Medication: Musician David Wimbish Normalizes Psychiatric Care Through Art

Transcript

Ellie Pike:
Back in my early twenties, I lived in the small city of Greensboro, North Carolina. It was a time for gardening, raising chickens, making art, working as a therapist and surrounding myself with friends. While there, I stumbled upon a beautiful soul named David Wimbish.

David Wimbish:
I'm David and I tour with a band called The Collection that I write for and spend most of my time helping other people create music and creating my own music and writing, but also reading and taking walks and thinking about deep questions that I'm never going to find answers to.

Ellie Pike:
At the time, David was just embarking on a fruitful career in music. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of his talent and seeing some of his early career that started as house shows out of a garage. We touched base in my early thirties at a show in Colorado, but as all too often happens with friends, we lost touch over the years. But back in October, I noticed something on his band's Instagram that prompted me to reach out a song called Medication. In it, he invites us into his difficult choice of using prescription drugs to save his life. The song and our ensuing conversation really left an impression on me, so I asked him to come on the podcast to talk about his experience with the stigma around psychiatric meds and his own mental health story. So today I am pleased to welcome David on the show.

He is the singer and songwriter for the band The Collection, and has toured the country performing his songs and opening for the Oh Hellos, Sammy Ray and the Friends and Ripe when not on the road or in the studio. He spends his time at home in the small village of Saxapahaw, North Carolina, cooking spicy foods, producing, running through the woods, and snuggling up to his tabby cat. On today's episode, we'll not only discuss the evolution of his mental health, but he will also perform two songs from his upcoming album.

You are listening to Mental Note podcast. I'm Ellie Pike. I am really happy to be here with you. I know we're going to have a really authentic conversation. So before we dive into your music, tell us a little bit about your upbringing and the family you grew up in, maybe your interest in music and where it started, and a little background.

David Wimbish:
I grew up in a very evangelical missionary family, but we lived in a community that was missionaries that were coming back on furlough for a few months, which meant most of my friends I would meet, they would be there for three months and then I would see them two years later. And that was in North Carolina, kind of in the woods. And I just grew up being able to ride my bike for hours at a time, and we lived on four acres. It was really beautiful. So I just grew up with a deep love for being out in the middle of nowhere and a pretty religious upbringing that meant I had a lot of intense feelings about hell and feeling scared that if my actions were done in a wrong way, I might end up in a bad place even though I simultaneously was scared of eternity in heaven too.

That sounded terrible, but I guess the least terrible of the two options at the time and generally have not felt a ton of religious trauma from that even though I don't consider myself to be religious in that way anymore. But I did grow up in that environment, which I think specifically impacted me in just a feeling of like there's kind of an emotional weight to everything that you perceive or do, and I think there's been a large degree of my growing up since then that's been trying to just understand the value and very simple things that don't have to be about where you're going to end up when you die.

And yeah, my family is very musical. My mom led worship, did choir. She plays 20 different instruments really well. My dad plays classical piano amazing. He'll just sit down and play Rachmaninoff pieces like it's nothing. I have three siblings and all of us play music, so we spent a lot of time singing harmonies together in the evenings, singing hymns, and I just kind of thought that's what all families did. So it took me a while to realize this is weird that my six-piece family is singing harmonies in our house.

Ellie Pike:
I just got the most beautiful picture of your family time and I'm picturing a fire and everyone just enjoying singing and everything being totally harmonious in many ways. That's really a beautiful picture. It really is awesome.

David Wimbish:
It kind of was, our house literally was heated by a wood stove in the living room, and so it literally was just sitting around the fire and singing music together. So it was strange because my parents, because they were so evangelical at the time, the only music in our house really was Christian music or my dad listened to classical a lot, and so I didn't grow up listening to the Beatles or something. A lot of people did. Music was just more of a normal thing that was a part of life than it was an exciting thing. It just felt like, oh, this is part of how you express yourself.

