Mohanad Kojak, founder and creator of Kojak Studio, is one of the region’s youngest breakthrough couture designers, known for his bold, out-of-the-box approach to fashion.
Kojak is also the youngest participant of Project Runway Middle East as well as alumni of the 10th season of Fashion Forward Dubai.
On July 1st, Ally Salama, the founder of Empower spoke to Mohanad, gaining a deeper insight into his story and his struggles with mental health, after publicly announcing that it’s been a while since he has been seeing a therapist regularly.
The Experience
“It’s been 2 years that I’ve been seeing a therapist regularly,” says Kojak, expressing how difficult the journey was, after cutting ties from a friendship that meant a lot to him.
“I was mainly struggling with severe anxiety and early symptoms of depression to the point where, if even the door rang… I’d tiptoe to the door, feeling deeply uncomfortable. It was getting a bit too exhausting. It reached levels where everything would make me feel anxious and uncomfortable. I became more aggressive than usual.
Mohanad Kojak on Therapy
“At the beginning, I thought it was me; that something was wrong about me, not being friends anymore with that individual. Over time – that changed with therapy. The thing about seeing psychologists or therapists is that they often make us view things from different perspectives, that we otherwise do not see when we’re too deep in our minds,” he expresses.
“I remember putting a Facebook post for my friends asking them to recommend therapists. I was surprised; a lot of people followed up to ask if I had found a therapist – if it worked,” Kojak tells Ally Salama, whose eagerness to understand Mohanad’s journey allowed space for the designer to further explain his experience with therapy in Egypt.
“With therapy, you can skip one or two or three until you find someone whom you’re comfortable with,” Kojak explains, “I remember – before – I couldn’t really express myself, no matter how long I’d go on about talking, it never would quite describe the specific emotion or feeling I was experiencing.”
Mental Health in The Middle East
On behalf of the Empower Team, we’d like to thank Mohanad Kojak for being part of the conversation around mental health, here, in the Middle East.
It is with extreme certainty that his bold style in fashion is an authentic representation of the person who wears their heart on their sleeve.
Mohanad and Ally spoke about the Middle East’s current perception on therapy, as a profession, indicating that indeed – the stigma attached to “seeing someone” still maintains to exist, to a large extent.
Not everyone can afford the luxury of seeking professional help, let alone share the matter of fact that they do, indeed, seek psychological help.
On behalf of the Empower Team, we’d like to thank Mohanad Kojak for being part of the conversation around mental health, here, in the Middle East.
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