With 27.4 million followers on Instagram and 5.4 million on Twitter, Jackson Wang of GOT7 fame is a force to be reckoned with. But the first Chinese artist to ever perform in Coachella shared that he suffered a nervous breakdown while working on his latest album “Magic Man,”
We take a look at his experience into and out of the breakdown:
Identifying the experience
“I was in a mental breakdown, with depression and huge anxiety because everything changed around me. It got to a point where I’ve been in this industry for eight, nine years: it’s always traveling; show after show; programs; commercials; tour; it’s almost in a loop. I started to feel lost. I don’t know what more can I do and what should I do? I don’t even know who I was. I started drinking every day, but I was still working.”
Imposter syndrome
Wang grew up in a family of athletes. His parents were national athletes and both him and his brother were athletes growing up. Wang’s mindset to facing obstacles and life stressors was to work harder, find a solution and just to overcome it.
With such a mindset, Wang seems set to overcome anything. But sometimes the perfectionistic personality that he developed growing up from such a family background could have caused Imposter Syndrome. Imposter syndrome is the believe that you are not good enough, not able to do a job despite clear evidence of your knowledge and experience.
“The reason why there was a breakdown was it got to a point that it was above that. I felt like maybe I just suck.”
Hitting the wall
So what caused the mental and emotional crash? It looks like it’s a combination of self-doubt and the problem of overt self-sufficiency.
“Just everything. I was completely lost. I thought, “You know what? Maybe it’s time for me…” By the way, I never believed in talking to other people or to friends. I always solve my own problems when I’m stressed out by myself, because what’s the point? It’s my problem. It’s not anyone else’s problem.
How did recovery start?
“My producers, my team, my friends around me, they insisted to sit down with me. People have been always telling me: ‘You need a break. You work too hard, you need to chill for a bit. You need to recharge, to refresh, so you could come back inspired.’ I was worried that if I take that break, I’ll be lazy forever. What if I can’t come back? I was worried about that.”
The power of compassion
“I didn’t know there was power in those words they shared. It feels so magical to me. This is magic. I never used to believe in this for all my life, then I accepted it. Whoever I was in the past, whatever I had with all my music or whatever — me, Jackson Wang as a character, as an artist, as a person — I wanted to leave that behind and start fresh. Then we created the album, and it’s called “Magic Man.”
What keeps him going
“What do I want to be? Hopefully one day, I want to be the bridge to connect East and the West. People in the West know about East, East knows about West through internet, or even through traveling or working. But there are a lot of layers underneath that people don’t know. I hope one day I can do my best to make that happen.”
