On August 14th, Huntress lead vocalist Jill Janus passed away from suicide at the age of 42. Her band mates released this official statement:
“Beyond her accomplishments in the music world and her advocacy for mental health issues, she was a beautiful person passionate about her family, animal rescue and the world of natural medicine. She will be missed more than she could have ever known.
“If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It provides free and confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week for people in suicidal crisis or distress.”
So before I go on further, I just want to share my experience with first and only meeting Jill Janus. Iâve read everyone say what a wonderful, kind, and loving person she was. The Jill Janus I met was a mean, aggressive, and hostile human being. My friend and I were hanging on the Huntress tour bus with my good friend Tyler Meahl (Huntress drummer). We were just having a conversation and catching up over a couple of beers and Jill storms out yelling at the top of her lungs for us to get the fuck off of her bus. Tyler explained to her that I was a good friend and she said, âThey are press and there will be no press on my bus!â It was so beyond awkward but we obliged and the three of us exited the bus and continued our conversation outside. Tyler apologized but I assured him he had nothing to apologize about.
I ended up messaging Jill about this exchange and instead of hearing back from her; I heard back from her assistant who was managing her social media account. In so many words, she said that Jill sent her apologies and that her outburst basically came from an incident earlier in the day when a couple of fans let themselves into the Huntress bus which made Jill feel extremely threatened. When I read this reply, I didnât roll my eyes, I didnât huff, and I didnât say, âYeah, whatever.â What I did to was feel an extreme sense of empathy.
Let me start out by saying that I am not a Huntress fan. I never was, and never will be. I thought Jillâs vocals were like nails on a chalkboard and I also hated the fact that Huntress was one of the reasons Holy Grail ceased to exist for such a long time (and still seem to cease to exist). The reason Iâm saying all of this is that even though I had zero care or liking of her art, I was (and still am) very empathetic of her mental health. Jill was very open about her anxiety, her bi-polar disorder, and the fact that she was schizophrenic. I also had a huge level of respect for her because of her advocacy for mental health but as you read up time, she was also an advocate for natural medicines.
Now I didnât know Jill personally but in reading this, this just lead me to assume that Jill didnât take any form of prescribed mood stabilizers or any kind of anti-depressants. This is where I have a big problem. Even someone like me who is on the lower to medium spectrum of ADD/Depression/Anxiety/Bi-Polar, I can tell you that, without a doubt, if I didnât take the meds that I am on I would be a fucking nutcase. My daily regiment consists of 30mg of Prozac, 50mg of Welbutrin, and 10mg of Valium a day. Thatâs not counting the .5mg of Xanax that I take when the shit really hits the fan (which is rare these days).
With that being said, if this is what I have to do in order to maintain any level of fucking sanity, if all Jill was taking was fucking roots and leaves, this was nothing more than a very temporary fix for something that needed way more than what she was getting. Maybe this is why she committed suicide? I donât know. Nobody knows but I can tell you this, I have been at the very bottom of the barrel with my mental health and when you find yourself sympathizing and understanding why people kill themselves, that is a scary fucking place to be. Unfortunately, society has placed such a strong stigma upon taking meds for mental health. People say stupid shit like, âChange your dietâ, âExercise moreâ, âJust smileâ, and worst of all, âItâs all in your head, get over it.â The people that say shit like this obviously have never been in fetal position in the shower crying for no reason or sitting in a dark closet counting backwards to 100 just to remind him/herself to breathe.
My mental health illness is a legit and medically verified chemical imbalance in my brain that goes back as far as my great grandfather. He was a full blown alcoholic/womanizer, my grandfather was a drunk and killed himself, and my father was addicted to pain meds and died a very slow death over the course of about ten years. Itâs like that line in The Whoâs âThe Real Me.â ââŚIâm crazy mom help. She said I know how it feels son cuz it runs in the family.â
My brain just lacks the chemicals that make me experience things like a ânormalâ person. The meds that I take allow me to function on a day to day basis and do so in a far more productive way that I ever was able to do without them. In my opinion, people read way too much and listen to the wrong people when it comes to taking meds. They hear people saying things like, âYouâre putting poison into your systemâ or âyou can overcome this by eating this root or this flower or rubbing dirt on your gums or whatever.â Iâm here to tell you that you canât! Maybe if you are on an extremely low spectrum of anxiety you can do this. I know people who can take a Benadryl and it fixes and relaxes them. Then you have me who takes, literally, a handful of pills every morning.
I have opened myself up to be an advocate for mental health and I am very transparent about it via my social media, my blog, and with my friends and whoever else wants to talk about it. Iâve had a lot of artist/musician friends tell me that they are afraid to take meds because theyâre worried that it will stifle their creativity or that it would make them not as creative. I can honestly tell you that as a writer and a songwriter myself, nothing could be further than the truth. As a matter of fact, my creativity came alive once I found the right cocktail of meds and the level of focus and attention I was able to put into my music and my writing was present more than ever. I even found myself to still be able to write from those dark places because even though I wasnât there as much as usual, I could look back on those darker times very vividly and recount them in song and/or writing.
What we have here folks is a full on fucking epidemic that constantly gets swept under a rug. Whenever an artist/musician dies from cancer, there are cancer fund and cancer benefits out the ying yang. When someone dies of a heart attack there are benefits and foundations made for heart health. But when you have artists who have offed themselves because of their mental health, they get a fucking headline that they died, a day of remembrance posts, and then thatâs the last you hear about it. That, my friends, is fucking sad.
So in closing, letâs just remember that Jill Janus fucking killed herself because of mental illness. She was fucking struggling and suffering and probably listening to all of the wrong people. Now I am no doctor but all I can do is share my experiences. If you are feeling depressed, anxious, having panic attacks, feel like youâre hearing voices, etc, go see a doctor at once and get a referral to a psychiatrist. Be very transparent with them and tell them everything. Nobody is going to put you in a straight jacket and throw you in a padded room. What theyâll do is they will assess your situation and they will do their best to come up with a cocktail of medicines that will hopefully aid in setting you on a much healthier path.
Another thing to remember is that there is no cure for mental illness. There is no magic pill that you can take that will make it go away. Itâs going to be a life time of maintenance. There will be times when the meds have you in a great place for a while and then all of the sudden youâll feel yourself slipping backwards a bit. You just tell your psych this and they will tweak your meds to try and get you feeling good. Iâve been on my meds now for 3 years and they have been tweaked five fucking times. Yeah, itâs a battle without a doubt and itâs a struggle but my life and the wellbeing of me and those around me are very much worth fighting for.
If you ever need to talk, please feel free to reach out. Even if I think your bands sucks or you think Iâm a fucking asshole, regardless Iâm an advocate and I am more than happy and willing to have these conversations with anyone and everyone who wants to do so.
Rest in Peace, Jill and to all those that have lost their battle with mental illness. We have to do our best to get the numbers of casualties down. We canât keep losing people to this blind and forgotten illness. We must keep it in the eye and ears of the public and never let them forget that this is a legit disease and that it will not go away if we just stop acknowledging it.
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