A Taste for Air and Water

This is the herstory of a young dancer whose ballet training was disrupted byschizophrenia, and her journey back to the arts through recovery.The visual memoir A Taste for Air and Water, by Tabitha Ines is an autobiographicalaccount set in New York following the life of a female coming of age withschizophrenia during the Millennium. The main conflict that Tabitha enduresis how to not only navigate love with a mental health condition but also how toembark on womanhood without the internal stigma of psychosis defining whatfemales should look like based on stereotypes, misrepresentation and sexism.Family and friends, romantic partners and companions, animal connectionsand ultimately community and peer support are pivotal influences in shapingthe narrator's childhood, adolescence and adulthood into psychosis recoveryfrom comorbidities such as depression, disordered eating and substance misusein educational and work environments. Major themes in the book include artin death and rebirth, gender identity and feminism, and history and humorwhile experiencing academia and employment with mental health symptoms.The serious nature of living a life from traumatic events oftentimes isovershadowed by the humorous sides of living with neurodivergence in theworld. Inclusion and acceptance is better achieved with the help of mentalhealth resources and addiction services, community and peer support, work andschool balance, and healthy creative works and spiritual spaces such as throughwriting, photography and dancing, so our dreams as people living with mentalhealth conditions can be realized.