Hank Harrison: WoW, metalcore and therapy

Hey gang! I’m Hank. It’s currently half past 1:00 PM, I’m sitting down in a café in London listening to the hardest techno within 5 zip codes, and trying to figure out where to start with my mental health state of the union. I’ve always thought of myself as transparent in talking about my mental health over the last few years, but the truth is I’m staring at my computer screen right now and it’s hard to think about where to start unpacking, so let’s zoom out for a bit and hopefully I get my thoughts together as I’m writing.

Depression has been a gradual descent for me that started at a young age. It’s not a switch that flipped on overnight – for me it’s been a slow spiral that let in feelings of helplessness and despair over a long period of time. It’s a disease I wrote off early on, and thought that I could handle myself because it would be too burdensome for others.

Being raised in a French American family was a blessing. I had the privilege of being exposed to different cultures, living in a French-speaking household, and cultivating friendships across two continents. My parents are both selfless people that go above and beyond for their four kids. My mother would come in as the resident English teacher out of her own spare time in France to teach English to the school. Her efforts at home in teaching me how to read early led me to skipping the first grade prior to moving to the U.S.

I moved to Houston going into the third grade, and that’s where things started getting tough. I continued my education in the French system in the US until 9th grade, but constant exposure to both French and American cultures nurtured an identity crisis whereupon I wasn’t sure if I should be feeling more French than American and vice-versa.

I had trouble integrating with other kids, and being ahead a year from skipping the first grade didn’t help me throughout my teenage years. I was physically, mentally, and maturely behind my peers – so I looked for an escape from my everyday life. That turned out to be World of Warcraft (ngl I was insanely sweaty in arenas) and heavy music I could empathize with.

WoW and metalcore served as my two ways to unplug for the longest time. Coping with music where lyrics notably, instrumentation, and expression spoke exactly to how I felt helped me through the motions. I gravitated towards metalcore because it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my struggles, and other people experienced what I was going through. That gave me a sense of hope, but was only a temporary bandage on a larger problem – I needed somebody to talk to about how I felt, but still didn’t see the value in that at the time.

Come ninth grade, I thought downstream opportunities in America were better than those in France so I switched over to school in English, and stayed back a year to earn my IB credits and assimilate with kids my age. I had to relearn the schooling system entirely after switching over to the American system – I had never really written an essay in English, taken math classes in English or really thought in my head in English until switching over. That year absolutely kicked my ass, and only fueled my feelings of worthlessness.

I thought about ways in which I could integrate with other kids my age, and thus turned to pathological lying as a solution. I looked for validation in every possible way that I could, so I crafted the most elaborate stories about myself just to feel a sense of belonging and community with other people my age – without realizing I didn’t have to. That house of cards came crashing down by the end of my senior year of high school, and my man let me tell you that was not a fun ride back down.

My parents tried helping me out through my middle and high school years, recognizing that their son was apathetic about most things, turbulent, and nothing remotely excited him. Treating ADHD, balancing out a cultural identity crisis, figuring out how to fit in with my peers, and pathological lying all weighed me down pretty heavily, but I chalked these things as part of the process of figuring it out.

If I got to this point by myself, I can keep on going. Other kids my age had ADHD. Other kids my age at school were French too. I couldn’t put my finger down on why they looked happy, but I wasn’t. I convinced myself that if others could figure it out themselves that I wouldn’t need external help, and that mentality robbed me of my happiness throughout my teenage years.

It took plenty of therapy sessions for me to open up about my feelings and thoughts. I used to dread therapy sessions because I didn’t understand the point of simply talking to a stranger about the smallest, most minute everyday things. I had to drive an hour every Monday after school to make conversation with a woman that I thought couldn’t relate to me. I was convinced there wasn’t value in therapy, but over a long healing process I recognized that just talking to somebody who was there to listen to me went a long way in recognizing my anxieties.

College came, and that served as my first real test off the deep end. I was no longer practicing my French outside of my time with my family, and effectively had a blank slate to figure out. Freshman and sophomore years started out rough. I dealt with crippling social anxiety and convinced myself that it was once again something most people went through. My house of cards I built in high school unraveled and collapsed following my first semester, and that sent me back into a spiraling depression.

I didn’t think my history would catch up to me and I could ride this new blank slate out, but that self-inflicted baggage on top of the remnants of the existing one felt heavy enough at times that I deeply questioned whether going on was still worth it.

Depression is weird to deal with – your brain undergoes a chemical imbalance, and clouds your judgment and outlook on things. You can’t magically flip a switch on and off unfortunately. I convinced myself of looking at things with a false sense of optimism for the longest time, and in hindsight that helped me push through days where I felt worthless and that there wasn’t much meaning to anything.

I stopped therapy after moving for college, and started overcompensating for my high school years indoors by running the Breadth First Search algorithm for making friends (shout out to my CS majors if you got that one). I went out of my way to meet as many people as possible thinking that would help me deal with crippling social anxiety. I was convinced that I could fill the void I have in my life by chasing relationships – whether those turned out empty or not, talking to anybody would inch me closer towards feeling like I belong somewhere.

Through college I ultimately met some of my best friends who accepted me for who I was. I moved to Austin post-grad in 2018, mostly to stay close to where my friends were as opposed to chasing my career down. That turned out to be the best decision I made – I’ve been in Austin for a minute, keep on meeting the coolest people wanting to do the coolest things, and can openly talk about the things I’ve been writing about in this post.

There isn’t a magical cure for depression, anxiety, and feeling worthless or unfulfilled. I’ve felt better than ever over the last few years, and in that process learned that depression still rears its head in every once in a while, and it’s ok to live with it because I know people care. Whether throughout Covid a few years ago or when my last relationship ended, depression knocks on the door every once in a while, however this time I know that I’ve been transparent in how I feel with my friends, strangers, family, and many more. It took me close to ten years to understand that there’s a support system in place that cares about me, and there’s absolutely one that’s there for you too.

Thank you for reading this far if you’re still here. Whether you’re one of my best friends, someone I haven’t met yet, you’re one of Will’s friends, or you’re around Austin and you’re going through something please feel free to reach out to me. I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee and hang out.

Feel free to come say hi at this Saturday’s ACOTH event at Speakeasy too! Really, really stoked to be hopping on the decks for that one. Let’s wham out baby.