Now We're Talking in partnership with Lyons Tea & Pieta House

Our mental health is of vital importance. In Ireland, we need to break the stigma that surrounds mental health and empower people – and especially young people – to talk.

That is why Lyons Tea, Pieta House and Hot Press have joined forces on the Now We’re Talking campaign.

Featuring: Lewis Capaldi, Billie Eilish, Fontaines D.C., Jessie Buckley, The Murder Capital, Stefanie Preissner, Dylan McGrath, Joanne McNally and Elaine Austin of Pieta House Essential Tracks That Inspire You To Recapture the Light

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NOW WE’RE TALKING

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year ago, Hot Press joined forces with Lyons Tea and Pieta House. The purpose of the collaboration was to take the Lyons Tea-inspired Now We’re Talking campaign on Mental Health to a new level.

This is an issue that matters deeply to everyone involved in the Now We’re Talking campaign.

Historically, Irish people were very uncomfortable talking about mental health issues. If and when difficulties arose, the response tended to be a simplistic one. We’ve all heard the sentiments at one stage or another. Cop yourself on. Get it together. Would you for God’s sake smile!

Where it was very serious, and thoughts of suicide or self-harm entered the equation, it became even harder. The culture here was that these feelings were not to be talked about. Instead, to a very great extent, they were swept under the proverbial carpet. Hidden. Institutionalised.

Out of sight.

There was a stigma attached to any admission of vulnerability. To feel stressed, depressed or full of anxiety was regarded as a sign of weakness.

And as a result, too often, it became a secret – and a guilty one at that.

Now We’re Talking stands firmly in opposition to that culture of shame.

To date, the campaign has achieved a remarkable level of progress. Dozens of leading lights in Irish music, arts and culture have joined the conversation.

As you will see reading Now We’re Talking, we have also spoken to some of the newest big stars on the international block.

There will be new videos with some of our leading young musical lights.

A major event, 'Now We’re Talking Live – An Evening of Live Music and Discussion on Mental Health', will take place in Smock Alley on World Mental Health Day, October 10th, see page 5 for full details.

In this special supplement, we also put a fresh emphasis on the music.

On the one hand, in times of trouble, it is good to know that the artists and writers we revere have also been there: they have had to face down the demons and find a way back into the light, through talking and sharing and spreading the burden across the many, that is otherwise borne by one person alone. Music too acts as a catalyst for the talk that makes all the difference. A conversation that begins with the words "I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen,” can be a perfect way into the act of sharing – and of the kind of caring that we all need at some point in our lives.

The Now We’re Talking playlist of 20 extraordinary tracks will be expanded on Spotify, so keep in touch with hotpress.com, and our Spotify channels. As John Lennon so memorably put it: “What ever gets you through the night/ Is alright/ It’s alright.”

Love.

The Now We’re Talking team

BREATHIN’ ARIANA GRANDE CRANES IN THE SKY SOLANGE PAINT IT, BLACK THE ROLLING STONES FOR SALE? (INTERLUDE) KENDRICK LAMAR LULLABY THE CURE MY FATHER’S HOUSE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL PRINCE FML KANYE WEST FEAT. THE WEEKND SONNY THE RUBBERBANDITS SUMMERTIME SADNESS LANA DEL REY HURT JOHNNY CASH THE BOTTLE GIL SCOTT HERON SAD BEAUTIFUL TRAGIC TAYLOR SWIFT TENDER BLUR THE ETERNAL JOY DIVISION HEAL ME SNOW PATROL WAITING FOR THE MIRACLE LEONARD COHEN ALL APOLOGIES NIRVANA ONE U2 YES McALMONT & BUTLER

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LEWIS CAPALDI SINGER

CHRISTOPH KÖSTLIN

You don’t want to trivialise mental health issues but I have experienced panic attacks. Often it’s a case of not looking after myself – drinking too much and then smashing loads of coffees to get through the day.

There is a lot of pressure. That’s why a lot of young artists have issues with anxiety.

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SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

B R E AT H I N ’ ARIANA GRANDE Taken from the pop icon’s fourth album Sweetener, this anthemic hit addressed the panic attacks she suffered from whilst recording. The chorus – “Just keep breathin’ and breathin’” – referenced Grande’s method of coping with the anxiety, whilst elsewhere, she uses thoughts of a loved one to further calm herself: “You remind me of a time when things weren’t so complicated / All I need to see is your face”.

JAFARIS, MUSICIAN I’m that type of person where I’ll let people know the deepest part of me. People can learn what I’ve been through – and when you share something with somebody, it allows them to share things with you. I don’t put it down to ‘being macho or not’ it’s just having a real connection with people.

PA U L C O N N O L LY T H E WO O D B U R N I N G S AVA G E S I grew up in Derry, a small city on the border where our bridges and river have acted too many times as more than just a way out of town. The cost of living today is higher than ever, not just in terms of money,– and the bridges and river continue to rob us of friends, family, fellow musicians and complete strangers.

It stings like cold glass in the core of my soul each time I hear it. I mourn for the happiness of each of these people and I wish I could listen to them and talk with them.

I spend a lot of my time travelling, playing music in every corner of Ireland.

Every gig, whether it’s ten people or a thousand, is a special occasion that I thank you for. Yes, YOU. You allow me be a part of your life, whether fleetingly or for longer, and I am forever deeply thankful for that. You see, without knowing it, you have rescued me a million times from sadness and depression.

Whether it’s seeing smiles between you and a friend in the audience; you dancing with your eyes closed, escaping and soaking up the joys of life; or the you that

came to the gig yourself, who came up to me and held me in your arms at the t-shirt stand to say thanks for giving you a reason to leave the house.

My end of the bargain doesn’t stop at entertaining you. I want you to know that in this game of mirrors, where we bounce light between one another, when you listen to me, I will gladly lay down what I am doing and listen to you when you want to talk. When I put on a show and hope you’re there for me, I will be there for you too, with an open ear and no judgement when you want to be listened to. I cannot live without you – yes, YOU! Be it the streets of Derry, Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Sligo, Limerick, a festival field or elsewhere – without you, we would be missing a solid ray of light that has the power to lift others from their despair.

You are needed, there is always space for you, there is always help just a word away.

I want you to know that you are stronger and more resilient than you will ever give yourself credit for. I want you to know that there is and always will be a legion of people out there, ready with an open ear – ready to remind you that you deserve tomorrow as much as everybody else.

J O E T A L B O T (centre) SINGER, IDLES The thought process I went through before making Joy As An Act of Resistance was about listening to myself, having a conversation with my counsellor, and my friends. I had to improve my life first of all. What counselling taught me is that I needed to share my feelings and that I needed to offload this huge weight I was carrying for so long. Catharsis is a process I went through. The album is a reflection on that catharsis.

•Joy As An Act of Resistance was Hot Press’ Album of the Year, 2018.

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STEPHEN JAMES SMITH SPOKEN WORD POET

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s the late great writer Toni Morrison said, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” So how do you define ‘Mental Health’? Is it a spectrum so broad that there can be a multitude of interpretations and reactions to it? Is it just a buzz phrase we see everywhere now? That a magazine can build an issue around?! (I jest).

While this era is known for its individualism, I also believe mental health is an individual thing. So for me, I’ll define it as kindness. You can and obviously should be kind to yourself. I know this can be easier said than done, sometimes.

Also, the beauty in being kind to ourselves is, we’ll learn to help others.

Kindness requires empathy, patience and forgiveness. I’m learning to forgive myself all the time (not that I do awful things all the time!). I know now I’ve learnt the most in my aloneness: in a sense, facing into my darkness has allowed me to be more empathetic towards others.

However I must admit, I fail at this all the time! I need to relearn, re-remember – it

I’ve learnt how to be OK with feelings of disappointment, hurt and anger, to hold it and to know it’ll pass. I say this safe in the knowledge I’ll fail with these feelings again, then I’ll remind myself about needing to forgive myself. Knowing feelings pass is so apparent, yet it certainly can be a comforting realisation.

The transience of life is humbling.

Yet all this learning requires patience – not a virtue I’m blessed with in truth. But I’m far more self-reflexive and happier with who I am now than I was three years ago. There are probably a lot of musicians/creatives reading this issue, and something I see amongst my peers is an inadequate feeling artists can have.

We can be pitted against each other in our own minds and we strive for ‘success’, but as the saying goes “comparison is the thief of joy.” Nobody truly knows what anyone has gone through to create what they have. I wish we could all be less quick to judge. Don’t define others by an action without knowing the context, then hopefully that kindness can be extended to you. We have all made mistakes, and will again. Don’t be the crab in the bucket,

“Go and create, it ’s cat har tic.

For me personally, it helps me to find meaning in t his ‘crazy’ world of ours. ”

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

CRANES IN THE SKY SOL ANGE Written in the aftermath of a painful break-up with the father of her child, on ‘Cranes In The Sky’ – an ethereal R&B number – Solange used the construction boom in Miami as a metaphor for ignoring what’s directly in front of us (“Sometimes I don’t wanna feel those metal clouds”).

Elsewhere, she sings of the various ways she tried to overcome emotional pain (“I tried to work it away / But that just made me even sadder”).

Whilst the sense of turmoil is palpable, the soulful and uplifting music hints at better times on the horizon.

can be one step forward, two steps back.

