Concert Promoting Mental Health Awareness

Country artist musician Bailey James and Swedish-American alt-pop pair 7000apart made that big appearance at Kaukauna Secondary School as early as possible at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday morning.

“They were incredibly talented, so I was just taken away by the skill and music and the message of the songs they played,” Kaukauna Secondary School senior Kiran Lison said.

The message was spreading psychological wellness mindfulness and telling understudies the significance of connecting for help.

“(We’re) bringing that awareness about mental health, how to take care of yourself and breaking those stigmas,” Center for Suicide Awareness founder and executive director Barb Bigalke said. “When you’re in high school, sometimes you feel like you’re totally alone. And so for them to come out and say, ‘Hey, I had those struggles in high school, but this is how I got through it,’ as well as the fun-ness and greatness of music, it’s a great win.”

Bigalke realize that she needed to deal with making an exhibition for neighborhood understudies in the wake of seeing 7000apart perform at Paperfest and hearing their story.

“She came up to us afterward and was like, ‘what you guys are doing is exactly what I’m doing. I also want to end the stigma around mental health and suicide prevention,” Amelie Eiding of 7000apart said. “A lot of our songs that we write are about mental health in some way or another. We’re working on an album called Feel Your Feelings, which is very much the kind of message we want to bring forward.”

Eiding said she battled with tension in school as a melodic venue major and with wretchedness during the confinement of the Coronavirus pandemic. She said that making music with her significant other, Jon Kresin, the other portion of 7000apart, helped her through those troublesome times.

“I struggled with both anxiety and depression, and I know how big of an impact music has had for me, both as a kid and also now as an adult, how music can get you through the really tough times,” Eiding said. “And also to express yourself and feel your feelings, it’s so incredibly important.”

Eiding is from Sweden and met Kresin while in secondary school as an unfamiliar international student, and that is the way they made their band name, as they kept a 7,000-kilometer long-separation relationship when Eiding moved back to Sweden.

Joyfully wedded, the couple dwells in Sweden yet has been visiting around Wisconsin over the mid year.

Eiding accepts that emotional wellness is better tended to in Sweden as treatment is free there, however Kresin added that discussing psychological well-being more has prompted some improvement in the disgrace encompassing emotional wellness in the U.S.

“For me, growing up in Green Bay, I think these are things that I didn’t really hear,” Kresin said.

Philadelphia local Bailey James likewise said that music has been an extraordinary wellspring of solace in her life, which was shaken when her sibling passed on by self destruction. She is out determined to spread psychological wellness mindfulness with her music and is particularly keen on speaking to high schoolers with her message.

“In the age of social media, it’s incredibly hard to be a teenager, and we need to bring as much awareness to mental health as possible,” she said.

Anyway, what did the high schoolers detract from the exhibition?

“Everybody’s just stressing about the next step (after graduation),” Lison said. “Emotions, they come and go, and you just need to get through the tough parts, anyway that you deal with that.”

“To reach out and get help if you need it,” fellow senior Rebekah Saure said. “It’s something… I don’t think we talk about enough.”