Sheri Sanders and Christopher Castanho have teamed up to write a series of articles surrounding “tricky to discuss, but necessary” social topics through the lens of Students and Teachers in the Musical Theatre community called “Musical Theatre: The Wild Side“. For their third installment, the pair decided to tackle the now overwhelmingly common topic of “Mental Illness” and dissect how it relates to Musical Theatre education. After discussing with a handful of wonderful and brave individuals, Sheri and Christopher have decided to split this segment into two parts. The first part focused on hearing from people who have dealt with mental health conditions from their youth through their collegiate training experience, entitled “Mental Illness in Musical Theatre” This second part focuses on the group’s discussion with a trailblazing researcher and Musical Theatre educator Kaitlin Hopkins and on the college wellness experience, entitled “Mental Wellness in Musical Theatre”
Sheri and Christopher were able to open the door in an effort to break this stigma known as ‘Mental Illness’ to shift its focus to ‘Mental Wellness.”
Christopher: Starting off this second part of our discussion [SEE PART ONE HERE] I am happy to welcome Kaitlin Hopkins, Mental Wellness Pioneer in the College community. Kaitlin, how did you decide to take on this role in the mental health community? You were a professional actress for over 30 years who became a musical theatre professor, but how did you make and create a healing process for college students and the programs they are in?
Kaitlin: It was helping my students navigate their transition into college, and by witnessing their challenges and struggles that lead me down this path. Looking back on my acting experience, if you had problems that needed to be addressed it was largely “outside” of your training. There are things that can help in stress management and mental wellness, like meditation and yoga, which are all good tools but the idea of mental wellness being included as a standard component of artists’ training has yet to become the new normal. Part of that becoming industry standard requires research and data that proves specific tools, training and life skills actually improve and help artists manage their stress in a significant way, which is where the conversation is now going, which is very exciting, and what we are pursuing at Texas State. Age 14-22 is when most mental illnesses will present themselves, and college provides numerous stress triggers. The question becomes, how do we deal with that within the context of a university training program? What is our responsibility as educators and are there changes we can make to the training that would impact these issues in any meaningful way?
Sheri: And as Acting teachers, you are asking them to “be themselves” and “be vulnerable”. You don’t want them to respond negatively like, “I don’t want to show you this, people have a problem with it, you are gonna reject me if you see it.”
Kaitlin: Or “it hurts too much to show it to you.” I’ve had students with significant issues, and I didn’t know how to help them. A lot of the answers I got initially were, “Well this is a national epidemic”, “university mental health centers are overrun”, “if they’re a danger to themselves or others, call campus police”. I realized the large majority of the issues I dealt with as a performer were preventable once I had the information to take care of myself. For example: if I steamed and hydrated, didn’t eat acidic food, and warmed up and warmed down, my voice was healthier. If I stretched before and after I danced, I was less likely to have physical injuries. I thought, why aren’t we doing that with mental health? Why are we waiting until a student is in crisis to take an action? Let’s put preventative measures in place earlier that can identify issues and offer skills and resources to help artists as part of their training. Now when students come into the program we have them assessed for everything from vocal health to postural issues, TMJ, allergies AND they are part of a research study that is also looking at their mental health and wellbeing and incorporating life skills and mindfulness techniques into the curriculum. We are having great success with it.
Sammi: Kaitlin, how do you know what their illnesses are if students don’t have the language? If they come from everywhere, all different backgrounds and don’t even have these conversations?
Kaitlin: All we can do is teach them what stress is, and how it affects their brains and their body chemistry and give them tools to manage it. It isn’t our job to diagnose and treat illnesses. We can teach them about what being on their devices for long periods of time does to their brains and nervous system, we can offer them alternatives to make healthier choices. In addition to educating them on the science behind stress, we are also teaching them communication skills, problem solving, coping skills, goal setting, leadership, time management, and we’re giving them tools like Vedic meditation, and other mindfulness techniques, which give them the ability to alter their own body chemistry successfully. Get them out of fight or flight and into their neocortex where clarity, creativity and confidence live. When you put these together it accumulates into a healthier artist. You’re not solving mental illness, but you are giving them more ammunition and support for their success, and for the issues that are more serious than that, obviously there has to be professional help and intervention.
Sheri: Thank goodness for you. So guys, how has your community been like with you and how you have been addressing and navigating this information?
Michael: I feel like I experienced a gamut of responses from extremely accommodating, to not accommodating at all, but I’ve heard horror stories of people in cut programs being cut because they are emotionally not mature enough, and that they display “alarming behaviors” and being cut for their mental health problems, “you’re not strong enough for the business” blah, blah, blah. Ironically, I know people who went all the way through these cut programs and they couldn’t handle the emotional demands of being an actor and quit within two years of graduating... yet here I am, “super-mental-illness-man” and I’m a working actor. Sometimes I think we are seen as a problem rather than a person with a problem. That can be frustrating. But I have to say there were many teachers who supported me and said “Look I’m gonna help you through this--even if i don’t understand it.” And I’m grateful for them.
