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You’ll often hear the rapper Logic refer to the issues of anxiety, suicide, and mental health as “taboo”. Frequently, he annotates his interviews with mention of how mainstream media and society at large seeks to shy away from these important, life-changing, potentially life-saving topics of conversation.

In 2017, the name Logic became nationwide after the rapper, whose real name is Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, debuted his third album Everybody at number one on the US Billboard 200 list. Including songs about mental health, Logic has broken shame, stigma, and stereotype like few artists before him as he has broken important records.

The record breaking album gained particular notoriety for its stigma-shattering, triple platinum lead single “1-800-273-8255”, which raises suicide awareness. When that number is called, the caller is put through to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which LOGIC created the song in association with.

The 2017 VMA’s Performance That Changed Everything

At the MTV award show the VMA’s (Video Music Award) in 2017, Logic performed the hit single with the contributing artists on the track, Khalid and Alessia Cara. The performance opened with a mostly dark stage as the camera panned across violin players sitting in the darkness. A small section of a screen above them is visible: black, displaying a phone number in white. After about a minute and a half of Logic opening the song, he moves down the stage. Displayed across the stage floor, the floor beneath the orchestra, and the screen behind them is 1-800-273-8255, repeated line after line. Coming up on three minutes in, the camera reveals a perimeter of people around the stage and walking onto the stage- many of whom, it is revealed, are survivors of attempted suicide. Each individual wears a white t-shirt with 1-800-273-8255 printed on it in black as Logic repeats the powerful lines from the song’s chorus, “I don’t wanna be alive/ I don’t wanna be alive/ I just wanna die today/ I just wanna die”. As more people file in, the camera shows the backs of the shirts which read “You are not alone.”

Khalid struggles to sing through his outro in the song: “But I don’t wanna cry/ I don’t wanna cry anymore/ I wanna feel alive/I don’t even wanna die anymore” as the camera shows people in the audience visibly moved in their emotions. Logic takes center stage: I just want to take a moment right now to thank you all so much for giving me a platform to talk about something that mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about. Mental health, anxiety, suicide, depression, and so much more that I talk about on this album…

The Impact Of Suicide Awareness

Logic’s song was released on April 28, 2017. According to statistics collected by the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, over 4,573 calls were received that day, marking the second-highest daily call volume in the organizations history. Just four months later nearly to the day, after the VMA performance on August 27, 2017, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline reported 5,041 calls. The organization released a fact sheet about the song’s impact, citing that the call volume had remained high since the release of the song. Additionally:

After the song’s release, Google searches for the phone number increased more than 100%Since the song’s release, Google searches for the phone number have sustained at a baseline 25% higher than before the song’s releaseThe song’s lyric page on Genius.com has a link to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website, which brought more than 4,000 visits

CNN  reported that in the two hours immediately after the VMA performance, call volume was tripled to the organization. Frances Gonzalez, the organization’s communications director, explained to CNN why the performance had such an impact. “By sharing a message of hope and taking the stage with individuals who have been personally affected by suicide, Logic demonstrated on a global scale that healing is happening every day for people in crisis and that there is help available.”

Trauma and PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, can be contributing factors to suicide. Volumes of research have found relational evidence of trauma experiences and suicidal thoughts, ideations, or attempts.

Anxiety And Derealization Awareness

On the song track “Anziety”, Logic describes one of his first experiences with mental illness when he underwent what doctors told him was an anxiety attack. “…Suddenly I was engulfed with fear and panic as my body began to fade/ In this moment my mind was full of clarity but my body insisted it was in danger/ I looked around and I told myself I was safe, I was fine/ But I was convinced that something was wrong/ Before I know it I felt as though I was going to fall and fade away…” The attack landed Logic in the hospital with a diagnosis of anxiety. As he researched anxiety, he didn’t feel that his experience matched the descriptions. “I searched and searched for the cause of what had happened to me/ I began to feel detached from reality”.

According to the lyrics, Logic found an explanation that worked for him: derealization. “Derealization/ The sense of being out of one’s body/ I’m not here/ I’m not me/ I’m not real/ Nothing is/ Nothing but this feeling of panic/ Nobody understands/ Nobody knows the sufferings”

Derealization disorder, or depersonalization disorder can be stand alone mental health issues. For many people, like Logic, derealization and depersonalization are symptoms of severe anxiety or panic attacks. His lyrics eloquently and poignantly illustrate the disturbing experience. Without a moment’s notice, it feels as though the mind and/or the body are detaching from themselves and can no longer make sense of what is “normal” in life. In an interview with CBS’s Sunday Morning, the artist explained that “It’s an intense form of anxiety where you feel like you’re almost separated, and there’s a filter between you and reality at all times because you’re hyper-analyzing the situations around you…”

Many people who survive trauma in their lives compartmentalize their trauma experiences, essentially folding up their memories into tight-knit areas that are hard to access. Trauma, as defined by Judy Crane, author of The Trauma Heart, is any single life event or series of life events which cause an individual to change how they view themselves, the world they live in, and how they, as individuals, fit into that world. When trauma occurs, it can shatter an individual’s understanding of one or all three of those components. Regularly experiencing derealization can be frustrating and exhausting, leading one to the hopelessness often accompanied by suicidal thoughts.

