Man-made illness, mental health, nudes and body neutrality with Imogen Ivy

Hello and welcome back to STATE OF MIND, with me Grace Kingswell.  Today’s guest is someone I’ve been wanting to talk to for ages, she’s always at the top of my Instagram stories and I devour everything she puts online. Her name is Imogen Ivy and she’s a creative director, photographer and videographer from Australia, living in London.    What drew me to Imogen to begin with was her dancing, her joyful, uninhibited, dancing-in-the-middle-of-the-street in London type of dancing - the kind that lifts your soul and makes you smile ridiculously at your phone screen, whilst also simultaneously thinking “gosh I wish I could move my body like that.”    As the months passed I started to get fragments of a health battle via Imogen’s Instagram, she speaks a lot about movement as a privilege, and having had that privilege taken away form her in her past. She’s eloquent and well-versed, in the way that only one with personal experience could be, on the topics of mental health and body neutrality too.    I was really intrigued.    What follows in this episode is an utterly heartbreaking, in places, and raw account of her journey with mental health that went from being probably quite a standard issue to a medically-induced, man-made shit show.    Thank you to Imogen for sharing her incredible story with us, and providing lots of humour and important messages along the way. You can find her on instagram @imogenfkingivy   This episode is sponsored by @wearesamudra, a sustainable activewear brand based in London. Don’t forget to check out wearesamudra.com for 10% off their gorgeous collection.   -- @gracekingswell