When Catherine Hunsinger played her cello and sang on stage at a block party in March 2020, she never imagined it would be her last show for the indefinite future. 

Yet, looking back, the Columbia musician who fronts the band Rex Darling said that festival was her "goodbye for now." Almost exactly a year later, on March 19, she played her first show since the COVID-19 pandemic derailed the entertainment industry across South Carolina and the world. 

The concert industry alone lost $30 billion in 2020 with the pandemic's lasting effects still unclear for the coming years. But financial loss was just one of the devastating repercussions faced by those who work in the world of music. 

The mental journey while traversing the path from a fulfilled creative lifestyle to a sudden concert void and loss of purpose has not been easy for many. 

Music & mental health

Many artists feed off the energy of the collective struggle, Charleston singer-songwriter Jenna Faline said.

"I'm very influenced by societal energy, and it's been overwhelming," Faline said. 

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Jenna Faline talks about how the pandemic has changed her lifestyle and music at her home in North Charleston on March 14, 2021. Lauren Petracca/Staff

Mental health struggles during this time are certainly not limited to creatives, but representative of the entire population. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 40 percent of U.S. residents have reported struggling with mental or behavioral health issues associated with the pandemic, including anxiety, depression, increased substance use and suicidal thoughts.

According to Charleston area psychiatrists, there have been increased emergency room visits regarding problems associated with decreased social interaction, from depression to aggression. 

The creative population, which has often been associated with higher rates of mental illness (though that correlation has recently been questioned), is a piece of the puzzle when it comes to evaluating heightened mental health struggles during COVID-19. 

"You do see people in creative industries struggle more with mental illness," said Dr. Alvin Lee Lewis, a psychiatrist at MUSC who was a professional actor with Charleston Stage before he went to medical school. "However, it's not the creativity that causes mental illness but the circumstances of work required to do those jobs."

Music, by nature, is highly competitive, intensely personal and marked by an uncertain, gig-to-gig lifestyle that can create high levels of stress and anxiety, Lewis said. In addition, the job doesn't typically pay well; most musicians have side food-and-beverage jobs and are ringing in salaries putting them below the poverty level.

Without the addition of the pandemic, it's already a setup for mental health struggles, Lewis said. COVID-19 has simply piled on more financial and psychological burdens to a mentally trying career choice. 

"It's insane what it can do to your mental health both ways — being out of a job and wondering where you are going to get your next meal and being in a job but working yourself to the bone to maintain the status quo," Faline said.

Financial hardships

Now more than ever, artists have been forced to come up with innovative ways to pay the bills while keeping their dreams alive. 

Faline, whose surname matches the title of her musical project, pivoted to selling art on Etsy and conducting tarot readings online when she lost her day job at the Early Bird Diner and music gigs. 

"I was totally terrified of how I was going to make money," she said. 

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Jenna Faline carries packages out to her car to mail out to customers of her Etsy shop on March 24, 2021. Lauren Petracca/Staff

She still had to ask her family for rent money and apply for unemployment, something the independent, typically self-sustaining artist felt guilty about. 

"I had this feeling of 'Do I deserve this?'" Faline recalled.

For Hunsinger, money was also a major stressor. 

"In the beginning, tips came in more freely on live-streams, as the world seemingly came together to hold us all up, but after people began losing their own support systems and financial security, we lost ours, too," she said. "Of course, grabbing unemployment insurance as a contract musician was a horribly sticky web to navigate." 

The stress of not receiving any income for months before her insurance cleared was only exacerbated by a crippling loss of self-worth that came from halting live shows. 

As an artist who had just found her footing in the music scene, Hunsinger grappled with a fear of losing all she had built. "Can I stay relevant?" and "Was I ever relevant?" were questions circling her mind, she said.

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Catherine Rene Hunsinger. Kati Baldwin/Provided

And with infinite time alone in her house with nothing much to do, those doubts intensified. Her anxiety and depression, already existent pre-pandemic, became crippling. 

"To endure it alone by mandate of the world only added more layers to the already complex and fragile state of the mind," she said. "(We were told) don't go out, don't socialize, don't share space or heavy secrets, don't do the things that you usually do to relieve your heart and soul."

