Pink gets candid about having a panic attack, worrying for her son while recovering from coronavirus
Pop superstar Pink spoke in detail about her family's struggle with Covid-19 in a candid live chat about mental health with therapist Vanessa Inn. Pink, who previously said she and her 3-year-old son, Jameson, had tested positive and recovered from the coronavirus, welcomed Inn, who she said has been "guiding me for 20 years," to an Instagram Live session on June 19.
While the singer waited for Inn to join in, Pink shared that she had been thinking about doing the chat for about eight to ten weeks and said that "The idea came to me sort of when quarantine started, when this whole Covid-19 thing started, because mental health is always on my radar."
"You can't run from yourself in quarantine," she said, adding, "You can't run from your family." During their discussion, Pink recalled how she and her son "got really sick." Referring to their discussion, the 'What About Us' singer noted, “I think this is really important for people right now with coronavirus. You know, anxiety is rampant, and panic attacks, and just -- we feel like the rug is being pulled out from under us a little bit right now and different people on different levels."
Pink went on to share how people suffer from suppressed emotions and how we all need a way to channel them and then revealed how Inn's advice has helped her on a very personal level. Pink said to Inn, "And I was on the phone with you and I was having one of my very first panic attacks, and it was during the time where I was really afraid for Jameson and just exhausted from being... my adrenaline for 10 weeks of taking my son's temperature and wondering if I was gonna die."
"You did something with me that I didn't know about," Pink reminded her, and then described a grounding technique, or "wisdom medicine," that she learned from Inn in that difficult moment. "In the midst of a panic attack, it was incredibly timely because you told me to look for textures and patterns. And I looked down and I was wearing a paisley dress and sitting on a roque chair," the singer shared.
Inn listened and then responded with some of her own experiences and how to cope with stress. "In that moment of anxiety and panic, what happens is we get out of the present moment ... The idea is how to come back into the room, how to come pack into your body, how to come back to present," she said, suggesting looking at textures, wiggling your toes or pulling on your earlobes.
"It's just to get back to breathing," Inn explained. "It really worked," Pink said.
Listen to Pink's very candid conversation with Inn here.
