Henrik Wahlström speaks at Media Mind Week: "The conversation around mental illness must change"
Photo: J. Yoldas
Future Media Group's Media Mind Week event is back. This year we welcome the media creator and Instagram celebrity Henrik Wahlström, who during his talk on the 16th of November at Brahegatan 10 in Stockholm will address his own journey and assess how the media industry needs to review its working climate.
On Instagram, Henrik Wahlström has a following of 127,000, and he engages in daily conversations about everything from feminism and social ideals to mental illness and how we can collectively respond to the growing number of vulnerable people. He himself suffers from bipolar disorder and nearly two years ago he went out publicly and started talking about it.
- Mental illness is everywhere and for some reason we have mutually agreed not to talk about it. It's obviously not sustainable. Feeling psychologically unwell is the most common reason for sick leave in Sweden today and suicide is the most common cause of death among the country's young people. Talking about it is an absolute must, he says.
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During Media Mind Week 2022, Henrik will highlight the importance of encouraging more people to talk about how they actually feel.
- I will be sharing my own perspective from my bipolar disorder journey. I will speak about how I have worked to successfully control it, how I have still managed to live a stable life, and how that has been achieved. But I'll also talk about mental illness overall, because that climate can and must change - in society at large, and so too in the media industry.
Free lecture in Stockholm
The media world in particular tends to be a more vulnerable industry than others, says Henrik, citing the gig economy as a clear example. Never being better than your last job and constantly relying on outstanding efforts to get additional projects can put you at great risk of suffering from mental illness.
- If you lose a job in the media industry, you can basically be completely smoked, which can lead to a lot of pressure. Project jobs are uncertain and it is psychologically stressful not knowing whether you will have a job or not in two weeks' time. Taking a few days off work for psychological reasons is easier in a permanent job, and the security of permanent employment is lacking in the freelance sector, which is both challenging and hard. For example, a production assistant may mention that they don't have a driving licence and be passed over for one who does. The same goes for someone who talks about their mental illness.
Henrik concludes that in the long run, this leads to a situation where society hires people who are better at hiding their problems - because the problem is clearly there; one by one, people are getting burnt out.
- At the same time there is an unhealthy image that those who do it are big winners, that "it's something almost everyone does", that they are super ambitious and work extremely hard. It's really strange because it's basically about having the wrong conditions to do your job. Either that, or they've pushed themselves harder than they feel comfortable with. It's really not endurable.
Henrik Wahlström's lecture at Media Mind Week on 16 November at Brahegatan 10 in Stockholm starts at 08.00, is free of charge and you choose whether you want to attend physically or digitally. Via the link below, you can quickly and easily register your place, while you can also find out about other happenings during the event.
If you have any questions about the lecture or Media Mind Week, please contact Stina Herrlin at stina.herrlin@futuremediagroup.se.
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