So maybe you shouldn’t listen to my fauxsage counsel… While I’m a great guru for others, sometimes practising what you preach can be the hardest.

I’ve been tested a few times along the way: 2007 and 2015 were particularly hard years for me. I had to relearn how to be kind to myself again; there is a vulnerability in even having to admit to yourself in the first place, to know you are being untrue to yourself, that fucked me up a bit.

Firstly what I needed to do was to take more control over my life, So I gave up alcohol and meat, and I started to do some simple yoga/meditation each day.

After a month, I’d lost weight, was in less debt and felt much healthier. I then set myself a goal to run the Dublin marathon in 2016, which I did just about (so now I’ll boast about it! I should also have learnt to temper my ego a bit more as you can see). I’ve learnt if I don’t have a goal, I lack focus and I’ll go inwards. Now, however, one of the struggles I find is getting balance right – sometimes I might have too much on and I can be overwhelmed.

If something doesn’t make you feel alive, it’s too small for you – the irony being that the smallest things are often the most worthwhile.

focus on amplifying art you like instead of bitching about what you don’t. It can be easy to get lost in paranoia, but you’re only hurting yourself.

Then there are the cliches; it’s OK not to be OK, don’t be afraid to ask for help, talk to someone, find solace in friendship, etc… And you know what? Most cliches are fuckin’ true! Bowie said that, so I’m not going to argue with him!

Go and create, it’s cathartic. For me personally, it helps me to find meaning in this ‘crazy’ world of ours. If you don’t feel like being creative, volunteer your time with a cause you believe in. I’ve been volunteering with First Fortnight for almost 10 years now. This gives me a sense of meaning and helps me to feel part of a caring community.

Ask courageous questions of yourself, wait, listen to your heart’s answer – and know these truths are how you connect to the deepest you. In finding your deepest self a healing can begin.

Lastly, I am convinced that reading David Whyte’s book Consolations and listening to Alan Watts saved my life in 2015, so they might be worth checking out. Also, all of what I’ve said above can be summed up far more eloquently in Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’ – go and read it immediately!

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PA I N T I T , B L A C K ROLLING S TONES

AOIFE POWER WHENYOUN G The song ‘Futures’ is written for a friend who died by suicide. Because it was this subject, it was hard to write it. It was so raw. I refined the lyrics as I wrote it. They were heavier before. I’ve extracted parts that were too intense. But we thought it was important to open the conversation around it, and we’re really happy with the result.

Driven by Brian Jones’ melancholy sitar rhythms, the stunning ‘Paint It, Black’ finds Mick Jagger conjuring an air of menace with steady stream of memorable lines. In the first verse he sings, “I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes / I have to turn my head until my darkness goes”, before later declaring “It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black”.

A highlight of the Stones catalogue, ‘Paint It, Black’ is a remarkably potent evocation of a dark frame of mind.

HARE SQUEAD

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e became a duo when our third member, Jessy Rose, left the group due to his struggles with mental health. Jessy is obviously our brother – we got together and made some really cool music with him – and what happened to him was something that could have happened to anyone. He wasn’t in the best mental health state and it affected his creative ability. So him being in that state of mind, he decided to leave the band.

But he’s our brother still. We care so much about his well-being and we’re still the best of friends. I still talk to Jessy all the time. So we don’t judge him. It could’ve been any one of us in the group.

It’s difficult dealing with these situations, but we’re still a family. If anything, this has taught us to take care of our mental health and just make the smartest decisions you can.

For the people who have friends and family that are suffering, be patient and understand when they’re in a space where they feel alone. We’re not going through it. They’re going through it themselves, and only they know how it feels. So if we can just understand that, and have patience and show them that we love them, that’s what’s important. It sounds corny, but the corniest things are the truest things. I never thought I’d be saying all this corny shit, but truly, very fucking honestly, you just need to be there for people.

Show them we love them; let them know they’re not on their own; let them know you care about them; and let them know it’s not going to be forever. Yeah man – just be there for the people going through that shit.

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A L A N O ’ M A R A PODCASTER AND FORMER C AVA N G A A P L AY E R Usually when I can’t sleep, it means that depression has reared its ugly head in my life again. Sometimes it is a minor relapse because I haven’t been looking after my wellbeing, but every now and again it can be more sinister.

I get severe headaches that paracetamol fail to cure, anxiety in my chest and tears at the back of my eyes, as I lie in my bed staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, with a train of thought going 100 miles per hour.

Thinking, questioning and wondering about everything in my life.

Spells in counselling and constant personal development over the last seven years have significantly increased my resilience and selfawareness, but still those waves of insomnia

are often when I feel most vulnerable. The very rare number of suicidal thoughts my brain still produces usually arrive when the whole country is sleeping, my meditation attempts have failed, and I am left frustrated that I can’t process my thoughts, feelings and emotions.

I’ve learned to understand that when I struggle to sleep, something within me is usually off-balance. I am carrying too much pressure on my shoulders, or have deviated from the values, lifestyle and people that have helped transform my life from the one that was gripped by depression in my early twenties.

I try to see my spells of insomnia as those big flashing lights on the side of the motorway that urge us to slow down. I am grateful for the ability to recognise the warning signs and to remember that I have the tools – and the people – to help me navigate this bump in the road.

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FÍ SINGER I started to write this piece a few times. Like my songs, while selfexpression is often my escape, it can sometimes be the very last thing I really want to do – particularly when I’m in the midst of something that’s challenging my mindset. It’s scary being vulnerable.

The thing is, nobody is immune to the dark days. I think it all comes down to our perspective, and essentially how we cope with what we are faced with. The ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ is always there, no matter what you go through; you learn a little more about yourself and ultimately become a stronger, more resilient person.

Of course, this is different for everybody, and dependent on

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the situation and circumstances – and that’s what makes it hard to distinguish the root cause, and ultimately to heal. We now know we’re meant to talk – and that message is really so important.

Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Sometimes what we know, we don’t always do.

I’ve faced many challenges, from my teens into my adulthood, which have affected my mental health.

But I know for a fact how bittersweet that is – and that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without them.

Time really is a healer, and those experiences bring inner strength, awareness and life lessons. It’s important to remember that life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows – but without the rain, there would be no rainbows.

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F O R S A L E ? interlude KENDRICK L AMAR

This electro-jazz workout deals – like much of Lamar’s 2015 classic To Pimp A Butterfly – with issues of selfdoubt and guilt, before fading to a spoken word segment that the rapper revisits throughout the album: “I remember you was conflicted... Abusing my power full of resentment / Resentment that turned into a deep depression / Found myself screamin’ in my hotel room”. It was a hugely powerful moment on a record notable for its emotional rawness.

PA T R I C K S H E E H Y (far left) WA L K I N G O N C A R S What I’ve learned is that we all struggle.

I know people who were brought up in a “normal” house – and they get depressed and want to die, just as much as a person who lived in a house with a violent or alcoholic parent, or no parent.

To be honest, I think most people just need to take a break every now and again, throw on some sad tunes, curl up into a ball and cry their eyes out.

Many believe that tears are a sign of weakness, and to be strong you need to hold it together. I believe the opposite: for me, the strongest people are those who feel the most. We do anything to avoid feelings. We work, we drink, we run, we work out, we clean, we shop online, watch TV, eat. A lot of this ‘doing’ is run by feelings that we don’t want to feel. My two cents to anyone struggling is: talk to someone about what’s really going on, and apply some self care. A wise woman once told me that you’re always only one decision away from changing your whole life.

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“I reveal something about myself that I’m ashamed of or embarrassed about, and speaking the horrific truth of it in public gets a response, and that makes me feel less alone”

SIMON AMSTELL COMEDIAN & FILM DIRECTOR Anything personal I write, it ends up being quite healing; you end up being a different person than the one who started writing it. So I’m not really worried about being too honest or making people uncomfortable – I don’t really see the point of saying something out loud unless it’s a bit uncomfortable. Most of what I’m doing is tackling shame. I reveal something about myself that I’m ashamed of, or embarrassed about, and speaking the horrific truth of it in public gets a response, – and that makes me feel less alone. I realise that I’m just like every other stupid human being. If you write all the most troubling aspects of yourself into a film, you externalise them, they’re out of you, in a way. I think generally, I’m after connection now, not praise.

- SIMON AMSTELL

KEITH DIXON

• Simon Amstell was presenter of Never Mind The Buzzcocks from 2006-2009.

He has made two feature films including the futuristic Vegan fantasy, Carnage (2017).

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

JESSIE BUCKLEY AC T R E S S A N D S I N G E R When we were shooting Wild Rose, it was a scary thing, because I was getting ferocious panic attacks in the middle of the shoot. But the joy of working with someone like Tom Harper, who directed it, and having a trust and friendship like that, means that whenever I’d have a struggle or a panic, he would hold it but also say, ‘This is very human, and let’s explore it. Where is this actually coming from, is it coming from you or the character, can we channel it? It’s an emotion, and it’s real, so let’s let it be seen.’ And when you’re in the hands of a director, those moments can be incredibly vulnerable and you can be under time pressure to get a shot. And so there can be a sense of ‘Cop the fuck on, we don’t have time for this, get on with it’ – but Tom is never like that. He’s a friend first, then a director, but also manages to combine both to help me as a person and an actress.

