New-ish bipolar diagnosis, new book, But still punk

Scream Therapy Book Launch

When: May 11, 7 pm at The Patricia

What: Launch of Jason Schreurs’ new book, Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey through Mental Health (Flex Your Head Press, 2023). Expect a reading, plus local musicians.

For more: To order a book or learn more about it, see screamtherapyhq.com

On May 11, Jason Schreurs launches his memoir-plus, Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey through Mental Health, at the historic Patricia Theatre. The music writer and podcast host by day and Patricia ticket booth guy by night will read from the book and welcome some local punk musicians to join the party with a couple of songs each.

The book follows the transformational story of Jason’s life with bipolarism and the other punks he learns from, revealing the healing power of a misunderstood and underestimated music community.

In it, musicians, therapists, advocates, and activists prescribe the punk ethos as a catalyst for mental wellness. Scream Therapy asks a crucial question: If punk rock can provide therapy, why aren’t more people screaming?

Here, Jason answers some questions from qL mag:

How did a guy who grew up in laidback qathet get connected to the punk scene? Or has there always been a punk scene here?

Jason • I thought this town sucked when I was growing up, and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out and move to a big city that actually had a punk scene.

When I was in my teens, I was one of maybe six people here who’d even heard of punk. We found each other through skateboarding and bonded over our search for identity, belonging, and acceptance.

I often wonder if I found punk rock or if punk rock found me? Blazing, obscenely loud music and skateboarding were the only things that made sense to me. I needed something to take solace in; to calm me. The loud, hard, fast music did that for me somehow.

Our skate crew shared a disdain for authority and the conservatism of a town full of loggers, millworkers, and hockey players (this is in 1988).

No offence, but this place didn’t exactly mesh with a kid like me who felt like a complete weirdo freak outsider, my mind swimming with the overwhelming feeling that I was missing out on the life I was supposed to live by being here.

My friends and I found the punk scene through magazines, mail orders, and trading dubbed cassettes of bands with names like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Corrosion of Conformity, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Christ on Parade.

No, there hasn’t always been a punk scene here. Before 1995, when I opened a record store and I and a bunch of amazing, misunderstood, disenfranchised youth started playing in bands and making ‘zines, I doubt anyone would claim there was an actual punk scene here.

We started booking shows for out-of-town bands that aligned with our morals and ethics.

Our particular band, Return to Sender (no, not named after the Elvis song), set out to rattle the town’s deeply rooted conservative cages. Our songs had lyrics like: “every cop's a bad cop" and "they want to take away a woman's right to control their own body-they're ignorant!"

Remember, this was the mid-90s, so I guess a bunch of high-school kids with anarchist patches on their jackets and a 25-year-old guy who sold them Minor Threat and Bad Religion albums were ahead of our time?

Our band played Blackberry Fest one year and made some of our own siblings and parents cry, and not in a good way. We figured that hundreds of street-partiers would witness our royal “eff-you” to a stifling town that already hated us.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Thankfully, the town has changed a lot since then, and so have I.

I love living here, and I’m glad the community took me back with loving arms.

I’m still a punk though.

Tell me a bit about having bipolarism.

Jason • Before my diagnosis, it was like I had two versions of Jason. One was professional; one was a complete train wreck. This side I mostly hid, unless I was able to scream my head off in punk bands, which was my coping mechanism of choice.

When my personal life fell into shambles and family and work stress ate at me from the inside out, I started to experience manic and depressive episodes that yo-yoed me into some pretty upsetting situations. I was a good person with a good heart, but I was self-sabotaging.

Even when my mental health crisis was ramping up, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know what the word bipolar meant. I was 46. How does that happen?

Being diagnosed as living with bipolar was a relief. It wasn’t an excuse for my past behaviour, but it was an explanation. I pieced together my life and began to gain clarity and find acceptance.

My mood episodes won’t magically go away. I won’t be fixed, or healed, or cured. Ever. I’ll take my medication every day, twice a day for the rest of my life.

And that’s bipolar, formerly known as manic depression, a mental health condition that affects more than 45 million people, according to the World Health Organization. My day-to-day life is almost impossible to predict, even when I’m doing all the right things (meds, diet, exercise, therapy, sleep…. sleep is the golden ticket).

What’s the connection between punk music and mental health?

Jason • Punk and mental health have always been connected. Songs about personal struggle have been shouted into dented microphones and launched out of beat-up instruments since the genre’s formation in the mid-’70s. Pioneers such as the Ramones, X-Ray Spex, Hüsker Du, the Slits, Minutemen, and Circle Jerks challenged conventions, carved out a do-it-yourself ethos for punk scenes worldwide, and tackled the taboo subject of mental health without shame.

That hasn’t changed. But it’s more than that. Striving for mental health and taking care of yourself are punk rock concepts by their very nature because they challenge people to resist the mental health establishment and ultimately reclaim their lives. There’s nothing more punk than waking up in the morning, taking a deep breath, and living another day of your life—your way. Also, read the book….

WHY AREN'T MORE PEOPLE SCREAMING?: Author Jason Schreurs hanging off an air conditioner at an undisclosed Cranberry punk space in his first band as a lead screamer.

What do you hope the book achieves, once it’s out in the world?

Jason • I hope that people who read Scream Therapy find kinship in feeling like they don’t belong in a world that tells them what to do, when to do it, and how to assimilate into a system that’s broken and corrupt.

I hope readers will see that myself and other punks in the book have found a way to exist in this world by leaning on those around them, taking accountability for their own health, and taking paths less travelled to transform into the people they always wanted to be. I hope they learn more about me and my story and look at me through a lens of empathy, not sympathy.

I hope they enjoy the read. Ultimately, it’s a book. If it’s not an entertaining read, why bother?

May is mental health awareness month. There’s been a load of awareness-building about mental health since COVID. What do you think qL readers should know, that isn’t in the mainstream conversation yet?

Jason • Don’t try to fix people. Don’t give unsolicited advice. Don’t say “I understand what you’re going through,” because you don’t. Don’t say, “Oh, we all have mood swings,” or, “Oh, we all get depressed,” or, “Oh, we all have anxiety,” because we don’t, and this is serious. Don’t say, “That’s crazy! That’s insane! That’s nuts!” because it can make me and others with mental health conditions feel like crap.

“There’s nothing more punk than waking up in the morning, taking a deep breath, and living another day of your life— your way.”

-Jason Schreurs