Luckily, It’s Only Something Mental

An intimate photographic work about my husband’s return to everyday life after seven weeks in a psychosomatic clinic, and the nonlinear space between acute illness and recovery.

“Luckily, it’s only something mental,” my 82-year-old mother said when I told her that my husband Martin was going to spend several weeks in a psychosomatic clinic because of recurring depression and anxiety. She did not mean it dismissively. To her, a mental illness was something one should somehow be able to get under control – unlike a severe physical illness.

During Martin’s seven-week stay, the sentence became an ironic running joke among the patients. He even had sweatshirts printed with the phrase and gave them away as “merchandise”.

I picked Martin up from the clinic on April 1st. We found the date amusing: his discharge as an April Fool’s joke. Like the rest of our family, we believed that the hardest part was now behind him and that ordinary life could begin again.

It did not.

Back home, everyday situations suddenly demanded enormous amounts of energy. Choosing food in a supermarket became overwhelming. Meeting people, making decisions or simply participating in ordinary life could leave Martin exhausted for hours. Shortly after returning home, he told me: “Somehow my brain no longer fits my environment.”

I began photographing this period after his discharge. The work developed from the position of a wife, not an outside observer. It is about depression, but even more about what happens after treatment: the slow and nonlinear negotiation of everyday life, intimacy, autonomy and care.

Humour became an important part of the work. On the day of his discharge, Martin spontaneously held a table-tennis ball to his nose. The image became the first photograph of the series. This mixture of absurdity and heaviness has stayed with the work ever since.

Over time, Martin has begun to recognise his own limits and needs more clearly. Meditation, rest, nature and time alone have become part of his life. Our relationship has changed as well; at times the “we” has had to make room for his need to withdraw.

The work is ongoing. There is no clear point of recovery and no conclusion. What interests me is precisely this space in between: when the acute crisis is over, but life has not simply returned to what it was before.