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J A M E S S H E E R A N (second from left)

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LU L L A BY THE CURE Taken from a classic album, Disintegration, on which depression was one of the main themes, ‘Lullaby’ brilliantly utilises nursery rhyme imagery to describe the onset of melancholia: “On candy striped legs / The spiderman comes / Softly through the shadow of the evening sun”.

Singer Robert Smith also beautifully articulates the frustration of fighting the condition (“Don’t struggle like that or I will only love you more”). One of The Cure’s signature tunes, it was also accompanied by a memorable video with a gothic, nightmarish feel.

B L A C K B A N K F O L K I wrote our song ‘Black Dog’ after a friend of mine died by suicide. We played GAA together for years and I’d never realised what he was going through. He was always in good form, having a laugh. I think it came as a massive shock for nearly everyone who knew him to discover he’d had these struggles for years. In the end, they got the better of him. “Where are you gone to my old friend/ Could you not see me here/ Open arms if you wanted them/ The darkness is too empty/ Don’t fill it with your soul/ The black dog overthrows.”

The most important thing when dealing with mental health issues is that you have to identify and recognise what’s going on in your own head. Then you can go looking for solutions.

Sometimes you don’t feel capable and that’s okay too. In your teens or your early twenties, you’re struggling so much to find an identity and a place in the world, that these knocks you get along the way can really bounce you off course.

Negative feelings tend to make you feel isolated, but it’s a natural experience. The most important is not to ignore them, because if you just try to run away from it all the time, it’s going to come back and bite you. You can’t just let the negativity fasten inside you – you’ve got to find an outlet for it; whether it’s music or making something, writing something or playing sport. That’s what I did anyway and I think it worked. Just feeling that you’re doing something turns a negative into a positive.

• Black Bank Folk’s debut album Rising is out now.

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BILLIE EILISH

ON HOW SHE KEEPS T H E D E M O N S AT B AY …

All the bad stuff out there was getting me down and making me feel powerless. So I decided to do something, anything – and that was when I decided to get involved.

Last year, I took part in a voter registration drive in Los Angeles, because one of the most fundamental ways to feel empowered is to vote. People think, “Oh, I’m only one person” but it’s like, “Bro, if we all thought that way nothing would ever change.”

You can make a difference in so many ways. Make sure what you’re buying is animal cruelty free. Find out what impact the food you’re eating is having on global warming and the environment. There’s a reason the Amazon’s on fire. It may sound stupid and simplistic, but enough of us doing the right things will make this world a better – and a happier – place.

What also makes me feel better is music. I only have to listen to a song like ‘Something’

by The Beatles to be reminded of all that’s good and beautiful in the world. That’s one of my go-tos if I’m feeling sad.

KENNETH CAPPELLO

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DY L A N M C G R A T H CHEF The catering industry is full of people pushing themselves beyond where they should be pushing themselves. You have to ask yourself, “What am I actually getting from all that ambition?” Anxiety or a stroke? It’s like, am I driving the bus or is it driving me? Eventually, your body says, “No, it’s not happening.” You just can’t keep it up. And then you’ve got to pick up the bits.

GOD KNOWS MUSICIAN & MC I’m the eldest child of two very hard-working, over-achieving, immigrant parents, who did an incredible job of raising me and my three siblings.

Navigating my way through being a creative person in an academic household was tough and I can almost trace my anxiety back to that. Anxiety shows itself in many forms and, with me, it’s worry. That worry often then leads me down a path of deep, deep sadness. I haven’t been diagnosed with anxiety or depression, but I know well that’s what it is.

My closest friend and my brother both suffered with mental illness, and for a long time, it was difficult to grapple with the thought and the reality of ‘depression’ as an illness.

Being from an African background, we deal with depression differently, so it caused a lot of consternation when the reality hit us as a family.

The first time we all had to acknowledge that it was, in fact, mental illness and say it out loud, none of us had a clue how to handle it. So we did what most families do – we argued!

When we got tired of fighting, we sought help from our Church and close friends, but it wasn’t until we sought professional help that we really got anywhere.

Once I saw my brother getting the help that he needed, I decided to do something about my own mental wellbeing.

This year, all the music I’ve released has been about mental health in some way. As an artist, I can only express what I am going through or have gone through.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned through my own experience is that it’s important to make sure you take care of your own mental health, so that you can be strong for others. Like cabin crew tell you before a flight takes off – put your own mask on first before attending to others! Look after yourself so you can truly help those around. Taking care of your mental health is definitely not a weakness – it’s one of the strongest things you can do for yourself and the people around you.

As an artist, I know many of us suffer from intrusive thoughts just based on the nature of our job. We’re constantly wearing our hearts on our sleeves and putting ourselves out there.

Most of us don’t have a reliable income, and fight anxiety every day wondering, ‘What if I fail?’ – but also, ‘What if I succeed?’

I was fighting a losing battle for the two years until it came home to roost. Now, I know how to get help and I read and learn as much as I can. One particular book I’d recommend to anyone dealing with their own mental health issues, or trying to understand what someone they love is going through, is The Black Dog by Ainsley Johnstone & Matthew Johnstone. It really helped me navigate it all.

There’s no one way to tackle depression. I can only speak from personal experience, and in my family, we chose to seek professional help and work together, as a family, to help my brother through the process.

•God Knows is a musician and MC who performs as a solo artist and as one third of the Choice Music Prizewinning Rusangano Family. On Friday September 20, God Knows (feat. Outsider YP) releases Clout9, a special single for Culture Night. He is also a National Ambassador for Culture Night 2019.

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S T E V E G A R R I G A N (far right) KO D A L I N E Only last week, where I grew up, there was a 12-year-old boy who was being bullied online and he took his own life. It’s horrible. I can only imagine: school is tough anyway for kids.

Kids can be cruel to each other, especially teenagers. I can’t even comprehend what it would be like right now with the internet. If you’re being bullied at school, you go home and then you’re being bullied at home, only that it’s online. I don’t really know what can be done. I think the problem is much bigger than we all realise.

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M Y FAT H E R ’ S HOUSE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN This track is taken from the Boss’s 1982 LP Nebraska, which – like The Cure’s Disintegration – has a foreboding atmosphere.

Again deploying the kind of sparse folk arrangement he utilised throughout the record, Springsteen ruminates to mesmerising effect on his tortured relationship with his father: “Last night I dreamed that I was a child... My father’s house stood shining hard and bright / The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms”.

In a career filled with powerful confessionals, it was a high point.

E M I LY P I N E A U T H O R Notes to Self is an opening of the silences we all have to deal with – that leave young people without the vocabulary to talk about things that hurt them.

So many people have got in touch to say that they never would have talked about something – and that the book helped them.

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MIGUEL RUIZ

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SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL PRINCE

Performed to spellbinding effect at Prince’s final Irish show at Malahide Castle, this gorgeous ballad is a touching meditation on grief: “Sometimes it snows in April / Sometimes I feel so, so bad / Sometimes I wish life was never-ending / And all good things they say never last”. Fittingly, it received widespread airplay in the aftermath of Prince’s untimely death.

DY L A N M c G R A T H CHEF The catering industry is full of people pushing themselves beyond where they should be pushing themselves. You have to ask yourself, “What am I actually getting from all that ambition?” Anxiety or a stroke? It’s like, am I driving the bus or is it driving me? Eventually, your body says, “No, it’s not happening.” You just can’t keep it up. And then you’ve got to pick up the bits.

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DAN SMITH OF BASTILLE

(centre) Times have changed: there’s an acceptance nowadays that you can be more human, flawed and fucked up. You can be honest about feeling nervous.

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FML KANYE WES T FT. THE WEEKEND

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Kanye has referenced his addiction issues and mental health struggles numerous times on record, and his 2016 effort The Life Of Pablo was perhaps the most nakedly honest of the lot. On the confessional ‘FML’ he sings, “Revealing the layers to my soul... You ain’t ever seen anything crazier than this nigga when he off his Lexapro... Remember that last time, the episode”. But, Kanye defiantly declares, “I’mma have the last laugh in the end”.

S T E V E N K I N G FA N G C L U B (centre) You see so many people with mental health issues now. It seems to be exploding – maybe because it was bottled up for so long, or because there was a stigma about being damaged goods. That’s all bullshit. I don’t know if there’s a cure, but the best thing I did was just chat to the other guys about it.

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“Irish people have this susceptibility to melancholy, and I think it’s there at the most gregarious of gatherings.”

ARDAL O’HANLON COMEDIAN & AUTHOR MARK NIXON

This issue is really important. We’ve all known people who have gone: people who couldn’t face this world that we live in. I feel like it’s really, really difficult navigating our way through life. I hope this doesn’t sound flippant, because it’s certainly not intended to be, but I’m amazed that more people don’t succumb to serious depression.

Mild depression is almost like the default state for human beings. I really don’t want that to sound like it’s trivialising a subject that’s very, very serious. Especially for men, it always has been. Irish people have this susceptibility to melancholy, and I think it’s there at the most gregarious of gatherings. It’s always there beneath the surface.

Thankfully I don’t think I’ve ever had a serious experience of it, but that malaise is out there. The more it’s talked about the better.

ASH JONES S T R A N G E N E W P L AC E S ’ I read Lyra McKee’s article about the ‘Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies’ before she died, and it related very heavily to my experience as a young person in Northern Ireland. I didn’t come out until I was 18. Long before that, I really identified with punk’s themes of alienation from mainstream society.