I think when I was 13 a guy at my church gave me this little recorder. It was like this eight channel digital thing, and you could just record songs. And I remember taking my little sister's terrible keyboard that took like four D batteries and plugging it in and holding a mic up to the speaker and recordings and showing it to my parents. And that was the first time they were like, huh, he might actually have a thing. He just created this big piece and it was pretty natural to me. But it was strange because it wasn't really inspired by a lot because at that time I wasn't listening to exciting music.

Ellie Pike:
What were the messages that you received around mental health or emotions, or did you have conversations around those things?

David Wimbish:
I mean my parents were still only one generation away from the people that thought that going to therapy meant you would end up in a mental hospital the rest of your life. I mean, the generation before them literally we're still getting lobotomies.

Ellie Pike:
Yeah. It's evolved so, so much. Right? Yeah.

David Wimbish:
I remember recently talking about my depression with my mom and she was like, "Oh, I knew you were severely depressed since you were 15 years old." But it was always kind of talked about as this family sickness. It was never like, oh, let's figure out some fixes for this. It's just like, oh, you inherited the family sickness.

Ellie Pike:
Right? It's just a given and you just keep moving on.

David Wimbish:
My mom is a super mom, not just those instruments, but she cooks everything. She helped design our house and she was putting the rock on the walls, 45 pound rocks on the walls, and she taught a PE class for 60 kids and she would go run 13 miles and all this stuff. She can do everything. But I remember a period growing up where she had chronic fatigue really bad for two years and couldn't really get out of bed very much. And it's strange to think about it now. I mean because chronic fatigue is also a very physical thing, but just thinking about this space in her life where her mental health was very affected, but there were no words for it. She didn't have language to talk about what was happening. It was just like, oh, I'm tired out and I can't explain it.

Ellie Pike:
I think that that is really interesting because there are a lot of folks who have that experience and don't necessarily have the language for it, but given that you weren't given that language and no one's fault in that process, right?

David Wimbish:
Totally.

Ellie Pike:
Looking back, you say that you had depression when you were a teenager. What did you think it was when you were a teenager?

David Wimbish:
I don't know. Honestly, I just woke up so many days feeling like I don't want to be around. Everything felt so heavy. I felt like I was on the edge of tears so much. When I think back to high school, I literally think those were some of the worst years of my life.

Ellie Pike:
And at the time you're just thinking, "I'm heavy. This is hard, but I just need to keep trudging along."

David Wimbish:
I didn't know many of any other people that felt that way, and I think that's when I really started to get into music for myself because I started finding my own sense of what I like to listen to. And a lot of it was other people who were really depressed and I would hear these songs and be like, "Okay, I'm not crazy. Somebody else feels this way. Somebody else who's 25 or 30 or whatever, they feel this way. Okay, I'm not alone in this feeling."

Ellie Pike:
And when you were experiencing that, what do you think others perceived you were experiencing?

David Wimbish:
I think teenagers get written off as just being overly emotional and their feelings are not very valid. It's a phase you'll grow out of it, and I think even other teenagers think that. And so I don't think I felt very taken seriously, which obviously made it way harder. I tried to lean into this version of myself when I was around other people that was just ultra happy and goofy and joking around and flirty and this side of myself that felt like I could integrate into a community more because I just knew that people didn't take seriously how I was feeling most of the time.

Ellie Pike:
So it seems like as a means of survival, you kind of assimilated to what people wanted to see David be like and what felt probably more comfortable for people, which was a little bit more happy and light. And when you did that, it seems like it made it worse for you. At what point did you get to finally talk about it or express that this is a problem and you need support?

David Wimbish:
I think it was a lot of years before I really felt safe to talk about it. Through high school I didn't feel like there was a lot of space for it, and I think music was the first place that I started feeling like I could talk about it because the music I was listening to was echoing that. I remember sometimes writing songs and putting them out and my parents being like, is this how you actually feel? It was surprising to them, it would be embarrassing to go back and listen to that music now. It was so just like, "Everything is terrible". That was kind of the space I was in. But I think music became initially my first safe place to just be able to express myself because I had seen other people use that container, so it felt like, okay, I can inhabit this container.

