Common Ground
by Julia Henkel
The Problem
My parents have been divorced since I was 2 years old. Every year on my birthday I would wish that they could be together again until I was about 10 I finally came to terms with my reality. Sense then I have lived a parallel life. When I would tell people that my parents were divorced, immediately their response would be “I’m so sorry” I would always respond, “don't be! It's completely normal for me. I have never known any other way. It doesn't affect me.” I never realized that this wasn't a normal experience until I was on my own at the start of my college career when I no longer had to pick and choose who I was every other week. This lead me to a huge identity crisis. Through 50 open ended interviews, reviewing multiple case studies, and my own personal experience I found what I went through was not abnormal. It is actually a very common for products of divorce to bottle up their true thoughts and emotion in order to keep a very unstable world secure.
Over the past 4 years, I have found it nearly impossible to have a conversation with someone else about how I am feeling and never have had the chance to really express any of it. Obviously this subject is kind of seen as somewhat “taboo”, but bottling it up and not talking to anyone about this can lead to mental health issues and depression.
Research Question
How can I create an outlet that starts conversation for young adults ages 18-25 who have experienced growing up in a split home in order to lower their risks of mental health issues and loss of identity?
Success Statement
By connecting individuals who have gone through similar emotional situations, as well as providing them with mental activities that allow them to express their internal emotions in a healthier way. Furthermore, lessening their risk at developing mental health issues.
Target Audience
young adults ages 18-25 who have gone through the emotional trauma of a divorced or split home.
Research
To ensure my problem was a problem, I began by looking in multiple different case studies that have followed individuals who have grown up in a divorced home. Lead me into different case studies about the biggest stressors of marriage and how they effect the children ability to cope and deal with certain emotions.
I realize that this is a very emotional topic and the people I will be targeting often struggle with talking about their difficult emotional situations, therefore open ended interviews were my best option. From theri I coded through my interviews to discover similarities in each interview.
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Alone, mental health, balance, communication, young children, isolation, children, mediation, connection, protection, bottled, internal, grief, lost, identity, opinion, loneliness, intimacy, emotional.
Design Process
I formed a relationship with multiple individuals that come from all different background and have gone through divorce or a split home. From the relationship I built with over 100 people I found they wanted something that would help them find a common ground. Through the personal stories I found that they needed something that would teach them how to be their most true version of themselves as well as problem solving tools to help them cope and express their emotions in a healthy way. I needed to create something that would allow people to choose how public they wanted to be with their conversation as well as guid them to a healthier way of coping.
I decided to start the conversation telling my own story and using images that I have created in order to cope with certain emotional traumas and used the works to express and connect with others that have gone through similar situations.
Design Solution
As a result of these interviews I decided to generate a series of 6 books that address the 5 stages of grief related specifically to the effects of a split home. Each book contains a story, a conversation journal, and a heuristic that confront and discuss the stage of grief that the content is in. In order to keep the conversation going beyond the first series of books, I generated a website that would allow individuals to share their story and choose what book they would want their story to be told in. This will allow the the series to expand and connect more individuals. website allows one to order a single book or whole series as well as connect with other people sharing this similar feeling of being alone and actually upload their stories. We want this to be a continual series, so every year we will release a new series with different stories, but with the same subject and content.