Mistakenly, people believe that life must be at its worst for people who are contemplating suicide. On the contrary, life, at least on the outside, could be its considerable best, yet someone with anxiety will still be suffering tremendously. “When I was touring the world for [his second album] and selling out everywhere I went and you know selling records and just being a [expletive] rap star it was the worst year of my life. So like I just bought my house and I’m married and I have my friends and I have everything I could ever want financially…and it was the worst year of my life.” He elaborates, pointing out that it wasn’t his life that he was unhappy with, but the feelings of anxiety he was living with in his mind.

How Logic Copes With Anxiety

Living with anxiety in a manageable way is possible, Logic emphasizes to his listeners.

We will accept our anxiety and strive for the betterment of ourselves

Starting with mental health

We will accept ourselves as we are

And we will be happy with the person we see in the mirror

We will accept ourselves

And live with anxiety

“I’m at the best place I’ve ever been mentally and I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” Logic says in the
HardKnock.tv. He explains how his mission to succeed lead him to become a workaholic and how he lost balance in his life. Describing the many different components of stress he encounters regularly, he urges people to understand that sometimes anxiety is merely a symptom of having too much going on without taking care of the self. “…the feeling of anxiety is very hard and it affects everybody differently, affects everybody differently,” he says. “I’ve noticed that when I eat properly, like literally eat like three times a day, and when I drink a whole bunch of water and I do my best to rest and give myself some time I feel genuinely better.”

Why Logic Chose To Speak Up

MTV did a special min-documentary in 2014 following Logic to his hometown of Gaithersburg, Maryland where he, his father, and his Godmother discuss Logic’s youngest years. Quickly, it becomes evident to viewers that Logic had a difficult childhood. Both his father and mother struggled with a life of active addiction and abuse, subjecting the young man to traumas he could never have been prepared to witness or comprehend. “He saw a lot of things he shouldn’t have seen,” his father says. “You know, his mom being abused by other men, my addiction, her addiction..” and Logic cites a specific memory of physical abuse. Within a short time, Logic’s godmother Mary Jo took him into her family and out of his toxic family home. Not many years thereafter, his career took off eventually bringing him to the realization that his artistry was about connecting to fans. He briefly references conversations with artist Kid Cudi in which he was encouraged to be present with difficult emotions and speak up about mental health in an interview with Beats Radio 1.

Why Speaking Up Matters

“My music 100% is a form of therapy,” Logic told MTV in the mini documentary. It’s the only thing that like allows me to say anything and everything that I want to say…” Everybody his most recent album, chooses to speak his experience, offer real insight into the real experience of real mental illness he copes with in life, and provides real hope for people- like on “Anziety”

I have anxiety

Just like you, the person I wrote this for

And together we will overcome this feeling

Speaking up matters, in any capacity. Whether you are a star rapper or a cashier at the local grocery store, your voice matters: for you, for the world around you, and for the people who hear your voice. Your voice matters because your life matters. You matter. As the t-shirts worn during Logic’s 2017 VMA performance so perfectly expressed: You are not alone.

Using Your Words, Your Voice

Music therapy and writing therapy are just some of the therapies you will encounter when you make the brave decision to attend a residential treatment program for trauma, like the ones we offer at The Guest House. Nobody can tell you what your trauma is or is not. Nobody can tell you what your anxiety, your panic, your suicidal thought, your depression, your experience of life is or is not. You, however, can tell them. To start, you have to be willing to tell yourself, then tell someone else. Everyone has a story when they arrive to The Guest House. Everyone has an opportunity to change the way that story goes, just like Logic did. Our programs are custom tailored to your unique needs, based on the specific manifestations of your trauma, your personality, and what therapeutic applications work best in helping you express yourself.

The first time you will use your voice on the journey to recovery is when you reach out and utter three of the most important words of your life, “I need help.” Asking for help is never a sign of weakness, but a demonstrative symbol of incomparable strength. Call The Guest House Ocala today for information on our residential treatment programs and concierge customization, offered from the privacy of our estate in Ocala, Florida: 1-855-483-7800