I don't know if people will still love me if I share how depressed I am or share this kind of thing. And so I'm specifically going to do that so that I can see, oh, are people still around and do they still hang out? And I think there was a time where that started happening in my music and how I talked to people where I noticed when I shared how I was doing that it started being a connecting point to other people. And so in the same way that music has been that safe place for me, I can use my music as a way to share where I'm at and hope that it provides a safe place for other people who haven't had a safe place to talk about how they're feeling and how they're doing.

Ellie Pike:
I know that in some of our past conversations we've talked about how you've created music that tells your mental health story and it can be really vulnerable to share that, but you've also developed it right, and you're sharing that over and over again in different cities as you travel, and how many people come up to you after a show saying, "This is my story." So you've clearly created a bridge for folks to be able to relate with you. I'm just curious what that feels like to you to have strangers come up to you and start to share their vulnerable story.

David Wimbish:
It's both awesome and very heavy, and sometimes you just almost wish that the thing you heard was like, "Hey, I really like your song. It made me want to dance with my friends." And very often, "Hey, your song meant a lot to me when I was going through hell or when my dad died of cancer", or things that are very, very heavy. And I've had to sort of learn how to distance myself a bit from it because I can get so emotionally wrapped up in other people's stories, and that can also cause me to be like, well, I'm also depressed and not doing well. I don't have a right to be hearing these stories or I can't hold this container for people. But generally the feeling is extreme gratefulness that people feel comfortable sharing very intense things because it's so essential for human connection that we're able to share what's actually going on.

And I think as somebody who grew up in the evangelical church, there was so much happening in people's lives that they didn't feel like they could share with each other because they felt like it would show something bad about them. And so to me, the experience of growing up in the church was like, all these people are really struggling with a lot and they're all trying to pretend that they're not. And so everybody feels very alone in their struggles, and I've just felt pretty dedicated at this point to making sure that the spaces I'm in don't allow anybody to not have the option to be able to feel like they can be where they're at.

Ellie Pike:
I appreciate that you value community and bringing authenticity into that and that you still recognize that you still have your own struggles and your own needs and you can't just take on the world. I really would love for you to share a little bit more about you mental health recovery journey and what that has looked like. I'd love to know some of what has inspired your music and talking about mental health in the first place.

David Wimbish:
Yeah. I moved into a van with a partner for a year, and we toured around the Southwest and just checked out strange watering holes and fun places to camp. And I had this feeling before we did that this is going to be the thing that frees me. I just need to go feel free. And then the whole time I was there, I was just severely depressed and not doing well, and it really affected our relationship. And so we kind of hit a point where we were like, I feel like we should get a couple's therapist, which I was very resistant to because I'd never been in therapy. And it was like, well, this is just a sign. The relationship is doing bad. But it was so incredibly helpful. We found this magical person. And after we split up, I just kept seeing this person as my therapist because it was just so severely impactful to me.

And now he's been my personal therapist for six years, and that was my journey into therapy, realizing that there's a safe contained space for me to talk to somebody and actually their job is to listen because I've always been somebody who doesn't want to put the weight on my friends. I've never wanted to be they're like, "Whew, it's exhausting to be around David. He's always struggling with something." And I think then it can be easy for folks to not want to share where they're at because they just feel like they're going to be a burden. And so to have a paid relationship where I'm like, this person is getting paid so that I can be their burden, it felt really, really helpful.

So I think that was the first step for me in trying to take care of where my mental health was at. But I hit a particular low point a few years ago, and I got very, very sick unexpectedly, and it affected my mental health, and I had a lot of brain and psychological issues happening and had a pretty major breakdown, and I hit such a low point that it felt like there was nothing I could do to get better and I just didn't want to be around.

And I think because I'd been depressed for so long, a lot of people had recommended medication to me as an option, and I just felt so worried because my life was so connected to music and my music was so connected to my emotions that I was like, what if I take this and I feel like a zombie and then I lose my emotional connection and then I can't write music anymore, so now I'm not depressed, but I don't have the life I want to have. That was always my big fear. And I had a conversation with a friend who they were just like, you deserve to live a life that's not just at 50% all the time. You deserve to just be completely well, that's an important part of the human experience. There are options so that you don't have to put yourself through feeling like you're below 50 all the time.