Mental health issues are better represented in 21st century punk and pop punk than probably any other genre. For a lot of us in the band, that’s what drew us to that sound growing up.

Recently, the five of us were sitting around a table, and we were asked if we had personal experience of suicide while growing up. One by one, we all said yes. It’s not unusual for any of us to be approached with suicidal feelings – either from ourselves or the people that are around us. Living in relatively hopeless-looking times exacerbates that.

We all have a couple of outlets in the band, aside from music. Rain and Caleb are artists, Rory’s a poet and I write fiction. But these kinds of feelings are also what songwriting is for. Anxiety and depression often give you a veil between yourself and the people you’re interacting with. You can feel like there’s some kind of glass wall between you and everyone else. Music that tries to represent that space was something that I really appreciated growing up. If we can help provide that feeling in our music, so that other people can relate, that would be excellent.

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SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

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SONNY THE RUBBERBANDITS Over jagged urban beats, Irish comedy’s premier pranksters strike a graver tone when addressing the suicide epidemic that has ravaged their generation. The song is inspired in articulating how depression knows no boundaries in who it effects: “He isn’t lonely or addicted to drugs...

She doesn’t care what they’re saying / Ignore the mud that they’re slinging”.

One of the most powerful Irish songs to address mental health issues in recent years.

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OLIVIA ROSE

“I WANT TO PROMOTE SELF -CARE, MEDITATION , REGUL AR THERAPY AND JUST HEALTHY HABITS THAT LEAD TO A HEALTHY MIND.”

“ I T ’ S I M P O R TA N T FOR ME, AS AN ARTIST OR A WRITER, TO TELL MY TRUTH.” CLODAGH SINGER-SONGWRITER

KANO R A P P E R & AC TO R It’s important for me, as an artist or a writer, to tell my truth. You create these things, like ‘Deep Blues’ (a song about depression), trying to be as true to yourself as possible. Once you make them and they’re out there, you realise how much other people can see themselves in you – and that they are going through the same situation. Then I get messages and I’m like, “Wow… I’m glad I was brave enough to talk about these things that are close to me.”

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

SUMMERTIME SADNESS L ANA DEL REY Taken from Del Rey’s 2012 breakthrough album Born To Die, the elegiac ‘Summertime Sadness’ captures her aesthetic perfectly, articulating the bittersweet thrill of life in the fast lane: “Kiss me hard before you go / I just wanted you to know that baby / You the best”.

I think we’ve come a long way in Ireland. People are much more open now about their mental health, but I think there is still too much focus on the negative, and not enough on what we can do to help ourselves. We need to find a balance. Mental health isn’t just a negative thing, it’s also being happy, and we need to start associating it with positivity too.

I’ve been dealing with mental health problems for as long as I can remember. After losing my mom when I was young, I didn’t know how to deal with grief and neither did my family. I never learned to deal with negative emotions, so I developed quite severe anxiety disorders such as trichotillomania and bulimia. I strongly believe if I had been given the tools to deal with this kind of trauma sooner, it would have saved me a lot of struggle.

Growing up, there was a huge stigma around therapy in my family. Now, though, I’m pretty sure every single one of us is going regularly. What has surprised me – in a good way – is how open we all were about it. What I want to see is that change happening outside of my family too.

I think services like Pieta House do such fantastic work in acute and crisis situations. Ironically, it would be wonderful if we didn’t need them anymore. That’s why early intervention services like A Lust For Life and Jigsaw are so important too. One of my main goals in life is to promote positive mental health, and because of this, I’m releasing my new EP on September 20 in aid of the mental health charity, A Lust For Life, because that’s exactly what they do.

I want to promote self-care, meditation, regular therapy and just healthy habits that lead to a healthy mind.

I’ve been working intensively on my own mental health for about a year now, doing everything I can to help myself be in a healthy mind space, and I’ve seen so many benefits in my personal life. What I wasn’t expecting, though, is to experience so many benefits in my life as a musician. Having a good headspace is important for creativity – even more important than I realised.

I started writing songs when I was in my darkest place and it saved me; it gave me a voice I didn’t even know I had, so for me promoting mental health isn’t optional. I write music to tell my story and this is my story.

•Clodagh’s single ‘Wrong’ is out on Friday, August 30.

Her debut EP, In All Of Your Glory, will be released on September 20.

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WE CAN BREAK THE STIGMA Pieta House is Ireland’s leading mental health charity, with centres all over Ireland. We speak to CEO Elaine Austin about mental health in Ireland, how to access Pieta House’s services, new initiatives to help those who are struggling – and how to break the stigma around mental health issues.

I N T E R V I E W : Peter McGoran

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ne of the key changes that we’ve witnessed in Ireland over the past number of years is that people are beginning to openly acknowledge the importance of mental health. In the past, this had been treated as a shameful secret, the kind of thing nobody wanted to speak about. That culture of silence – of the less said the better – hasn’t been easy to shift. But it is happening.

That is the central purpose of the Now We’re Talking campaign.

When Lyons Tea partnered with Pieta House, it was with the aim of contributing in a tangible way to eliminating the stigma that historically surrounded mental health issues in Ireland. The link-up makes a lot of sense. It is, after all, when people sit down over a cup of tea that otherwise difficult conversations become possible.

Hot Press is proud to join forces with Lyons Tea and Pieta House in what is a crucial campaign. The purpose is to create a context in which the old inhibitions that surrounded mental health in Ireland can be cast aside for once and for all. And the results of the Now We’re Talking campaign to date have been striking.

SEEKING HELP

Conversations are now taking place all over Ireland that would previously have been unimaginable. Families are talking to one another and sharing their experiences, their thoughts and their feelings. Schools are beginning to appreciate what mental health means for young people. And, with an ever-widening conversation, come new opportunities for Pieta House to help. CEO Elaine Austin, who has been at the forefront of new initiatives in mental health, explains what the charity actually does.

“Pieta House is an Irish charity,” Elaine explains, “which provides

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therapeutic counselling sessions, free of charge and freely accessible, one-to-one with a therapist, for people who have been experiencing suicidal ideation, as well as for people who have been bereaved by suicide, or are engaging in self-harm.

“In terms of our bereavement services, we have two types. We have suicide liaison officers, who will go into the home environment straight after someone’s lost a loved one through suicide, to give them the support that they need; then we also have the bereavement support in the Pieta House centres around the country, which involves face-to-face therapy.”

In addition, Pieta House has intervention services for those who have suicidal ideation or are engaging in self-harm.

“That’s also a face-to-face therapy,” Elaine explains. “For intervention and self-harm, we do 12 sessions with a therapist. And for bereavement it can be up to 30 sessions.”

These services have proved hugely beneficial for people who are affected by suicide. Elaine speaks with genuine admiration when she talks about the first-class staff who work at Pieta House – and who work together to guide clients right from the first moment they call up and seek help.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Elaine stresses that Pieta House is constantly working towards new ideas for improving their services or adding beneficially to what they do. One of their new strands involves teaching young people about self-harm prevention.

“Our newest service is our Resilience Academy,” she says. “This is a six-week programme which is delivered to 2nd year students in post-primary schools. It’s an initiative to teach students positive mental health techniques and strategies. It is an evidence-based programme that was designed ‘with schools, for schools’ and aims to provide students with the skills and coping mechanisms that are needed to succeed, both in school, and throughout their adult lives.

It’ll cover the things that students really want to talk about – including school stress, body image, friendship and bullying.”

Elaine notes that the rise and proliferation of social media has changed how young people interact with each other in recent years.

How has it affected mental health?

“I think that, with all technology, there’s positives and negatives,”

“ The Now We’re Talking campaign is amazing because it really focuses on t hat key t hing, whic h will help people feel bet ter.”

Elaine says. “The positive of social media is that people can be very connected. Ireland, at one point, could’ve been considered very isolated, so social media has brought people together. But I suppose the negative aspect is issues like cyber-bullying. A lot of students will say it quite simply – that it’s a lot easier to text someone something hurtful, than it is to say it face-to-face. So that has been exaggerated through the use of technology.”

As a mother of three daughters, Elaine stresses that social media has brought a lot of benefits to young people, but that it can also be all-consuming – and a major distraction.

“I think the main thing – and this hasn’t changed since the start of time – is that you want to educate your children, so that they can educate themselves,” she tells us. “That doesn’t change, whether it’s to do with technology, new schools, exams, new jobs, or whatever happens in family life. You want them to be as prepared and as strong as they can possibly be.”

NOW WE’RE TALKING

The ‘Now We’re Talking’ campaign, a collaboration between Lyons Tea, Pieta House and Hot Press, was a huge success last year. Part of its success lay in the simple, eminently practical message that, sometimes, just talking about how you’re feeling with someone else can have a massive, positive impact on mental health.

“That is so, so important,” Elaine stresses. “If you’re ever talking with someone who has gone through a period where they’ve really experienced suicidal ideation, it can be incredibly dark. But when you learn about someone’s experience and what they went through – the thing that they always say changed their perspective was talking. We know that being able to talk to someone unlocks something, psychologically or emotionally, in people.

“The Now We’re Talking campaign is amazing because it really focuses on that key thing, which will help people feel better. And the more that people talk, the greater the momentum that builds up behind it: it makes talking about mental health a natural thing. That really does help people feel better. It helps them get out of a state of hopelessness into hope.”

