NOMC’s You Got This mental health initiative led a panel discussion on suicide prevention in Los Angeles on July 1, 2018.
The NOMC team presented a call to action about the growing suicide epidemic in the creative community at the Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA)‘s annual conference last week. The panel, named after the NOMC program YOU GOT THIS and led by NOMC’s Co-Founding Director Bethany Bultman, featured one of the authors of the Australian study on creatives and mental health, Dr. Mark Seton; Jennie Morton, the British author of numerous books on performance wellness; Dr. Patrick Gannon, San Francisco psychologist who is our You Got This advisor, and renowned musician and songwriter James Blake speaking out about this crisis.
The You Got This panel addressed what many studies have suggested is an underreported epidemic of mental health issues among working musicians. According to the experts at PAMA, there are many reasons why musicians and other creatives are more predisposed to mental health issues and suicide than their peers: the physical and mental demands of the craft, lack of access to healthcare, and a culture that romanticizes substance abuse as a symbol of artistic free-spiritedness.
There is even a growing body of evidence suggesting that there may be a neurological link between creativity and certain kinds of mental illness. The You Got This Mental Health Initiative and Task Force grew out of this ongoing suicide epidemic. You Got This focuses on optimal mental wellbeing and the prevention of suicide by fostering self-care tactics and effective mental health resources for those in the music industry and creative communities.
The NOMC reminds you that You Got This! If you are creative and suffer from depression, anxiety or other mental health issues, you also have the creative gifts to shine a light and crawl out of the darkness. You are not alone.
Learn more about YOU GOT THIS and see our resources at nomaf.org/YGT
Support the You Got This Mental Health & Suicide Prevention Initiative – Give Now
See press for the recent YOU GOT THIS panel:
Billboard | Consequence of Sound | The Guardian | Resident Advisor | Pitchfork | Fader
“There is this myth that you have to be anxious to be creative, that you have to be depressed to be a genius,” James Blake said during the PAMA panel. Click image to read the Billboard article.