And they also made the point that if somebody was diabetic, they would take insulin and that would be normal, and nobody would be faulting for them for that. But people that maybe are not producing enough serotonin for some reason, we're very quick to demonize ourselves of, I can't take meds when it's like, well, maybe you just need more serotonin. Maybe you just don't have a normal amount of the brain chemicals that make you feel okay. And so that was a big push. And I think because I was in such a desperate spot, I decided, okay, I'm going to do the one thing I know how to do. And I got on an SSRI and it has severely impacted my mental health in really, really positive ways. I don't feel like I have personally felt a lot of negative side effects. I know lots of people are not as lucky as me to have the first thing they get on really work for them, but for me it was very, very helpful immediately.

Ellie Pike:
Well, thank you so much for sharing some of the ebbs and flows of your mental health journey and some of that tipping point of having someone else reflect back to you. It doesn't have to stay this way. There could be another option and more power to you for being courageous to say, I'm willing to try something new, because especially when your brain is feeling depressed, I can only imagine how difficult that felt for you. One thing I want to share is that I've worked in mental health for over 15 years. We always talk about stigma. We talk about the importance of therapy, we talk about the importance of treatment. And one thing we don't often talk about is that medication can be really important for some people, and maybe it's because it's so nuanced, right? Because we never want to recommend anyone take a certain medication.

Of course, we always want someone to go to their medical provider, talk it through, but when I heard your song or even pieces of your song Medication, I was like, wait. And I paused and I was like, this is such an important conversation for a lot of people. That is that, I don't know, maybe you've made it like 70% in therapy where it's like, "Yeah, it's helpful, but my brain isn't where I want it to be." And sometimes that tipping point and having a pharmaceutical intervention to support our brain chemistry, which is a physical need, can be really beneficial for folks. So I just really want to touch on that, that I'm really grateful that you're talking about that component of adding medical intervention. And I'd really love for you to share how that played out in the song that you've written called Medication.

David Wimbish:
It's been such an education for me, actually, that song, because when I wrote it, I was staying in a cabin up in Maine and I was snowed in. My car literally couldn't get out of this blizzard that happened. And so I was just like, I'm writing all this music, I can't move. And I woke up one morning and I just recorded this tiny little piano part that came to my head. I think I was literally still in my boxers just walking around this cabin. And the first thing that I sang over this piece of music was, I Deserve to Be Well. And I broke down into tears, I think, because I was like, wow, do I believe this? I think that's sometimes when I know I've hit something is when I'm like, okay, I just wrote this line. That means I might have to sing this every show that we play for the next however many years, and that's going to really teach me if I believe it or not.

And that's a hard thing to hold, but I always felt like the medication piece of it, like, oh, this probably isn't going to resonate with people very much. People will resonate with this chorus, but the rest is personal and whatever. And so the song kind of went crazy on TikTok and has done really well for us, and I was really surprised at the piece of it that connected with people was the medication part. And as we've been seeing other people making their own videos using the song on TikTok, it's been a lot of people with postpartum depression. That's been kind of the story that's been coming up a lot for people and this group of people that feel like they're relatively unseen in their depression and people with PMDD, it's been these spaces of people that are dealing with a lot of brain and chemical management to some degree.

And it's just amazed me because I think before I got on medication, nobody I knew was talking about being on meds. The journey feels very isolating because you feel like nobody else is on this. And there's a lot of stigma around that. And once I started talking about it, I was like, whoa, even half my friends have all been on it at some point. They've just never told anybody about that, but it's been very, very normal. So the song for me has just, honestly, the way it's connected has made me feel less alone in my journey, and I really didn't expect that. I was hoping it would make other people feel less alone, but it's made me feel very less alone, which has been amazing.