Kaitlin: I talk to faculty from other Universities all the time, we are all experiencing the same challenges and looking for solutions. Understand the challenges are immense. Faculty want solutions, but they are also hard to find. I’ve had moments where I’m like “good god, I just want to teach a class!” I obviously care. However, none of us want to get into situations where we are doing things we shouldn’t be doing, we have to be careful, our jobs are to educate you in musical theater performance, we are not trained to be therapists nor should we be-- but I do think we can provide more practical tools and skillsets as part of training, and then direct you to resources and experts when we are out of our depth of expertise.
Christopher: Sammi and Ashley, you are from great schools with amazing leaders in your programs as well, how was it navigating your “illness” in this environment?
Ashley: My diagnosis happened as I was coming in to OU from a university in Tulsa. I came in not really having great communication skills about the state of my mental health, so I tried to unhealthily keep it under the radar for a very long time. It was only in the second semester of sophomore year that I started telling people about my DID, one faculty member at the time, I really trusted. I built a relationship with them very slowly, and soon, it became a safe enough space to discuss it with the head of the program, and my peers, and to build a dialogue around it. A student council was formed to create a safe and communicatory space for students to discuss mental health and other subjects. We created an atmosphere of support and communication in our small program--a huge skyrocket into progress. I was able to come into my own in the space because of the way people have been so supportive.
Sheri: Yes! Because you don’t have to be suppressing or hiding this, you have access to more parts of you and the ability to share and engage those difficult things that are not typically encouraged in musical theatre. I’ve learned my craft is IN my PTSD, my healing of that is where my inspiration and genius comes from. How it grew in me, how it showed up behaviorally, how I named it and what I do with it as an actor and teacher. Sammi, you went to Penn State.
Sammi: Yes, a great school! For me it was a little different going into college knowing who I am. It was so easy to say “I know I have this so I’m fine, I’m fine” and now I'm aware being healthy is knowing when to ask for help. That’s a huge part of being well for me--I didn’t do that enough-- at the end of the year my teachers would ask why I didn’t tell them something was up. I’d say, “I thought you knew when I wasn’t showing up for events that I was having trouble”. I’m incredibly intelligent, so when things weren’t happening or I wasn't acting on anything, they were actually cries for help. So many cries for help were not being answered and I’m not answering them myself. But my experience was also about peers at my school. I watched a friend of mine harm herself, and what was insane was that we all knew. I'm not sure if the teachers were talking about it. The class knew, it was so scary for us because we’re 18, technically we’re not children, but we are kids and we don’t know what we’re doing. Eventually she got help, and I think the teachers got a bit more involved, but they were under qualified, and didn’t know what to do or say. They'd say “put it in your art” which is valid, but not helpful for some people. I know that I need my own mindfulness techniques. There were people who needed help, and they just didn’t have access to it on this huge campus, where tuition includes counseling, where there are 24 hour hotlines, a RA, but the pressure you guys--you are scared to keep up this insane professionalism, in a VERY demanding career, where there is no structure. Where you are the structure. The conversations ARE starting, there are meetings every other week now at Penn State. We’re opening the conversations that people are too afraid to have. I mean, Sheri came and started the entire conversation about race when we were doing HAIR.
Sheri: I was shocked that NO ONE had talked about it.
Kaitlin: We have to change a culture to be open minded to mental wellness, as opposed to mental illness. We need to treat mental health the same way we treat physical health. If you are predisposed to high blood pressure you take a action whether dietary or medication to help either manage it or prevent it. Why don’t we do that with mental health?
Sheri: Well, I want to talk about my experience with social media. Facebook, has sucked us into a stimulus that is like a drug, and we are losing our capacity to be authentic people.
Kaitlin: This opens up another can of worms. Research shows the amount of time you spend on your devices releases high levels of dopamine and is addictive (45 mins or longer). Every time you get a ding from a text message it releases dopamine in your brain, the pleasure center, when you check to see how many people “liked” your post, same thing. This generation has been on devices since they were very little, it is a real thing that universities, in general, are having to deal with now. Studies are showing these high levels of dopamine are creating permanent cognitive brain damage. Just in the time I have been teaching we are seeing the impact of students cognitive skills being diminished.
Sheri: We have “scrolling” attention spans.
Kaitlin: Studies show social media causes higher levels of anxiety and depression and contributes to self esteem issues. Fortunately, we are starting to see this treated in the same way as alcohol and drug addictions. However, we could prevent a lot of it with education and awareness.
