{"id":14333,"date":"2017-07-11T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T16:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=14333"},"modified":"2017-07-12T08:50:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T15:50:59","slug":"sarah-jicklings-struggle-with-bipolar-inspires-debut-solo-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/07\/11\/sarah-jicklings-struggle-with-bipolar-inspires-debut-solo-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Jickling\u2019s struggle with bipolar inspires debut solo album"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Vancouver indie musician Sarah Jickling started singing with the band The Oh Wells, handing out cupcakes at shows and soaking up the spotlight, it sustained her for a while. But it was honesty, transparency, and being open about her firsthand experience with bipolar disorder that sustained her in the long run.<\/p>\n

\u201cI let go of who I was and the kind of musician I thought I was going to be,\u201d says Jickling, whose debut solo album, as Sarah Jickling and Her Good Bad Luck, When I Get Better <\/i>is all about learning to live with the mood disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs my bipolar disorder progressed I felt less and less like that happy person that I was pretending to be on stage. Everything kind of fell apart; my band fell apart, my life fell apart,\u201d says Jickling. \u201cI was unable to go to work; I was unable to really maintain any relationships. And that\u2019s when I thought, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m going to need to get help.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sarah Jickling is playing Victoria the day after releasing her new album (photo by Nelson Mouellic).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jickling is now in a relationship, performing the music she wants to perform, and advocating for mental-health awareness. She is the recent recipient of an award from Anxiety BC\u2019s Writing and Multimedia Contest (in the multimedia\/24-to-29-year-old category) for the album\u2019s title track. That makes sense, considering the subject matter of the album.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writing of the album just came really naturally,\u201d says Jickling. \u201cIt\u2019s a way that I can deal with stuff that\u2019s going on that seems insurmountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jickling says that writing and performing is beneficial to her in many ways, including on a therapeutic level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very natural transition from accepting my mental illness\u2014saying, \u2018Okay, I have this and I\u2019m going to get help\u2019\u2014to \u2018I\u2019m going to write songs about it and start talking about it,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cThe moment I accepted it, I wanted to share, because that\u2019s how I process it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jickling combats the darkness in her world by writing about her experience; there is nothing more tranquil for her mind than getting ready to take the stage when it comes time to perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the things that calms me down. It\u2019s a very strange thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI always say that I have off-stage fright. There\u2019s something about being on stage that takes away a lot of my anxiety. If I start crying for some reason, it\u2019s part of the show. And that\u2019s why people are here. They\u2019re here to see me do me. My performing strategy is not \u2018let\u2019s do a perfect show.\u2019 It\u2019s more \u2018I\u2019m going to be myself, I\u2019m going to be a human, I\u2019m going to show my flaws and sing my heart out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Jickling
\n7:30 pm, Saturday July 15
\n$10, The Copper Owl
\ncopperowl.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Vancouver indie musician Sarah Jickling started singing with the band The Oh Wells, handing out cupcakes at shows and soaking up the spotlight, it sustained her for a while. But it was honesty, transparency, and being open about her firsthand experience with bipolar disorder that sustained her in the long run. \u201cI let go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-july-12-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14336,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333\/revisions\/14336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}