FAC Insights: Mental Health Awareness Week with Mad Millennials

FAC Insights is a forum for us to showcase and share long form pieces looking at various parts of the music industry and the society that shapes it. Pieces take the form of videos, interviews, discussions, articles and more.

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week we spoke to Char from Mad Millennials to delve deeper into the struggles artists may face with their mental health in the music industry and what resources are available.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and why you started Mad Millennials

I am a music artist and I'm also the co-founder of Mad Millennials. I started Mad Millennials due to my own struggles with my mental health. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a type of witch is called Pure O, I also struggle with panic attacks and lots of anxiety all of which can be very frightening and tricky to deal with. That’s why I wanted to create a safe space for people to know they've got people fighting their corner. 

Can you tell us a bit more about Mad Millennials and what help is available

At Mad Millennials, we are a peer support led service. We are people with lived experiences, some of us, come from a mental health background or have more professional experiences, but generally as a team, we are there to support based on our own lived experiences and we encourage other people to do so with the resources we provide such as, conversation starters, workshops and events.

I think what makes us different is that we have really transparent, open and honest conversations. We don't shy away from difficult topics, a lot of us know what anxiety is now, but a lot of us don't know what comes with these symptoms and also, more complex mental health issues and how different gender identities and cultural backgrounds and the careers we choose together with our family backgrounds and relationships can all come into play.

In true millennial style we have started a podcast called ‘We’re All Just Winging It’. We Also started a voices radio show called ‘Unmasked’, where we speak to music artists, music industry professionals, and delve deep into the masks that we hide behind. Having transparent conversations and understanding the pressures, but also the pleasure of the music industry and how healing music and the arts can be.

Can you tell us a bit more about the help people can access via Mad Millennials?

We are here to support anybody who's struggling with day-to-day life, with mild to moderate symptoms or just wants to have a safe space, a safe chat with people who really get it and who have been there. With a peer support model like ours, it’s important to note that we’re not trying to take away from professional traditional therapies. So if the struggles are more complex, or you're concerned about the thoughts that you are having, you should always speak to your GP or a mental health professional.

While we are building our online digital community we also want to ensure we offer safe spaces offline that our community has access to. Online spaces can quickly get overwhelming and we know it's not always an accurate reflection of real life. So whilst we're building an online, digital community we also wanna do as much as possible to bring things into the real world, into offline spaces, in real life events, podcasts, live shows, or one-to-ones.

In the music industry what are some challenges that may impact artist’s mental health?

It's absolutely no secret that the music industry presents a lot of variables and a lot of challenging circumstances which do make us as artists more vulnerable to experiencing mental health struggles. There is a whole spectrum of what challenges we can face as artists and there's no one size fits all, all of these pose a complete, unique set of circumstances from any other industry.

As artists, we are exposed to all the elements so it's important to set boundaries. Of course, you need to get the big ones in order, like your sleep, what you're eating, whether you are moving, and don't get me wrong it sounds like I'm just rolling these off like they're easy things, but sometimes those are the hardest things. In setting boundaries around work and life unlike in other industries, where there is often a pattern for when you are in work, your work hours and then when you have free time, for us, it’s pretty impossible for our life not to become intertwined completely with our work. It’s really important we try to separate our work time and personal time and this will ultimately help your work and creativity.

There’s also a huge element of competition in artists’ careers, this can feel really isolating which I think is why a peer support network like ours is such a good opportunity for artists to be a part of. Being able to speak to people who have had similar experiences in the same industry can really help us to connect and just having that connection with someone can make you feel supported.

What does the future look like for Mad Millennials?

We're very passionate about both sides of the music industry so while we want to support artists, we’re also keen to support fans and explore the healing capacity that music and the arts can provide.

We will be having a presence at some music events this summer. You can have the best time of your life at a festival, but also it can magnify if you're not feeling great and you've rocked up and you can see everyone happy around you, then it can be quite jarring if that's not how you are feeling on the inside. There's a lot of crowds around and you might find yourself super panicky so, being able to have a space where you can chat to people who are trained in peer support, we hope, will be super helpful.

Stay tuned in what we're doing. Send us a message if you wanna get involved because we're always happy to bring more people into our wonderful team and just continue to grow and support people and make sure people don't fall through the gaps and the cracks of services because they are overstretch and it is expensive to find private therapy and to know where to turn.