We think we know what depression looks like: crying, isolation, binging or starving, lethargy, brain fog. We probably don’t picture a megastar tackling a worldwide concert tour without missing a beat. We don’t imagine she would be in such great shape that she could train for this tour by singing her 3-hour set list while running on a treadmill. We don’t picture her having the stamina to record and release a new double album during this tour. We don’t picture her in the spotlight on her days off cheering wildly in the stands of others’ games or concerts. And yet, here is Taylor Swift literally saying, “I’m miserable and nobody even knows.”
It’s okay to NOT be okay
If you know someone who’s been through it lately, check on them. Let them know it’s okay to NOT be okay. Be a safe place for them to confide, cry, curl into a ball. Masked depression can wreak havoc on the body not to mention the effect it has on the choices you make moving forward after a traumatic event. You have to feel it to heal it and move on. I suppose and hope her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, has been therapy for Taylor. For those who don’t have a platform like this to exorcise their depression, please reach out to a trained professional. Just like Taylor Alison Swift, the world is better with YOU in it!
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
If you have a minute, please watch the lyric video for her song, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. It may just break your heart for her. The lyrics tell the tale of someone who doesn’t want to let others down. “At what cost?” this therapist asks. Taylor means a lot to a lot of people and, as a Swiftie myself and a Swiftie mom, I can assure you that we fans want her healthy and happy more than we we want a concert or another album.
Take time to be well
Taylor’s fans have developed and Taylor has nurtured a parasocial relationship with her fans. By dangling clues about her music, sometimes years in advance, she leads them on a journey that can be very consuming for them and for her. Fans eat it up and she may feel obligated to keep feeding them. Many fans are intensely invested in her life and emotional contagion is evident in her fan base as they adopt her joy, her grudges, her pain. What effect do you think it would have on you if you were emotionally linked to an artist and you play, on repeat, their album chronicling an intense depressive episode? Probably the same effect it would have if all of your chums at school were depressed and spoke of their sadness all the time- it would eventually bring you down. (So, maybe alternate playing TTPD with one of her happier albums?)
Her own Instagram post gently guides fans in the direction she hopes they will go after listening to this emotional album:
“[TTPD is an] anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”
-Taylor Swift
By pouring her personal life into her lyrics, Taylor proclaims she has healed. That is wonderful news! At the same, time there is another important takeaway: Because she has poured her personal life into her lyrics, many have come to think they know her. What she is clearly saying here in I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, is “you know what I show.” To Taylor and everyone who has masked depression, I say, it’s okay to not be okay. You don’t owe any of us your well-being.
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
Lyrics by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff
I can read your mind
She’s having the time of her life
There in her glittering prime
The lights refract sequined stars off her silhouette every night
I can show you lies (one, two, three)
‘Cause I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, baby, gotta fake it ’til you make it and I did
Lights, camera, bitch smile, even when you wanna die
He said he’d love me all his life
But that life was too short
Breaking down, I hit the floor
All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, “More”
I was grinning like I’m winning, I was hitting my marks
‘Cause I can do it with a broken heart (one, two, three)
I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday every day
I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague
I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art
You know you’re good when you can even do it
With a broken heart
I can hold my breath
I’ve doing it since he left
I keep finding his things in drawers
Crucial evidence I didn’t imagine the whole thing
I’m sure I can pass this test (one, two, thee)
‘Cause I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, baby, gotta fake it ’til you make it and I did
Lights, camera, bitch smile, in stilettos for miles
He said he’d love me for all time
But that time was quite short
Breaking down, I hit the floor
All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, “More”
I was grinning like I’m winning, I was hitting my marks
‘Cause I can do it with a broken heart (one, two, three)
I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday every day
I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague (he avoids me)
I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art
You know you’re good when you can even do it
With a broken heart
You know you’re good when you can even do it
With a broken heart
You know you’re good, I’m good
‘Cause I’m miserable
And no one even knows
Try to come for my job
