From sexism to sexual abuse, the media has dredged up some of the music industry’s most shameful truths in the last few months alone, but there’s still far more work to be done. While these issues are incredibly important and shouldn’t be discounted, mental illness continues to be stigmatized within the music community.
Opening up about mental illness isn’t easy—it can be an overwhelming, emotionally draining struggle. But more often than not it’s also cathartic. An opportunity to challenge—and change—the negative stereotypes that surround those two uncomfortable words: mental illness.
Kurt Cobain, Britney Spears, Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, Demi Lovato—the music industry has seen the suffering of countless artists. Britney Spears’ and Sinead O’Connor’s fights with mental illness have even seen their struggles turned into cruel memes. The vulnerability of mental illness is often mocked, but these issues are no joke. We all need to get comfortable having this conversation—because it’s far more common than you might think. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illnesss, 43.8 million adults experience mental illness in a given year in the U.S. (that’s 1 in 5 people).
[For more of this story, written by Illan Kaplan, go to http://observer.com/2016/05/wh...bout-mental-illness/]
Comments (0)