Meet Max Ramsey

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Max Ramsey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Max, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

Here I’m going to give some tips about dealing with mental health. I’m going to act as if you, the reader, have no idea what a therapist is or how to go about getting one. If you do know these things, great! This snippet may seem a little pedantic to you. This is mostly for those that have no idea how to navigate the system we currently have in place.
So, a little background on me first. I have CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder). The C gets added in when the trauma is persistent and over a long period of time. I won’t go into too much detail on my trauma, but it happened over the course of my childhood until I was ultimately removed from my home by DSS at the age of 16. I also have severe depression, anxiety, ADHD, and a list of other diagnoses that may or may not have stemmed from my trauma. No real way to know. This causes immense fatigue, moodiness, anger, the list goes on. All things I’ve had to learn to deal with, work around/with, and ultimately persist through.
Now that you know all that about me, I can tell you therapy and proper medication have been tantamount in my survival. It’s taken several years to find the right medicinal cocktail, and even longer to talk through my needs in therapy. But they both work together to give me the skills I need to navigate the world.
If you’ve been considering looking into counseling or seeing a doctor to start medication, “psychology today” is a great website that can help you find a provider in your area and you can narrow it down by your needs. Finding the right therapist for you can be hard, don’t be scared to ask them for a 15 minute consult to see if you’d be a good match. You don’t typically need a referral for a therapist, but you will likely need one for the psychologist that will prescribe any meds. Some therapists and psychologists work in tandem, some just work in the same office, and some are completely separate. Find what works for you. If cost is a hindering factor for you, there are many places in the upstate that offer sliding scale. (That means they take your income into account and adjust your payment to hopefuy something more affordable). Compass of Carolina is a great office that does that for therapy only.
But what if none of that were an option? Say, it costs too much, or right now you’re scared to talk to those people. Ok. What can you do for yourself right now? Some skills I’ve learned are square breathing, journaling, and excercise as a way of release. Square breathing, if you don’t know, is a sort of meditation. You breath in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breath out for four seconds, and then wait for four seconds. Rinse and repeat at least four times, but truly you can do it however many times feels right. You can even imagine drawing a square in your mind. Something about this method just resets your mind and system and really helps calm you down. Either during a panic attack or when you’re angry, whatever you need. These three things won’t “cure” you by any means, (the idea of curing mental illness is a whole other thing) but hopefully they can help.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a life long artist. I’ve been drawing, and in love with it, since I could pick up a crayon. Since high school that has shifted to focus primarily on metals and jewelry, though I do still have my drawings in the occasional gallery. My work was up at The Artistry for the month of September. That show is down now, but I’m looking for new places to display my drawings so stay tuned for that.
In regards to my jewelry work though, I own and operate Aconite & Silver, a “y’allternative” jewelry brand. Think, southern gothic meets cowboy meets punk. I like to take themes from nature and the beautiful area we live in, as well as sociopolitical themes, and make wearable art. I use genuine and ethically sourced gemstones and bones in my jewelry. I primarily work in silver, but do use gold, copper, and brass as accent metals. My favorite type of jewelry to make is bolo ties. I’m not sure why, I didn’t grow up with them being a very prominent accessory. But I love wearing and making them. I think it’s the versatility of them. They go with every outfit, in my opinion. Wear them traditionally like a tie, or you can wear them low – more like a necklace – or you can even use them as hat bands. Plus, since they’re typicay on the larger size, it gives more room for creativity. A bigger canvas if you will.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There are so many skills one has to have in order to run a small business. Task and time management, accounting skills, social media expertise, salesmanship. As a small business owner, you wear ALL the hats, especially at the beginning when you can’t afford to outsource those things. But what are the top 3? Hard to say. I’d say problem solving skills are definitely up there. So many things can go wrong in a day for a business owner, especially if you’re like me and you’re creating merchandise to sell. So you have to be able to go back to the drawing board and find a new solution, or else things don’t keep moving.
Another top tier skill to have is your ability to take critique. Now, of course there’s constructive criticism and there’s just tearing you down. You’ll have to be able to deal with both as a business owner, but being able to learn from those critiques (constructive or otherwise) is a huge skill to have. It can lead to a greatly improved situation- whether it be a product improvement, website improvement, or what have you.
Lastly, a great skill to have (and I’m not sure it’s so much a skill as a character trait) is resilience. Things are going to be hard, especially in your first few years as you build clientele. Even so, you have to keep going.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I would love to collaborate with other artists on some jewelry. Especially other queer artists. I’m also open to doing a shared gallery show for my drawings. Or, working together on a jewelry piece/collection. You can reach me via email or Instagram the easiest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aconiteandsilver.square.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aconiteandsilver/profilecard/?igsh=MXYxYzRwNjdvM3BhdA==
• Other: Contact.aconitesilver@gmail.com

Image Credits

Max Ramsey