Mental health issues are something that many college students experience but few talk about. Here a college student shares his experience overcoming his challenges and spreading mental health awareness through music.
[180s]
[Ben playing piano] (15s)
BEN1: So my name’s Ben Wagner, it’s my third year at UNC, and I study music and multimedia production.
[Ben playing piano and humming] (6s)
BEN2: It was always my intention from the beginning to make music and to pursue that as something to study, as something to hopefully make a living with one day. And after going through some trauma and some mental health issues, as well, I would say that it really just it forced me to take a deeper look at myself and to kind of, to rearrange my entire life.
[Ben playing piano] (2s)
BEN3: And so in spring of that freshman year, you know, I started going through some psychosis, and I didn't really know that's what it was at the time. I had never even heard of psychosis before going through any of this experience. And, you know, it was kind of scary. And, you know, I got admitted to a, to a, to the hospital at UNC, and it was some scary times. I was in the psych ward for, like, two, three weeks.
BEN4: But from there, I got put into a wilderness rehabilitation center where I kind of backpacked and hiked through the woods and thought about life until I got myself completely straight.
[Ben playing piano and singing] (5s)
BEN5: I ain’t crying no more – ooh.
BEN6: And from there I went home and stayed in Asheville waiting tables, saving up some money until I was able to kind of jump back into UNC that following spring.
[Ben playing piano and humming] (4s)
BEN7: It forced me to realign myself. When there was a lot of other things going on in my life, I had to really dig deep and find, you know, my drive for things, and since I've found that, it's been one of those things that I just don't want to let it go.
[Ben playing piano and singing] (5s)
BEN8: So I wanted to connect to other people that might be going through something that similar to what I went through. And, you know, I think I can do that through music. And it's a beautiful thing when that happens and I think that it's always the best way to inform people about some drastic change that needs to happen within themselves or within society. It's almost always through music, that it actually happens.
BEN9: Music’s a beautiful thing. It saved my life, and I believe it has the power to save a lot of lives to come.
[Last notes of piano] (2s)