“Your father’s lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster. An elegant weapon… for a more civilized age.” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Hope.

In the old republic of the Star Wars Universe, Jedi’s were the “guardians of peace and Justice in the galaxy”, a kind of police force if you will. They were noted for two things: the use of the force, and their use of a lightsaber, as illustrated by the quote above, famously given by Sir Alec Guinness to Mark Hamill in the ‘first’ Star Wars film (first shot, fourth chronologically and original original).

A Jedi apprentice (a Padawan) would practice for many years to learn how to master the lightsaber after they had personally built it themselves with parts and a crystal to power the beam. The type of crystal would determine the colour of the beam. They would usually start training at a very young age and be taken on by a master for apprenticeship before taking tests to be finally called a Jedi. There would then be many more years of training to eventually become a master, and maybe sit on the jedi council. Even in his advanced years, Yoda (often thought to be the last great master of the Jedi (acted and voiced by the great puppeteer Frank Oz)) still had lessons to learn from fellow masters of the Force.

So why all this talk about a fictional weapon created by a geeky guy back in the 70’s? Well, because it reflects one of the first tools in my battle against Mental Health I am using. Sadly, it’s not learning the force, or how to use a lightsaber, but this skill is easy to pick up, hard to put down and can take years to master too: Crochet.

I took up knitting about 4 years ago when I was retired from work and sitting at home all day either playing games on my console, watching TV, or learning to code on the laptop. It occured to me that all my pastimes involved sitting in front of a screen of some form or another, so I decided it was time to find something to do that didn’t require a screen. I went over many things, most of them too expensive or too bulky to be portable before I fell on the idea of knitting. I didn’t have any knitting needles or yarn at home, so I found some chopsticks, some string, sat in front of YouTube (yes, I see the irony) and started to learn how to knit. after about two hours, I had a very basic (and very tight) swatch of several rows of knit stitch and knew I wanted to try it for real. I started making several things like a cup cosy and basic scarf. I even knitted a monkey which came in a magazine and a sheep I sent to a friends daughter for her newborn. But then I soon lost the itch to stitch and it fell by the wayside.

Crochet had always been on my radar, but never taken up in earnest till my mother suddenly picked it up in the last year. I found it amazing what she was crocheting and really wanted to try too. When my partner and I found a couple of toy kits at the local supermarket, we thought this was the perfect opportunity to do something together. Sadly, the box didn’t come with a how-to, only very vague stitching instructions. We had no idea what a magic circle or a double treble were. I looked it up online (YouTube to the rescue again) and slowly started to make practice swatches.

I found that crochet was a lot easier to pick up (for me) and a lot more forgiving than Knitting. After I felt confident, I tried to make the kit we had bought in the supermarket. I even took it on holiday with me in April with the foolish notion I would complete it in the week we were there. I was still crocheting the head on the plane on the way home, and noticing that the shape was starting to look more like a lemon than a head shape for a giraffe. Needless to say, it lay dormant for several months not doing anything.

Three weeks ago, when I was put on sick leave to get used to my new medication – see my previous blog and first in this series – I decided I needed something else to do with my time off, something more productive than binge watching Star Trek. I decided to go back to basics and start with a slightly less ambitious project than a crochet Giraffe from a cheap kit at the supermarket. So I looked in the crochet book I’d bought and found a pattern for a Granny Square. My first one took about two and half episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 to make, but I’d made it. The next day, it took about two episodes; getting better. Over the next week, I made more and more, and by the end of the week, it was taking me about an hour to make one square. The important thing was, I was keeping my mind and my hands busy, watching something I liked (I’ve been a trekkie since I was about 8) and doing something constructive with my time. I was also keeping my mind off the withdrawal from tablets and allowing my body time to recover from the experience I’d just gone through.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve made one square a day, come what may; even when I was in hospital for a minor operation, I was making squares all dressed for surgery. Even the surgeon asked if my stitches were as good as his (for the record, they’re not, his stitches were excellent and have all healed up). This activity, along with going for regular walks and talking openly with a psychiatrist, has helped me get back on my feet and get over the Mental Health issues I was having which caused me to go off sick. What’s interesting is, I’m not alone.

Hundreds of people – both women and men – have found that crochet, or one of the other fibre craft such as knitting, cross-stitching and felting, have helped them deal with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, restlessness and more. In some countries, it’s even being prescribed by doctors as therapy for minor ailments! In fact, crafting has been a form of Occupational Therapy for over a 100 years, prescribed to veterans of world war one. Research has also shown that engaging with the arts boosts mental wellbeing, not to mention reduce isolation, lower cortisol… I could go on for pages and pages, but one quick Google search on “Crafting for Mental Health” will show you more than enough evidence. I also recently came across a blog post by a fellow redditor who explains how the art of Crochet has helped him stay focused at work during seemingly endless conference calls.

The other great thing about crochet is that it is also supported by the second tool in this series (the cat) which will be explained in a later post. The community of crochet is a very inviting and friendly one, and one I have been delighted to interact with over the last couple of weeks. They’ve offered tips and tricks to help my granny squares, and even given me the confidence to create a bigger project as a present to a work colleague of my partner’s. Through this community, I also found that there are others out there who are using crochet as a mental health salve and have managed to connect with them, such as #grannysquaretherapy on Instagram, and a local support group called the knit and natter group.

Just as Luke fought off the Stormtroopers with his Lightsaber, I’m fighting my own battles against mental health with the crochet hook as my weapon. It’s by no means perfect, which is why it needs to be supported by the other tools in my arsenal against Mental Health, but it’s a good start, and one that I wish I had found earlier.