Sheri: Yes, I really want to talk about these self esteem issues. We no longer come to the “community” we are in as ourselves. We all come as this person who we have turned ourselves into on social media. So people are showing up in the world as their persona. Can you imagine? To be young and identifying feelings in THAT environment, in addition to chemicals, trauma, stress. It creates layers and layers of stuff to peel off and support the core. Where is there self esteem inside of any of this? We are trying to survive this environment.
Ashley: The brand is more glorified than the person.
Christopher: Sammi, Michael, and Ashley, if you can say something to someone who identifies with your struggles--what would you say?
Michael: One, be transparent, if you aren’t open about your struggles, the people in your life who have the ability to help you succeed CANNOT. Second, if someone reacts negatively after you share your struggle--mental, emotional or physical--it says infinitely more about their character than it does about yours, and you need to remember that.
Sammi: That spoke to me in so many ways. The biggest thing is learning how to be honest with yourself about where you are, other people can try to help you, but if you are still lying to yourself about pulling out your eyebrows, it’s not gonna get better. Any positive things I’m doing to be better, working out, yoga, isn’t working cause I’m lying. You have to have transparency with yourself you can’t tell anyone, till you admit it to yourself.
Ashley: I personally have always deeply felt like I’m unworthy of love. Love of any kind. I feel that I’m a BURDEN to anyone I try to communicate with or to have a relationship with; my family, mentors, friends, lovers. I struggle with it every hour of every day. Perhaps everyone does in some respect, but I feel that it’s important to find a way to believe you are not a burden to your loved ones just because you may feel broken doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to love and feel loved. You are worthy of love.
Sheri: Well, the therapist that really turned my life around was someone who does this practice called the Somatic Experience. It likens the work to animals who are out in the wild and when they are in danger, they go into fight, flight or freeze, and then when they’re out of danger, their nervous systems are regulated again. I needed to learn how to regulate my own nervous system.
Kaitlin: We have data from our research study that shows a significant decrease in anxiety and depression and increase in coping and problem solving skills. As a result we are not losing as many students along the way, and our graduation rates are higher. We are seeing less students with severe problems. It’s not a magic fix, it’s a start. What’s amazing is Texas State hooked me up with researchers and psychologists to further develop the curriculum. We have 10 universities across the country that want to participate in the research study as it moves forward. We are conducting one more year of the pilot program, then we are hoping to open it up. I’m hoping within two years, everyone who wants to have access to the program, can.
For now 2 of the many components that can be helpful:
I’m writing The Performing Artist’s Guide to Mental Wellness. There’s help on the way. I’m developing our curriculum into a book for anyone who wants it m, but until that happens:
- You can heal your own nervous system using Vedic meditation (Mark Price works with us at Texas State). We are incorporating it as part of our curriculum. It is a stress relieving tool that is designed to de-excite your mind. You guys are constantly in fight or flight. Your bodies create cortisol and adrenaline under stress, and deeply impact your health. You can teach yourself to stop those stress drugs, and instead produce and release chemicals that contributes to feelings of wellbeing and happiness, like serotonin. You can learn to control your body chemistry, extremely important for actors. I have found vedic meditation to be the most productive and accessible form of mindfulness. It is very practical and designed to reduce stress and anxiety.
- A gentleman named Dr. Bill Crawford wrote a book called Freeing the Artistic Mind. It can offer you tools and information about what the brain does under stress, how to get back into your neocortex and get out of brainstem, and where your fight or flight lives. It’s just about having tools and a skill set. Hopefully we will see more artists training programs incorporate mental wellness.
Sheri: The idea is to get out of fight or flight and leaves the good stuff--if it allows us to put it emotions into our craft, play with them shape them and share them and make art of them. This kind of support is the key.
Christopher: Sheri and I have been noticing from all the articles we’ve written so far--it’s about the students, saying “I need to feel comfortable to share myself with you and I need to feel heard.” Communication is so important when dealing with any personal subject.
Sheri: Yes and meeting halfway. Meet your students in the middle and create the healing process. Teachers can’t rely on the students, and the students can’t leave it to our teachers.
Ashley: Healing and art are collaborative.
Christopher: Educating and collaborating and healing through this whole process.
Sheri: Everyone has the capacity to say, “this is my experience”, and “I acknowledge your experience.” Thank you guys!
Special thanks to Ashley Mandanas, Michael DeCoursey, Sammi Sadicario, and Kaitlin Hopkins for being so open and honest to share their perspectives.
For a mental health crisis, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is available at 1-800-273-8255. They have trained counselors available to speak with you 24/7 and assist in a crisis situation.
Want to talk with Christopher and Sheri about some topics you think are important within the Musical Theatre community? Click here to get in touch. Their next discussion will be on Diversity in Musical Theatre Education. Be sure to follow their blog: MTWildSide.Wordpress.com for new articles coming soon.