Once some shows started to return to the calendar, Hunsinger said, things got trickier for musicians. 

"There's this wild balance of needing to survive financially and mentally but not wanting to encourage poor choices amidst a global pandemic," she said. 

For Moses Andrews, a Columbia musician who plays with an array of local bands — The Runout, The Restoration, Autocorrect — spanning folk-rock and hip-hop, the social isolation spurred by COVID-19 was devastating. 

"I've met a lot of people at live shows and they've become a part of my community, in a way," Andrews said. "Not being able to see them, hug them, comfort them or have a drink with them has changed me from an extreme extrovert to a person that has had to do a lot of music behind closed doors."

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Moses Andrews. Perry Mcleod/Provided

With the added stress of raising a baby born just before the pandemic, Andrews initially poured his time into home brewing, overeating and working late as a way to cope. Then, he turned to therapy. 

Looking inward, finding inspiration

But not all responses from creatives have been bad during this time. Christian Morant, a Charleston musician with the Noisy Boys band and a poet who goes by the stage name Learical, has taken this time away from his busy schedule of marketing and booking shows to look inward. 

“I think the world was just like, ‘You’ve got to slow down,'" Morant said. “It’s allowed me to breathe.”

He's been journaling, reading self-help books and longboarding as forms of therapy, things he probably never would have done before COVID-19. 

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Christian Morant, also known as "Learical,” longboards down King Street on March 19, 2021. Lauren Petracca/Staff

"The introspection that people can get who are creative from having to spend time alone — learning things like meditation, positive thinking and mindfulness — can be positive," Lewis, at MUSC, said. 

Faline said she's taken this time to escape from a nightly bar scene infused with drugs and alcohol and replace it with at-home meditation and a deeper dive into spirituality. She also quit smoking cigarettes.

“There were so many toxins in my body at any given time, and that’s the first thing I noticed when I was forced to retreat from that lifestyle," she said. 

While looking inward can be motivational, most lyric writers look externally to what's happening around them for inspiration. Which has been basically nothing interesting. 

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DJ Edwards. Kati Baldwin/Provided

Constantly bombarded with queries of when the next album will be coming out because they've "had all the time in the world" to make it, musicians often must respond with the truth: songwriting's been tough. 

"Writing was harder than I thought, because there’s not much inspiring happening during the pandemic," Real South Records owner and Charleston-turned-Columbia musician D.J. Edwards said.

Monotony simply does not breed innovation. 

"As months began to pass, I found myself at a loss for what to do, no longer inspired by my walls and space," said Hunsinger.

"It seems like I spent whole months drifting between my couch and bed, accomplishing next to nothing. Even eating was a challenge."

Edwards said he took a monthlong "depression nap." 

Without an upcoming performance, there was a lack of incentive, too. 

"When you have a goal of an arts show, the juices flow to get that work done, whereas if you don’t have anything on the horizon coming up, artists struggle with kicking things into high gear," Lewis said. 

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Christian Morant, who goes by "Learical,” works on a song in his notebook while listening to live music at Tobin’s Market in Charleston on March 19, 2021. Lauren Petracca/Staff

Still, despite a lack of readily available inspiration through life experiences, Faline said art has a way of creeping out of her. 

She's been creating music videos, working on online collaborations with other musicians, stocking up her Etsy shop with new wares and has an album slated to drop later this year. 

Hunsinger just played her second show March 26. 

Andrews has a weekly rehearsal slot with one of his bands again. 

Still, with a tumultuous time coming to a likely close soon, musicians mourn the losses of this pandemic era and struggle with their place in the world. 

Just because shows are back doesn't mean the mental health crisis is over. But it's a step in the right direction, Lewis said. 

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Reach Kalyn Oyer at 843-371-4469. Follow her on Twitter @sound_wavves.

Kalyn Oyer is a Charleston native and the features editor for The Post and Courier. She's a music festival and concert photographer and avid showgoer who used to write about music for the Charleston City Paper as well as national publications.

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