definitely a hot take (mild tw for suicide)

as much as the majority of will wood’s fan base are people who idealize extreme mental illness.

(disclaimer—this does not include casual listeners who are only in it for the tunes. this is about people who eat the lyrics, devour will wood metaphorically, if you will.)

i have lived with mental illness since i was 10. i didn’t get my education on mental illness off the internet, certainly not tiktok. over the years i have been diagnosed with conditions i had never heard of up until that point. my understanding of the reality of mental illness comes from my own life and the lives of other mentally ill peers and people in my life.

my mental illness(es) was/were, according to my records and direct words from my care team, categorically severe. i could not leave my house, i often could not talk to other people, and i was in visible distress most of the time. i, too, would’ve described it as severe, as i could remember a time when it was more moderate. it was within this time i somewhat started listening to will wood, mostly just the normal album. i thought i shared his feelings and experiences. i found him amusing and endearing. i thought i could “relate.”

about a year or two ago, i entered the worst mental health episode of my life and it is still ongoing, albeit under a bit of control. i was forcefully made aware of how bad mental illness could be when i found myself psychotic and at the “end” where you are either dead or in a psych ward because you tried to… well, be dead. and so i spent weeks in the psych ward. and then i had to go back again. and then i was in residential for 2 months. i was put on ssris, snris, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, stimulants, other off-label medication. many of these medications are very harsh with or without high doses. i have been on 25+ different medications, and it’s been a long time since i was on less than 4 at one time. i went through a 3 month daily partial hospitalization program (php) and when i finally completed it, i was hospitalized again and had to restart it from the beginning. i was heavily monitored by staff who would call my mother (whom i live with) every day to ensure she was watching me day and night. after finishing the php a second time, i was set up with 3 different therapists specializing in 3 different types of therapy and that is how it’s been for a few months now.

when i came back to will wood’s music, i was almost sickened by my thoughts about it from before extreme mental illness. i realized i did NOT relate until now, i did NOT share his experiences and feelings regarding mental illness until now, i did NOT understand how the world has treated him due to mental illness until now. i realized why he’s called pretentious for criticizing his fanbase and the way they engage with his music. good lord, i would be too if i had to listen to people with mild-moderate mental illness (or none at all) tell me they relate and share my experiences.

my eyes were also opened to how idealized extreme mental illness is and how often the people who idealize it the most ARE the mentally ill, only they’re more mild-moderate. they want people to believe that they’re in closer proximity to “insanity” than they are. “if i stop taking my 10mg of lexapro, they’d have to put me in a straight jacket!!” “they’d send me to the psych ward if they knew about my inner thoughts!!”

will has a public persona. liking his persona, finding his persona amusing/entertaining and even relating to this persona is no issue. but how could one be so invested in him without idealizing him and thus his mental illness? (with which you cannot tell where it starts and you end when it has reached a certain point of severity.) how can you say you relate to many of his lyrics?

i have a lot of anger i need to work through after my experiences in the past couple years. again, i am so disgusted by the idealization of extreme mental illness from so many people. so when an extremely mentally ill artists creates work about his extreme mental illness, what does it mean when people who know nothing of what extreme mental illness entails points and says “this is me”? what does it mean when visible symptoms of his mental illness are “quirky”?

back to the anger—i recognize this all is coming from at least somewhat an emotional place for me, and perhaps there is a perspective i could be missing. i’d particularly like to hear from will wood fans who, like me, have the misfortune of crammed into the same miserable box as the man himself. but of course, feel free to give thoughts so long as they are coming from a thoughtful place.

edit: for the record i know it’s pretentious to suggest there’s a right or wrong way to engage with art. i know that the majority of y’all will be defensive, aligning with my theory of most of y’all being guilty of this. but i absolutely am pretentious, so do with that what you will.