It’s not surprising that, in recent years, there has been an increased demand for Pieta House’s services. And, while Elaine notes that social and economic factors in Ireland have played a part in this – the recession had a big impact on many people’s sense of self-worth – she also sees it as being indicative of the fact that people are more willing to talk about how they’re feeling now.

“It’s hard to quantify,” Elaine nods, “but I definitely think that there’s more awareness around mental health, for a start. I think that awareness means that there’s been an increase in demand for the services. But does that mean that there’s a mental health crisis in Ireland? I’m not sure. I think what we’re doing now is we’re dealing with it differently – which is good. Instead of people feeling like they can’t talk about it, people are feeling like they can use the services.

But, as always, there’s a lot of work to be done.”

LANGUAGE MATTERS

PHOTO: MIGUEL RUIZ

In Pieta House, every detail counts. They are very conscious of how language is used, when describing mental health issues. They don’t skirt around difficult terminology. But they have consciously decided, for example, that the word ‘commit’ should not be used in relation to suicide. It might seem like a small thing. But it does matter.

“We’re still in an environment where people find it difficult to talk about suicide,” says Elaine. “When you talk to families that have been bereaved by suicide, you can see, very clearly, that they really do find it difficult. Now obviously suicide is a very difficult thing, but the stigma around it doesn’t help either. So it’s really important that people don’t attach stigma to those who say, ‘I’m feeling suicidal’.

“In relation to suicide, we don’t use the word commit, because commit has that association with things like committing a sin or a

crime. Don’t forget that it wasn’t that long ago that suicide was still actually seen as a crime in Ireland, so it’s important that we don’t talk about suicide in the same way as we talk about committing a crime. That’s not appropriate. I do think that mindset is changing in Ireland, which is a really important step forward.”

One issue that individuals or families might face is: at what point do I need to contact Pieta House? They might think, ‘It’s not serious enough yet’. So, for people who are in doubt, when should a person step over the threshold?

“I would say if you don’t know – just come,” Elaine tells us. “The therapists in Pieta House really know what they’re doing, so don’t be afraid to come even if you think you’re not suicidal. If you’re feeling like there’s a dark cloud over you and you’re in that space where you feel a lack of hope, please come.

“Once you come to Pieta House, we do an assessment, which is an hour long, and which looks at the level of risk a person has. If we find that a person is fine but that they still need help, then they might not need to go through the full 12 sessions. We can always refer people to other organisations too.

“But I’ll be clear – the worst case scenario, in my mind, would be if someone thought, ‘Actually, I’m not going’ – and they didn’t take the opportunity. I can honestly say to anyone who isn’t sure, it’s worth coming in and just talking to a therapist. It’s totally client-led and very accessible.”

LYO N S T E A

Pieta House’s partnership with Lyons Tea has been a hugely important part of getting the message about their work out to a wider audience. Over the last three years, the partnership with Lyons has delivered an increased awareness for the services of Pieta House from 71% to 80% of all adults.

How many people have been helped with the funds raised from the sales of Lyons limited edition packs supporting Pieta House?

“If you look at the cost to put someone through 12 sessions, you’re probably talking about €1,000 – give or take. And I think that, through the relationship, we’ve put through around 160-170 people through the sessions – so it is huge.

“We’re 80% funded by public fundraisers and by relationships such as Lyons Tea and other corporate partners. So the reality is that without businesses like Lyons Tea, we wouldn’t be opening our doors. At the moment we have over 220 clinical staff, operating across 15 centres and three outreach centres. So without that support, Pieta wouldn’t exist. I’m amazed every time I meet the people who fundraise for us. It’s always inspiring to see and hear the reasons why people do it.”

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Despite the mental health challenges being faced by people in Ireland every day, Elaine is optimistic that we can tackle and overcome them in the future. The territory Pieta House works in is a difficult one. There is no getting away from that. But she remains optimistic.

“I have a lot of hope for Ireland, because Ireland has done amazing things in recent years,” she says. “If you think about the jumps we’ve taken in the last 30 years, it really puts things into perspective. Mental health is something that we need to continue working on. There is no question about that. We need to continue to reduce the stigma. And, although I think that we still have a road to go, I definitely think that this is happening.

“That’s why we’re really looking forward to the ‘Now We’re Talking – Live’ event in Smock Alley on October 10th, which is World Mental Health Day. The aim of the event is to further open up the conversation about mental health, in an intelligent and compassionate way – which represents such an important step forward. To hear people talking openly about their experiences truly is inspiring.”

Pieta House take-over packs of Lyons Original 80s will be in stores nationwide during September and October, raising awareness for the charity and encouraging people to talk about their mental health.

If you are suicidal, self-harming or bereaved by suicide, you can contact Pieta House free 24/7 Helpline number 1 800 247 247. Alternatively text Help to 51444 (standard message rates apply).

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LE BOOM

JAMES McGOVERN , THE MURDER CAPITAL

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hen someone decides to take their own life, it’s because they’re innately unwell. I went from knowing someone who was happy, talented and caring, to seeing them in a position where they thought that they’d rather not live anymore. If help had been more openly available to them, or if they’d known where to turn, they wouldn’t have died. That’s where the name The Murder Capital comes from: these unnecessary deaths that take place.

When I was younger, I don’t remember mental health being a topic of conversation. Growing up is such a minefield – you’re in constant confrontation with everything around you, and trying to understand it all can be quite difficult. I was confused a lot.

In school, there were no discussions or classes about mental health. And because men don’t have a history of talking about it, there’s this feeling that you’re the only one experiencing the feelings of depression or despair.

It needs to be talked about more openly. More options need to be put in place for people of different incomes. Looking at the suicide rates in this country, it is clear that now’s the time for action.

A big issue for artists is limiting the party to when it’s supposed to be a party. Learning to deal with the adrenaline after you get off the stage every night is something that takes a bit of time. You see so many people in bands getting into trouble with their mental health through substance misuse. But we shouldn’t just be saying, “They shouldn’t do that.” We

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should ask, “Why does that person feel the need to drink and take drugs so often?”

Thankfully, in The Murder Capital, we were never a band who got drunk before we went on stage – that’s just not what we’re into. When you’re touring and playing different shows all the time, you have to keep working at keeping your head on some kind of even keel. The less I party on tour, the easier it is for me.

Music is the purest form of freedom in my life. When I’m on stage or writing with the boys, I feel like I’ve thrown off any chains I have mentally.

Anyone with a great passion in life will tell you that’s when they feel most free. Finding that kind of purpose in life can bring you some light, even in the middle of darkness.

With our new album, When I Have Fears, we were exploring the true inner darkness of our lives, so it would have been dishonest not to explore the light as well. One doesn’t exist without the other. The record is capturing this place that’s completely in darkness – but somehow, you find that you can see. It’s like a wash of light in a pitch-black room.

Obviously mental health issues affect everyone, but the statistics are harshest on young men like us. After losing friends to mental health issues, we were spurred on to talk about it.

We have a totally open dialogue – we’ll talk about anything. We’re not experts in this field,. We don’t have exact solutions. But we are looking at ways to open the dialogue further and to change the stigma around mental health. We don’t want the next generation to grow up with the struggles we’ve had.

When we started Le Boom, we didn’t give much thought to our mental health, or even talk about it. We were almost militant with ourselves. We were like, ‘This has to happen’, and ‘If we’re not progressing all the time, then this isn’t going to work’. We put so much added pressure on ourselves, and that’s what will wreck your head.

Like a lot of people, we’ve become so much more aware of looking after our mental health. We were on the beach the other day, and we were meditating with the Headspace app. It’s become a really big thing for us. We were also over in England playing the Reading and Leeds Festivals, and we decided that we wouldn’t drink – because if we eventually get to the stage where we’re on a big 20-night tour with no breaks, we want to be able to sustain that, without coming home in absolute bits.

Even when things are going good it can be tough on the road, and you don’t want to make it tougher – you’ll run yourself into the ground. If your head is fucked, it could be the difference between being able to play a show or not play a show. By removing all the added pressure we placed on ourselves, and by talking to each other, things have become so much easier and better.

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HURT JOHNNY CASH Originally written and performed by Nine Inch Nails, Johnny Cash’s stripped-back version of Trent Reznor’s addiction-as-hell ballad packed a powerful emotional punch, which has enhanced even further by the country icon’s frail appearance in Mark Romanek’s haunting video. In Cash’s reading, the song’s bitter reflections are further soaked in a lifetime’s regret.

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THE BOTTLE GIL SCOTT HERON One of the greatest songs of the ‘70s, in ‘The Bottle’, Gil Scott Heron took a panoramic look at the struggles of inner-city life, and in particular those who had succumbed to the fatal lure of alcoholism: “He done quit his 9 to 5 / He drink full-time and now he’s living in a bottle”.

Despite the harsh realities depicted in the song, the irresistible funk groove meant it struck a defiant – and even celebratory – tone.

DYL AN TIGHE

SINGER-SONGWRITER My first album Record looked to recast my own experience of emotional and mental distress in my own words, beyond the reductive framework of medical jargon and diagnosis. While the album also spawned a theatre production, radio play, talks and writings, it is the songs themselves which I feel set my own record straight, in a manner mostly free of the inherited, internalised language which I found at times seeped into other modes of expression.

