Hi, I am M.-L. Stranger, and you just have entered my Stranger Zone.

One of my Instagram Followers recently asked me, ‘How did you start making art?”

The true answer is I began to create digital collages when I felt like sh+t mentally. I’ve had anxiety issues almost my entire life, and when they came back, haunting me after years of being able to live again, I needed something to distract myself from the freaking madhouse circus in my head.

I spent weeks almost exclusively lying in bed, doom-scrolling the internet, worrying, beating myself up, hating on the world, and acting like I was dead already.

Succumbing to Society’s Pressure

The thing is, I have always been the odd one out. While I tried to fit into what society calls ‘normal’ in my younger years, one day, I decided to live my life. I started to be who I wanted to be unapologetically. But on another day, a random event perceptually challenged me to succumb to society’s pressure to be someone I don’t want to be again. It seemed that there was no way out of that situation, and I felt like I was breaking a promise I had given myself long ago when I recovered from severe agoraphobia: Never let anyone else determine who I am or how to live my life again. So, I went down the anxiety rabbit hole.

On the worst day of crawling in that dark tunnel, I also remembered that I also promised myself that I would never let myself slip back into a situation where anxiety prevents me from living. While lying in bed, I had a random flashback of when I found happiness in making an analog collage wallpaper border in my Berliner apartment.

Stupid Little Collages

The rest is history. I started making stupid little collages on my computer in bed to get out of bed again. The happy end is that I am standing again, and now I find joy in being myself through the collages and sharing them with fellow oddballs, whom I call ‘Strangers.’

Thanks for being interested in how Human in Design started, and I hope you’ll find something around here that enhances your Stranger side and celebrates the weirdo in you with me.

Stay Surreal.

Yours truly, M.-L. Stranger (The gal that creates all the weirdo stuff in these realms).