Aimee Mann, sweatpants, Selena Gomez, insurance, an egg: all mercifully unrelated
Always a bounty, this topic of mental health
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A turn on the Aimee Mann Highway
Aimee Mann is on our show this week!
When I saw Aimee Mann had a new album coming out, of course I wanted to talk to her about it. That’s because a) I love talking to Aimee but mostly b) it’s a series of songs created for a theater piece based on the book Girl, Interrupted.
Not the movie! The original memoir book!
Susanna Kaysen’s book doesn’t have the story arc of the 1999 Winona Ryder* film, it’s more of an anthropological account of life and experiences inside a mental hospital for young women in the sixties. The theater piece has yet to publicly surface so Aimee just put out the songs on her own anyway. That’s one of the advantages of owning your own record label, as Aimee has done for many years.
And of course the album is wonderful. Queens of the Summer Hotel has the tightly focused emotion, beauty, clarity, and humor that are all hallmarks of Aimee’s work, and have been for a long time. The songs are based on the book but there is plenty of Aimee’s own lived experience in there too.
Speaking of Aimee Mann’s lived experience, the interview took a bit of a turn. I asked Aimee about the instances of migraine headaches and hearing loss she had been experiencing lately and that led to a discussion of what that was and what caused it. Starting about a year ago, she had been experiencing these physical symptoms, along with vertigo and tinnitus. All of which are career-threatening obstacles when you’re a singer-songwriter, especially one as precise as Aimee. The songs for the new album were mostly finished by the time the symptoms appeared.
Her path to figuring out the cause of the problem led her to realize it was unresolved trauma from her youth and the stress of life under the pandemic. Once she got on top of that with cognitive behavioral therapy, things improved. She says she’s at about 80% now and writing songs and playing shows. Physical health and mental health are way more closely linked than people realize.
* Other people were also in this movie, I’m pretty sure, but if Winona is in it, it’s a Winona film to me.
On a different subject: sweatpants
We finally have some Depresh Mode merchandise available and it’s sweatpants. The good folks at Maximum Fun asked what merch we wanted and we wanted to come out of the gate with official trousers of depression.
A few reasons to go that route but one of the biggest was that it seemed funny. Like, before the t-shirt or the mug or the tote bag or anything else, let’s get to the garment that is a comfort during depression and, arguably, exacerbates the problem as well. That’s kind of in keeping with the whole spirit of the show, I think.
One of our Max Fun colleagues tried out the pants we now have for sale and reported that she really didn’t want to take them off.
Please remember that:
sweatpants can be used for exercising as well as not exercising.
the DEPRESH MODE name and logo function well as a statement to the world that you’re a mode that precludes a lot of exertion.
these pants can be available for Christmas giving.
by buying these pants, you are directly supporting the show.
Health insurance from work is making people sicker
That’s the best summarizing headline I could think of here for an important story that can be a little confusing.
Basically:
More than one quarter (27%) of employees with employer-sponsored health insurance said those expenses had a major impact on their mental health, while 16% indicated they had a major impact on their family’s well-being.
It’s the high cost of healthcare that (lousy? greedy? heartless?) employers pass on to their workers.
“We believe that foundational changes to the design of an employer’s health plan could have a significant and positive impact in lowering mental health issues,” said Jenkins. “Such steps as eliminating deductibles, providing simple and predictable copays and making primary care visits free are all realistic improvements that can truly help today’s average American workers who are so vulnerable amid our ongoing healthcare affordability crisis.”
This week in what celebrities have to say as they open up
Prince Harry talked about quitting, which is fine, and good for him, and he and his wife have been treated poorly. I also have to wonder, what does he know about what “quitting” and “staying at your job” mean for most people?
Everson Griffen of the Minnesota Vikings says he is bipolar and will become a mental health advocate. Welcome, Everson. This statement follows a scary time for Griffen and football fans:
Griffen, 33, was transported to a mental health facility Wednesday after he refused to come out of his home following a disturbing series of posts he made on Instagram, including one in which he held a gun and said people were trying to kill him.
Selena Gomez shares her tips on getting out of bed. It’s easy to make fun of someone who’s young and successful and beautiful, to diminish what they have to say about mental problems as though being pretty can destroy bipolar. But it’s not nice to do that. Plus, by my understanding, there are always articles on celebrities sharing their makeup tips or whatever so for one of them to share her tips on getting out of bed is pretty cool.
