TW: Suicide mention
This is a topic that is often at the back of my mind as an idol fan but after the recent news that King & Prince member Iwahashi Genki will be taking a break from the group due to struggling with panic disorder, I finally decided to sit down and write this post. First a bit of my personal background in regards to idols and mental health.
As a lot of us here in the online world seem to do, I suffered from mental health issues for a long time. I won't get too specific about what those issues were as that isn't the purpose of this post but I did talk about some of it in
one of my posts last month, and the rest you can probably guess. It was in 2016 though that I sank to the lowest point I've ever been at. I was hardly leaving my house (or even my bedroom for that matter) and that's when idols came back into my life.
Back in 2012 I had been a huge Johnny's Entertainment fan but eventually lost interest. It was during one of those days in 2016 though that I was sat at home feeling depressed that I decided to get out my old
Sexy Zone DVDs. After a brief trip down memory lane (checking out old Johnny's stuff and new stuff that had come out since I left the fandom), I started to discover lots of new boy groups outside of Johnny's Entertainment that I became very passionate about (I'm sure most of you know about
The G=AGE Era) and long story short, that was how this blog was started. My love of idols just gave me something to smile about on those dark, lonely days where nothing about the future seemed certain and it also gave me that support I needed when I was ready to start coming out of that and making positive changes for myself.
Iwahashi Genki was actually one of my favourite Juniors back in my Johnny's days. He was so sweet, shy, and awkward and I suppose I emphasized with him a bit due to his history of being bullied and being unable to attend school due to his anxiety around the bullying. As far as I know Genki never mentioned having any sort of anxiety disorder but I could always sort of tell; like with how obviously nervous he would get before performances and the like, often getting stomach aches.
I was surprised when he ended up becoming quite popular, forming a sort of pair with Jinguji Yuta (another one of my favourite Juniors) but I was happy for him. When I heard he was debuting as part of King & Prince, of course I was happy but part of me did wonder whether he'd be able to cope, as while being a trainee is no walk in the park either, it must be a very different experience from being a member of a debuted group.
