Mental illness is an intangible thing that can be all but impenetrable to those who don't experience it.

That's why the U.K.-based artist Toby Allen decided to draw different mental illnesses as monsters, as a way of helping himself and ultimately others. 

"The project originated from imagining my own anxieties as monsters and finding it to be a cathartic and healing process to draw them," Allen told The Huffington Post in an email. "It made them feel weaker and I was able to look at my own anxiety in a comical way. I wanted to expand upon this idea and draw other representations of mental illnesses that could help people in the same way it helped me."

Allen's "Real Monsters" series is a collection of illustrations that anthropomorphize mental illnesses like depression, schizophreniaand body dysmorphic disorder.

[For more of this story, written by Cavan Seiczkowski, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...e039e4b04ae497053e34]