HeartSupport brings solidarity and vulnerability to Welcome to Rockville
“I didn’t have to have anybody come up to me and talk to me, but he came up and loved me anyway, talked to me and listened yesterday in the midst of all this. To me, that made a huge difference, and it made it easier to share.”
When Welcome to Rockville set up in Daytona Beach, Florida from May 15-18, HeartSupport was on site. Using their unique new inflatable support wall model, the HeartSupport team offered confessions from fans who were at the festival, giving other attendees the chance to add their responses plus the chance to connect with HeartSupport’s long-term resources. The result was a poignant example of the power of community in the heavy music scene.
“I feel like I don’t deserve all the good things that are happening to me,” one of the requests for support said. “I’ve had bad things happen to me in life, and it’s hard to balance the feelings out. I’ve gone through sexual abuse as a teenager, and it affects my current marriage 10 years later. I had to go no contact with my mom while the rest of my siblings continue to have her involved. All of our family lives 3 hours away from us, and it feels so isolating. I want to learn to be better for me.”
That deeply vulnerable confession was met with the embrace of genuine compassion and support.
A fellow fan at the festival wrote this powerful reply: “You are not alone in it. I’ve been sexually assaulted since I was 9 years old and it didn’t stop till I was 15. It’s hard but not impossible. Try your best to not relive all the bad experiences. Your assault does not define you. You are still here and still thriving in ways you don’t even realize. You are worth so much more than you can even imagine. Letting yourself be around things you love is the first step. It’s okay to stop talking to certain family members. I haven’t talked to mine in years, but you can create your own family and community. Never give up and continue being you. Keep going.”
That interaction between total strangers is just one example of the magic that happened throughout the festival. The numbers prove that the model is working:
Welcome to Rockville attendees and HeartSupport
Every single one of those numbers represents a person — a person like Christian.
Christian was one of the fans who courageously opened up about his mental health and got to watch other music fans respond in real time.
“My friend died, and for me it’s probably just been a crossroads for quite a few years,” Christian reflected. “The response that spoke to taking things day by day is hitting home. And then the next line is about how it’s not my responsibility to shoulder everyone else. You have to wake yourself up to that sometimes. They say ‘check on your strong friends’. Sometimes that’s yourself, you know? That’s a real thing.”
That’s one of the beautiful things about HeartSupport’s model: we recognize that at some point in every person’s life, they will be the one needing support. At another point, they will be the one ready to give it. That compassionate back-and-forth is how we heal the scene.
As Christian put it, “I’ve had a lot of encouraging things that I’m going to carry with me. The willingness that people showed by taking the time to write this stuff to me really means a lot.”
HeartSupport has set an ambitious goal of supporting music fans like Christian at 12 festivals in total this year. We are already seeing incredible results. If you would like to be part of making it possible for us to be on the ground at festivals for the rest of the summer (and be entered to win some prizes in the process), donate below.