These songs seemed to come from a deeper, purer well, from a place which allowed me to listen to the essence of my own experience and, in the words of Yeats, to “hear it in the deep heart’s core.” During the course of that project I became aware of a long history of songwriters who, inspired by first-hand experience of mental distress, and often medical treatment, mined the depths of their souls to bring us new insights into human suffering.

The songs of Nick Drake, Roky Erikson, Peter Green, Lou Reed, Daniel Johnston, Daniel Berman, and many others, have invented new and precious ways to illuminate and articulate complex and distressing human experiences and emotions beyond the received lexicon of mental health.

I believe that these songs tell us more in a few lines and bars about the issues at the heart of human distress than a multitude of textbooks.

As Rabindranath Thakur wrote, “when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart.” This history of song invites us to listen deeper and beyond those ‘old words’ and to appraise anew the depth of experience at the heart of crises and of the human spirit and consciousness.

Many of us who have been through crises of heart and mind have at least some experience of being analysed and represented in terms alien to our own interpretations of our experiences, and of our own insights being sidelined as somehow less ‘expert’. As our conventional understanding of mental health comes under increasing challenge, and appreciation of expert-by-experience narratives grows, it is to the art of songwriting that we must look to reveal a new understanding of human distress and discovery.

• Dylan Tighe is a singer-songwriter, actor and theatre director. His most recent album Wabi-Sabi Soul was released in 2016. A version of this text was originally commissioned by Arts and Disability Ireland for the project One Beat At A Time. His radio play Record was nominated for the Prix Europa.

LUKE PRITCHARD O F T H E KO O KS ’ We were enjoying ourselves a bit too much. It all came from nerves. When our first album was made, we were all quite shy people. None of us was getting the girls or anything and then we were thrown into this situation and ended up drinking through it.

If everything had been positive all of the time after that, I genuinely think | would have lost my mind.

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SAD BEAUTIFUL TRAGIC TAY L O R S W I F T

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“Humour’s always been a massive coping mechanism, since I’ve been very young.”

Another in Swift’s collection of heartbreak songs, there is a noticeable sting in ‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ – taken from 2012’s Red – with the sense of aching loss amped up even further than usual: “Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting / Silence, this train runs off its tracks”. Sometimes, even pop icons succumb to romantic despair.

POST PUNK PODGE SINGER/RAPPER/ MUSICIAN

AIMEE, MUSICIAN As a teenager, I was aware that I suffered from claustrophobia and panic attacks, but I didn’t know what anxiety was. No one talked about it. From the age of seven, it took over my life. Growing up, I was too anxious to even get on the bus for school tours, so my mam would have to drive me. I was too afraid that I’d get a panic attack. When I was going through a really bad claustrophobia stage, I couldn’t even go to the cinema or shopping centre with my friends. I get anxiety for absolutely no reason a lot of the time.

I’ll have a day when I’m feeling ridiculously anxious and I don’t know why. I have to sit down and write down what I’m nervous about. It’s only when I read over these notes that I realise it’s not a big deal, and it’s just my anxiety.

Among Irish people there’s still a massive stigma attached to it.

The only person I really felt comfortable talking to about it was my mam – so it’s great to see more of a discussion of mental health now. Music is incredible. After doing a writing session, I feel like I’ve just had a couple of hours of therapy. I wrote ‘Break Me’ when I was having a really bad day. I went into the studio and talked to my producer, Richey McCourt. I told him that I almost didn’t come in because of my anxiety. Richey was like, ‘Well, let’s just write about that’. I wasn’t writing it thinking that I’d release it – but in the end, I knew I had to put it out. I couldn’t care less about the numbers or the streams – getting messages from people about what that song meant to them was amazing. That’s all I could ever hope to achieve.

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When I was 20, I ended up in the psychiatric services in Limerick. I had severe depression at the time, and I tried to take my own life. They signed me out a day later, and I tried to do it again. After the second time, I ended up in there for a couple of months.

I wrote ‘Running’ about that experience. The system fails people because of the lack of services available through the HSE. As I say in the song, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy should be free and accessible to everyone around the country. Right now it’s only accessible in certain hospitals. Outside of that, you need a lot of money to visit a psychotherapist.

‘Running’ came from a real conversation I had with a psychiatrist, who I felt was more like a drug dealer than someone who actually wanted to help me – he was just prescribing me drugs.

Over the last decade, Limerick has had the highest suicide rate in the country. Two of the lads I went to school with took their own lives. The recession has had a huge effect on Limerick. The austerity and poverty makes people feel like they have no way out. People from certain areas of Limerick find it really hard to get a job, just because of their postcode. Drugs like Xanax are easily available too, without having to go to a doctor or a hospital to speak about your problems.

These days I’ve learned ways to cope with depression. I know that if I’m down

for a couple of days I’ll probably have a good few days the following week.

Talking’s so important, and I’m lucky to have some good friends who I can turn to. Exercise is key as well.

I used to just write down all the things that had happened that upset me on a piece of paper, and then I’d rip it up. The lyrics for ‘Running’ started as an exercise in that, but for whatever reason, I didn’t rip up the words because they felt like poetry. I tried it out over a beat that Naïve Ted had given me, and that’s how that song came about.

First and foremost, I write my songs for myself, to help me deal with my own issues. The more that I perform them in front of people, the less bad I feel. I’m projecting the stuff in a positive way on stage, and it allows me to stop thinking back about what happened to me in the past. Performing is a great release, whether you’ve had a good week or a bad week. Expressing your mental health issues normalises it for other people, and breaks down the barriers so they can talk more openly.

Humour’s always been a massive coping mechanism, since I’ve been very young. I was always the class clown.

Obviously you can’t make a joke out of everything, but I try to as much as I can. We built the Technohippies as a JobBridge scheme for men with anxiety.

That’s just how we make a joke out of mental health problems. We’re saying that it’s okay to be anxious.

At the end of the day, people aren’t numbers or statistics – they’re someone’s daughter or someone’s son, and they should be treated that way.

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TENDER BLUR Written in the aftermath of Damon Albarn’s break-up with his girlfriend, ex-Elastic singer Justine Frischmann, ‘Tender’ articulates the savage pain of a broken heart (“Tender is my heart / I’m screwing up my life”) before a euphoric gospel chorus urges defiant positivity (Come on, come one, come get through it / Love’s the greatest thing that we have”).

S I V E S I N G E R A N D M U LT I I N S T R U M E N TA L I S T Most of us unintentionally do our bit to keep the stigma around mental health alive, even if we’ve had our own brushes with it. Maybe you don’t pull someone up when they make a derogatory comment about someone who’s not coping. Maybe you miss an opportunity to change someone’s mind when they pass illinformed judgements. Or maybe you bump into someone you know on your way to a therapy appointment, and when they ask where you’re off to you say “Oh,

“As musicia ns, we p ut o ur ment a l wellb eing o n t he line. ”

M A R T I N B E A N Z WA R D E COMEDIAN I’ve suffered with anxiety since I was 14. It’s something that I’ve tried to channel in my work as a stand-up. It's an anticipatory thing that peaks just before I go on stage. If you don’t land the joke, you feel that you’re under threat.

But if you can stay on the edge of that anxiety, you always feel sharp. What anxiety does is teach you to watch for micro expressions or changes of mood or energy in the room. When you’re up there performing, your mind is telling your body what to do in a split millisecond.

It's a way of utilising what is almost seen as a disability to your own advantage. I’ve turned a negative into a positive so, ‘Huh – in your face anxiety!’”

y’know, meeting a friend.” And you kick yourself for reinforcing the idea that you and everyone like you has anything to be ashamed of.

I released an EP this year and found the process incredibly draining. As musicians, we put our mental wellbeing on the line.

I got sucked into comparing my progress with others, honing in on the negatives when in reality they were far outweighed by positives. Luckily, with some space to breathe post-release, I realised my anxiety was coming not only from a severe lack of confidence, but the belief that I didn’t have the right to feel confident. And if you feel like that within yourself, how can you deal with being rejected, criticised and ignored? But I needed space to figure that out. You need space.

We’ll always have to deal with criticism.

You’ll spend years crafting something, for someone to listen to 30 seconds and say “It’s not fresh”. You’ll tell yourself

you don’t care, when what you need is to acknowledge that you do care and try to understand why. They’ll tell you to develop a thicker skin but please, never beat yourself up for not having “thick skin”. How can you be expected to dive beneath it, and scavenge for the things that come out in your songs, if it’s thick and hardened? How can you be expected to emerge with anything worth sharing if you’re not willing to be vulnerable? How can you be expected to expose yourself to your sensitive spots and then just bury them again when they’re no longer acceptable? People used to tell me I was too sensitive and I’d feel ashamed; I was conditioned to link that trait with weakness. But now I say: yes, I’m sensitive – I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing otherwise.

A few years ago, I got disillusioned with the music industry and my life gradually shifted to revolve around community projects and music in healthcare work. I’d never been more fulfilled. Kind of. One day a colleague gently enquired about plans for my own music and I began explaining how I didn’t want to engage with that fickle world anymore; how my work now was filled with a sense of meaning that world could never give me.

