No matter who you are or what you do, there’s no denying the fact that everyone has been impacted by the effects of a global pandemic over the last year.
While COVID-19 has left countless people feeling the physical effects of a deadly virus, its impact goes far beyond the human body, with many still dealing with related aspects, whether it be financial, professional, or even just related to leisure.
But while we grapple with lost opportunities, a “new normal”, and other ongoing effects, it’s often easy to overlook one of the most under appreciated aspects of life itself: mental health.
This is where Support Act’s Tune Ups series comes into play, with its second season launching just this week. With seven episodes appearing across as many weeks, the series features the likes of country star Fanny Lumsden; the Teskey Brothers bassist Brendon Love; hip-hop artists Ziggy Ramo and Barkaa; live music veteran Sahara Herald, Tour Director of Frontier Touring; and longtime roadie and CrewCare co-founder Howard “Weird” Freeman.
Each episode of the series explores the subject’s personal mental health journeys and, in many cases, the amplification of those conditions brought on by isolation.
In the second episode of the series, the ever-energetic and effervescent G Flip explains how despite a perpetually-positive outlook on life, even she had been beaten down by the never-ending series of events that 2020 brought with it.
“I think ever since I was born I’ve been a very optimistic, positive person,” she explains. “I just came out of the womb just like, ‘Yo, I’m ready to go!’ Always as a kid, a very cheery kid; didn’t take stuff too seriously. Everyone’s always like, ‘Is your glass half full? Half empty?’ I’m just stoked to have a glass at all.”
“I guess for me [2020 was just] all over the place,” she continues. “I was meant to be moving to LA. I had my bags packed and my flights booked, and then two days before I was meant to jump on that flight, COVID hit so I had to come back home.”
Sensing an opportunity to make lemonade out of viral lemons, G Flip notes that even her plans to decompress and recalibrate following a few years of being in-demand were quickly upset like that of so many others.
“Then shit hit the fan and then it went really bad,” she adds. “Then I went through a break-up, which I didn’t really see coming. Then all my shows were postponed, then all my plans in LA are now cancelled and, like, I’m not moving there anymore, and I had so many sessions booked over there with really cool people. And it just felt like everything just went dark for a while.”
Like the majority of the world, G Flip explains that it didn’t take long before the overwhelming feeling of darkness soon took over, leaving her in a position where she was “not feeling good mentally at all”.
“I remember during that COVID period there was like three days where I did not get out of bed,” she explains. “[I] felt like I’d hit rock bottom.
“[I] didn’t eat much, like, I actually lost my appetite. Things went really dark for me,” she continues. “I’m glad that I’m not in that mindset [anymore], because when you are in that mindset it’s fucking scary. It’s very scary, and you don’t think you’re ever going to get out of it. And I had just so much anxiety and my chest was just tight.”
However, when one door closes, another opens, and G Flip explains that she began to utilise exercise and physical activity as a way to get over the increasing anxiety that enveloped her.
“I think what happened – how I got out of that dark period – is I started working out, and I started doing walks, like big walks where I’d try and get 10,000 steps a day,” she explains. “And then that just started me on like, a great trajectory and like, I was getting up every day – still get up every day – early, go for my walk with my friend, best mate Char.
“I was feeling so much better, in such a better mind state that I kind of got addicted to doing that,” she concludes. “When you get in a rhythm, it’s like, same as working out. I feel like – you get fit and you actually are excited to do the next workout ’cause you’re into it, and like, you see results and you’re feeling better, and you’re feeling better in the mind and everything’s clearer. And I think I started and I got addicted to that.”
Check out G Flip’s full video below, and be sure to check out Support Act for more information on how to access resources whenever you may need them.
