and look at the images.

“You fill out a form to say what each one means to you — what does it invoke? What thoughts, memories or stories are you telling as you look at each one?

“Then you get this handout and see what the artists were thinking. Last night, I was reading them and it was so powerful.

“They got it, and even when they didn’t specifically get the situation, it was powerful how they were drawing comparisons to their own lives.”

Ms Yakub Corday added: “It was really cool seeing them as collaborators.

“The purpose is to have art that can be felt and that resonates with people. That is what good art is; social art has an impact on the viewer.

“It was very easy to work together; even with her being here, it was an easy process because we both know what our strengths are.

“Collaboration is an important artistic medium.”

Kimberley Ball-Darceuil, the chief executive of Dignity House who is a registered nurse, said the “hallmark” of the facility’s services is dialectic behaviour therapy.

She explained: “There are two sections to the therapy — acceptance and change.

“Under acceptance, we have mindfulness, which is being in the present moment, and distress tolerance, where you learn to tolerate stresses that come to you.

“Where you talk about change, you have emotional regulation where you can control how you feel about something, and interpersonal effectiveness which is how you communicate with people.”

Dignity House provides group and individual sessions for a range of conditions including anxiety, depression, trauma and substance abuse, and works to ensure its clients leave the facility with proper support networks in place.

She added: “Family and friends need to know how to manage.

“With some mental illnesses, families walk on eggshells around the person. When they go home, families may remember the last time you were there you broke the window and they are still walking on eggshells.

“It’s important to learn about how they feel and how you can assist them into the realm of wellness rather than hold them hostage.

“It’s not humane to do that — you have to be in a mode of being helpful and supportive.”

Reflecting on her time at Dignity House, Ms Fisher said: “The therapy helped so much. It’s called an intensive for a reason — every day for four weeks, you have some form of therapy.

“Yes, it was difficult at times, but knowing I was finally in a place where I could look at it safely was the biggest gift.”

The Dignity Foundation is a charitable arm of the operation that runs on the premise that socioeconomic or financial status should not be a barrier to receiving mental health support services.

All funds donated to the foundation go towards the therapies on offer at Dignity House.

• Anyone in need of outpatient or inpatient services can find information at dignityhousebm.com and anyone wishing to make a donation can do so at dignityhousebm.com/foundation