“But Sadhbh,” she responded, “this work is great because music is important. We need people to write songs.” Lightbulb moment. I’d gotten so lost in the smoke and mirrors that I forgot why I wanted to share songs in the first place.

Of course there is always learning in hard times, regardless of whether you write songs about them. But when someone reaches out and says “Thank you for writing that” or “I feel like that song gets me!”, you thank the universe for the struggle that brought it into being. It helped you connect with someone, helped someone else feel a little less alien for a while. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

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“Anything that you can do to draw your attention from yourself, outwardly rather than inwardly, is almost like having a break from depression.”

BA R RY H Y D E THE FUTUREHEADS

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hen I was having serious mental health problems, it was very difficult for other people to help me. If you’re stuck in a daily routine of depression, every night you fall asleep and you don’t want to wake up, and when you do wake up, you’re disappointed. Sometimes people are caught in their own depression and that’s a very difficult trap to get out of.

I realised that in order for me to stand the chance of getting better, I had to make some changes. I tried to create space to redefine myself and also regain the skills of generating self-esteem, so I started to do some private tuition. Sitting with a student and teaching them how to write songs or to improvise, and watching them grow, was a very powerful thing for me. Because, in a blunt sense, people who are depressed are very self-centred to the point where looking at themselves becomes an illness. So anything

that you can do to draw your attention from yourself is almost like having a break from depression. It’s like you forget about yourself for a minute. Sometimes that’s enough.

Yoga is also good. Exercise is really important – being active, even just walking.

If you feel like you’re carrying more weight, then concentrate on that, because it’s gonna be a lot more practical to get in better shape physically than it is to rework your mind. I think it works both ways. You can learn how to control your mind to gain control over your body.

When I was very ill with depression, I was basically living in a room and hardly ever leaving it. I was struggling to get out the door or to get the motivation to go and wash myself. But when I was in hospital, I met a patient who said something that I’ll never forget. He said, “Don’t do the things that your body is telling you that it wants to do.”

When you’re depressed, do the things that deep down you’re terrified to do. You need to reclaim your world step by step and find your way back into it. It’s a difficult task but what else are you going to do?

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

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THE ETERNAL J OY D I V I S I O N Has melancholy ever been so devastatingly expressed than on Closer’s penultimate track? All traces of anger and resentment have been removed, with Ian Curtis recounting in a resigned, even neutral fashion, what is seemingly the aftermath of a funeral (“No words could explain, no actions determine / Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall”). Immaculately produced by Martin Hannett, the genuinely otherworldly music – sounding like it’s coming direct from the afterlife – makes for an unforgettable backdrop.

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

16 HEAL ME S N O W PAT R O L Taken from Snow Patrol’s 2018 comeback Wildness, ‘Heal Me’ was one of the strongest numbers on an album that addressed Gary Lightbody’s struggles with depression and alcoholism. A straightforward plea for spiritual renewal (“Can you heal me baby? / I’ve been wasted in the arms of everyone”), the track was all the more impactful for its directness.

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MARCUS O’L AOIRE DJ & FOUNDER HIJINKS AND S I C KO C L U B S

DANNI FRO

I’ve lost family members to suicide, and there are people very close to me who’ve suffered from mental health issues. I’ve seen it affect their lives hugely. I see younger DJs and friends of mine, and they’re in an industry where it’s really high octane for a few hours, and then it’s nothing. You see how that can really take a toll on people.

Within the past couple of years, there have been friends, regulars on the dance scene, who’ve taken their own lives. Suicide can be quite an abstract concept, until you see the effect it has. You go through this whole range of emotions, where you try and empathise with the person and what they were feeling, and why they felt they couldn’t reach out.

You get this terrifying cavalcade of thoughts.

Hopefully what that does is increase empathy – and that people realise if they’re feeling down, they can talk to somebody. I always said if I have any kind of platform, I’m not just going use it to try and fill rooms. I want to encourage people to talk and take care of each other – to try and promote behaviour that will improve people’s mental health. It’s so important to do that in the dance music industry. So if one of your mates is normally really bubbly and you haven’t heard from them in a couple of weeks, check in on them. We are all in this together.

J O A N N E M C N A L LY COMEDIAN Working as a comic, I found it very hard in the beginning. I was so used to being surrounded by people, and I kind of hated the solitude.

To the point where I thought, ‘I don’t know if I really want to do this.’ Then I broke I up with someone, and I was on my own, feeling awful.

The only time I had any contact with anyone was when I was on stage for half-an-hour. I found it really lonely and hard. We need social interaction – some people need it more than others. And then the more time I spend on my own, the worse I get at interacting, which is a weird side effect.

The increase in conversation around mental health is good, particularly for lads; I think women have always been pretty good at talking.

I think now we’ve realised that we’re all pretty fucked up and there is no ‘normal’. You can have periods of contentment and then something happens. Life can be a struggle. Not everyone’s equipped to deal with it. Some people are more sensitive than others, and some people have a chemical imbalance in their brain, which means they can never feel contentment or happiness.

I know people who have suffered quite badly with it, who’ve had suicidal thoughts, and I’ve been very worried about them. When it comes to our emotions and moods, brains are more complicated than we ever thought before. But there’s an increasing openness and acceptance about these issues, and the will is there to help people deal with them and recover.

“We need social interaction – some people need it more than others.”

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MOLLY KEANE

C O N O R C U R L E Y (centre) F O N TA I N E S D . C .

I SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

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WA I T I N G F O R T H E M I R A C L E LEONARD COHEN Built around a simple, plaintive synth riff, this track from The Future – a career highlight – foregrounds Cohen’s unmistakeable baritone as he broods on regrets and missed opportunities to hypnotic effect.

There are also some inspired moments of dark humour, none more so than the lines, “Waiting for the miracle / There’s nothing left to do / I haven’t been this happy since the end of World War 2”.

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’m not sure if we’ve ever addressed mental health directly in our music, but it’s definitely something that’s affected us, coming from the background we do. We were working minimum wage jobs in Dublin, trying to realise this idea of us being musicians.

You’re setting yourself up for a fall even saying you’re a musician. At the time in Dublin, guitar music wasn’t seen as the coolest form of music. Electronic music ruled the roost and it was hard to validate what you were doing. I remember meeting a friend in a pub one time – he’d had a few beers before I got there, and he told me that rock and roll was dead and we should give it up. I remember thinking, ‘You don’t get it, yet there is something here’. Whenever there are naysayers, it’s hard to maintain that mental strength.

Whether it’s fellow musicians or people involved in our band, we’ve seen people go through the depths of mental illness.

It’s so common now. Even in our personal lives, we’ve seen it with friends. It really is an epidemic. You have to keep yourself in check.

You need a good support system around you, and keeping in touch with family is one thing that always really helps me. If you become too disconnected from where you came from, you lose yourself; it’s like being adrift from the shore.

I was talking to an agent a while back, and

she was saying in the past five years or so, more than half of the bands she’s worked with have had to call it quits because of mental illness. It’s hard because there isn’t as much money in music now; you’re not making your money from selling records – you make it from going out and playing live.

If all that isn’t planned properly, you don’t sleep and your brain kind of starts to melt.

It’s like in Fight Club when Edward Norton’s character takes too many flights. It feels like that sometimes. You’re seeing the same people in corridors and you’re standing in queues.

“ Whenever t here are naysayers, it ’s hard to maintain t hat mental strengt h.”

My generation might have been the last one before the really heavy social media influence kicked in. My girlfriend’s sister, and younger people, they talk about struggling with the pressures of social media. It’s a massive part of their lives – it’s completely new for society.

People are finding it very hard, because there are no rules. It can really mess with people’s heads. There’s more than enough evidence of that occurring.

I suppose for us, being able to play music, and for people to want to hear it and have it affect them – not just in Ireland but beyond – that’s a very special thing. I try not to take it for granted.

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STEFANIE PREISSNER WRITER, ACTRESS & COLUMNIST

NATALIA MARSEC

“Sometimes our physical health is great and sometimes we’re unwell. It’s exactly the same with your mind.”

For me, mental health is a spectrum.

We all have mental health the way we all have physical health.

Sometimes our physical health is great and sometimes we’re unwell.

It’s exactly the same with your mind.

Sometimes all is well and sometimes we go through periods of poor mental health. It doesn’t have to be a huge diagnosis of mental illness for everyone, for someone it may be a brief period of feeling stressed, sad, anxious or anything else on the spectrum. If I leave a cough or cold go untreated, it invariably develops into a full on chest infection. Similarly if I can treat my poor mental health early, it’s much easier to arrest it and turn it around.

People don’t like to admit that they’re vulnerable. It can be hard to say that you’re sad or anxious or fearful. I really want to change that conversation. We can only change this by being brave enough to say we’re not brave. I’m not brave.

I am very often afraid.

I am afraid I wont be good enough.

I am afraid of being in pain.

I am afraid of being dependent.

I am afraid that I’m too much.

I am afraid that people will leave me.

I am afraid that I might have nothing more to offer.

I am afraid of disappointing people.

I am afraid I’ll never be the best.

I am afraid of people being far, far away.

I am afraid of being demanding.

I am afraid of not being everything to everyone.

I am afraid of not being something to someone.

I am also afraid that I think too much.

I realise now that my mental health is my responsibility.