Ellie Pike:
I really love that it means people have come out of the work and even people and your friends being like, yes, I relate with this too. Would you want to share any of that song with us or play a little bit? Yeah,

David Wimbish:
Let me scoot this over really quick.

(singing)

Is that enough? I don't know.

Ellie Pike:
I love that. I think it works great. And I wrote down the word survive and aimless, and I'm just curious, when you were writing those lyrics, were you feeling suicidal? Did you have thoughts of what if I just in this life or recalling moments through your depression where that was your reality?

David Wimbish:
I had been suicidal just a few months before. The feeling of survival, that's just how every day felt. And the only thing that floats in your brain is like, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to exist, and I can't even place why I feel this way. There's not even necessarily anything going on to make me feel this way. And so now I feel guilty that I feel that way, which is making me feel even worse and worse of a human, and I shouldn't exist even more. And that you just spiral out. There's no way to get out of this spiral. I mean, I felt that off and on for long periods since my mid-teens. But in the particular year leading up to Medication being written, it was by far the worst I'd ever experienced that. Yeah.

Ellie Pike:
You're telling a story so many people can relate with, and I'm so glad you're here to tell it. Your way that you have found hope and being able to say, I deserve to be well. And knowing that you want to believe that every time you sing it is really courageous, honestly. And it took a hard choice for you to try something new besides therapy or going sober, but to also take medication. So in that journey, I know you've written more songs about your mental health. Would you like to share another one with us? Yeah.

David Wimbish:
There's a song called Spark of Hope that I actually wrote it in the studio while we were recording the record, and I knew what I wanted this song to be about, and it just never worked. And then we were in the studio and we're working on some other song, and then all of a sudden I'm just jamming around on the piano and like, oh my God, this is it. And I wrote it and then recorded it the next day and it made it on the record. And there are these moments in my life where the only thing getting me through is this tiny, tiny spark of hope, and that sometimes that's enough. The potential that that spark could become anything bigger than a spark is enough to be like, okay, I'm still here and worthwhile. So yeah, I'll play a little bit of this.

(singing)

Ellie Pike:
Wow, truly I'm speechless. That is beautiful.

David Wimbish:
Thank you.

Ellie Pike:
You have an incredible way of putting your thoughts into words and also bringing in such emotion. So maybe that leads to my next question of what impact do you hope that your story has, or what impact do you hope that this music has as it tells your story?

David Wimbish:
I just want people to not feel alone. And for me, music has always been the tool that's helped me not feel alone. And so I'm hoping that I can do the same for other people.

Ellie Pike:
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your music with us and your story. And I know folks will want to follow along with you on your journey. So how can they follow along, whether it's in person or on social media or your website?

David Wimbish:
We're on Instagram @CollectionBand. We're on TikTok @TheCollectionBand. We will be on the road a lot more this year because we're releasing a record this year and releasing a lot of songs, and so you can find our tour dates at thecollectionband.com.

Ellie Pike:
Awesome. Thank you so much, David. It's been a privilege to get to have this conversation, and we'll be following along.

David Wimbish:
Thank you. It's been great.

Ellie Pike:
I hope you enjoyed getting to know David as I did. If you'd like to check out more of David's music, follow the link in our show notes and go to thecollectionband.com. They're also on TikTok, TheCollectionBand and Instagram CollectionBand. Thank you for listening to Mental Note Podcast. Our show is brought to you by Eating Recovery Center and Pathlight Mood and Anxiety Center.

If you'd like to talk to a trained therapist to see if in-person or virtual treatment is right for you, please call them at 877-850-7199. If you need a free support group, check out pathlightbh.com/support-groups and EatingRecovery.com/support-groups. Also, keep a lookout for an Unlearning Weight Stigma workshop Eating Recovery Center is putting on starting at the end of January through early March. Sign up at EatingRecovery.com/events. If you like our show, sign up for the e-newsletter and learn more about the people we interview at mentalnotepodcast.com. We'd also love it if you left us a review on iTunes. It helps others find our podcast. Mental Note is produced and hosted by me, Ellie Pike, directed by Sam Pike, with editing by Carrie Daniels. Till next time.