Here are some of the things I do to cope with the ups and downs of life…

I cry I talk to my friends about the big stuff I spend time with my Nana I walk and listen to podcasts I say no I have reduced the amount of stress I can cope with I sleep I reach out I read I unfollow I reach out for help

Share your fears, share your joy, remember that we’re not algorithms or machines. We’re human and life is messy. Share with me @stefaniepreissner

JOHN BUTLER FILM DIRECTOR

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

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ALL APOLOGIES N I R VA N A One of the standout tracks on Kurt Cobain’s album of barbed confessionals, In Utero, the delicate chamber-piece ‘All Apologies’ establishes a tone of melancholic resignation, before ending on the cryptic allusion “All In all is all we are”. The definitive version is perhaps to be found on Nirvana’s Unplugged album, which is arguably even more haunting than the original.

All the films I’ve done feel like manifestations of a question, rather than an answer. I don’t always know what the question is, but I know it has something to do with platonic male friendship between queer people and straight people, people who have been othered, people from different circumstances – the tension there fascinates me.

There’s something about men and their bullshit which never ceases to fascinate me. They’re such absurd creatures! I find it funny. I love films that take a compassionate point of view, but also offer a chance to lovingly laugh at each other’s absurdity.

• John Butler’s latest movie Papi Chulo won the Best Feature Film Award at the Newport BEach Film Festival 2019.

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“Look, you can’t always be calm and confident but you can work at it, that’s the main thing.”

S H A N E C A S E Y, A C T O R

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e are told that men don’t talk about their problems and this frustrates me. How can we keep perpetuating this myth about one half of the population? Some men do talk and some men don’t. I’ve found that some men just don’t talk face to face. We might talk side by side, at the bar or even at work. I wrote a play a few years back called ‘Wet Paint’ about three painters and the battles they face in their heads. I didn’t realise it at the time but the subtext of the play was that I was really worried about a friend. My worries came out in this comedy and I didn’t even know it at the time. I guess this was my way of talking about it. In the last few years I’ve realised how important this issue is to me. I’ve started doing workshops in schools about mental health. We ask teenagers their thoughts on communication and we try to help them to be a bit more resilient in their own lives. It takes an hour and a half so its hard to get it into one little article but I’m really happy to be doing this. Funnily enough it makes me accountable, not just to myself but to the teenagers in the workshops ‘cause god knows they can smell bullshit a mile away! So here’s 4 things I do to be more resilient: 1. I keep lists – It might be as simple as “wash your face, brush your teeth, make your bed” but once you start ticking off your list you feel a bit better and that’s what it’s all about really. If I do those three things, I have accomplished three things before I’ve even taken a piss. Winning!

2. I exercise – If I go to the gym, I might feel bad during it or even sometimes after it but at least I’m feeling something and that might take me out of my head for a moment. Realistically, 9 times out of 10 I

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feel better, better than if I had 10 pints anyway.

3. I meet my friends – I moved to Dublin a few years ago and at the start it was very easy to go from one end of the week to the next without meeting a friend.

So now, I make the phone calls and make the plans and meeting friends goes on my list (see above!).

4. Mindfulness - I’ve found mindfulness quite helpful.

I have an app on my phone, ‘Insight Timer’. There’s this Scottish fella on it and he ends each meditation by saying “mind yourself” in a thick Scottish accent.

I can’t do the ten minute ones but I can definitely do the 3 or 5 minute ones. I also feel like I’ve achieved something by doing one or two of those a day. This helps me when I play someone like Billy Murphy.

It’s hard to act like you’re kidnapping a bus load of people if you’re not in the moment. Mindfulness helps me with that.

Look, you can’t always be calm and confident but you can work at it, that’s the main thing. And you can’t always do these things by yourself so if you need help, ask for it. But make sure you go to the right people for help. You wouldn’t ask your fouryear-old nephew for advice with your girlfriend or boyfriend, would you? And you wouldn’t go to the butcher for a haircut? I wouldn’t ask Billy Murphy for help, but if he asked me, I might be able to point him in the right direction.

•Shane plays Billy Murphy in ‘The Young Offenders’. He will be travelling the country in October with his play ‘Wet Paint’. Shane gives mental health and wellbeing workshops to secondary schools and colleges with Graffiti Theatre Company and the Abbey Theatre.

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ONE U2

SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

A song that rescued the Achtung Baby sessions when they were in danger of going under, ‘One’ powerfully articulates the struggles of lovers who hurt each other too much to be with each other – although in its refrain “We get to carry each other” it attains even wider resonance and a genuinely uplifting quality.

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C ON OR HORGAN PHOTOGRAPHER & FILMMAKER

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“I discovered that accepting my vulnerability has not only been hugely helpful in my personal life, it’s also helped me be better at my job.”

NICKY KAVANAGH

here was a time in my life when I could have scared H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Remember him? An absolute bull of a man, he was the fourstar US Army General who served as Supreme Commander of the Coalition forces in the first Gulf War and the kind of person you’d imagine wouldn’t be scared of very much at all. So his response was all the more surprising when he replied to an interview question on how he chose his most trusted aides by saying, “Frankly, any man that doesn’t cry scares me. I don’t think I would like a man who was incapable of enough emotion to get tears in his eyes every now and again.”

I don’t remember crying once during my teenage years, despite having enough to cry about. This was one symptom of a degree of emotional isolation that showed no signs of changing as I went into my twenties. Whatever was in there did come out in other ways, however, including on occasion some very self-destructive behaviour. By the time I reached 25, that behaviour had reached such a point that I needed to seek help, despite my long-held notion that there was something wrong in not being completely self-reliant, and that the worst thing I could ever do would be to show any vulnerability.

Things didn’t all change overnight. The most insidious form of self-destructive behaviour, which was also the most difficult to let go of, was to keep listening to whatever it was in me that kept whispering that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I just wasn’t good enough.

I had to keep working on that, and one of the things that really helped was the realisation that I wasn’t alone – if anything, that whisper seems to have become a lot louder for a lot of people since the advent of social media, and I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t suffer from it to some extent. I’ve also come to realise that the whisper won’t ever leave me completely, it’s a part of life and the creative process, but understanding where it comes from has made it a lot easier for me to work with.

A lot of the work I’ve done has involved being vulnerable, which was initially quite a challenge. But as time passed, I discovered that accepting my vulnerability has not only been hugely helpful in my personal life, it’s also helped me be better at my job. You might think that a film director / photographer’s work is to be like the general who takes charge and tells everyone what to do, and there is some truth in that. But in order to really connect with the person in front of the camera, who is often having their own moment of vulnerability, there’s nothing more human and helpful than showing real empathy, which is only ever really found by being in touch with your own vulnerabilities. And you need to trust yourself that it’s okay to do that.

Ultimately, I think that’s what General Schwarzkopf was really talking about - not fear, but trust. How could he trust someone who wouldn’t let themselves be vulnerable? And without that trust, how can we ever truly connect? Which is what I think life is really all about – connecting with others. Whatever it takes.

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SONGS TO INSPIRE YOU

The shortlived Britpop era duo – comprised of ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler and soul singer David McAlmont – created one soaring classic in this spectacular, Motown-style effort, which articulated the euphoria of recovery following the dark despair of heartbreak (“Yes I do feel better”). It’s simple, affirmative title and buoyant feel have ensured its cult classic status.

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DERMOT KENNEDY SINGER

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“ There’s 12 of us on the road, and we’re all very close. We’re friends more than colleagues, so there’s always someone to talk to, and there’s always a strong support network.”

hankfully, I’ve always been able to express my vulnerabilities. Singing is an outlet for me, and it’s a cathartic thing. If I’ve had a bad day on tour, I know that I’m going to have an hour-and-a-half on stage where I can just get rid of everything – and that’s a beautiful feeling.

Growing up, me and my friends probably wouldn’t have talked about mental health.

At that age, you can feel bad, but not necessarily recognise what those feelings are. I’ve had the same group of friends since I was 11 years old, and we’re very close.

Only recently, we had a conversation in our WhatsApp group where we were saying, ‘Look, if you any of you are ever feeling a shitty way, just talk’. It’s so important.

For some reason, it was always a very stupid, laddish thing not to talk. Obviously it depends what group of friends you’re in, but being able to talk openly about that kind of stuff shouldn’t be governed by what kind of people you hang out with. You should be able to talk to anyone.

On top of that, gigging does take a toll, and you’ve got to look after yourself. People are always like, ‘Isn’t it mad the way you don’t drink much – when back in the day the musicians were all so wild?’ Well, back in the day they were selling records, so they didn’t have to tour non-stop like we do!

It really struck me when we played Seattle.

We played the Paramount Theatre, which is this huge, palatial, golden room. My mam and dad came over for it. It was the most perfect gig – the place was dead quiet. But then you wake up in a tourbus in the lashing rain in Portland. You’re thinking, ‘Did that even happen?’ It’s quite a jarring thing, to be thinking that you just played the best gig of your life, and now you have to go off and soundcheck somewhere else. That back-andforth can wear on you. You can feel like you’re being dragged a million ways.

There’s 12 of us on the road, and we’re all very close. We’re friends more than colleagues, so there’s always someone to talk to, and there’s always a strong support network. We actually had a little venting session in a tipi backstage when we played Glastonbury. Stuff like that’s so important – you should honestly schedule them when you’re on tour, just to check in on everybody, and see how people are feeling.

BOO GEORGE

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