Ever Want To Rock Your Brains Out? Enter This DBSA Contest!

I mentioned this in last week’s Saturday Sanity, but I wanted to cover it more thoroughly today.

The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), along with Dave’s Spark: Start Something and Facing Us (both of which are “offshoots” of the DBSA), are sponsoring the Facing Us 2008 Music Contest to celebrate the “creative spark of individuals living with depression or bipolar disorder.”

Kind of like my This Is Why I ROCK! series here at Mental Health Notes, only way more involved and, I suspect, way more people will enter.

The contest started accepting submissions on July 4, 2008 and will continue to accept them until September 1, 2008. Once the DBSA selects 12 songs (based on “general appeal of song, strength of lyrics and appropriate messaging, and strength of melody and musician craftsmanship”), those songs will be posted for online voting between September 8, 2008 and October 1, 2008.

The DBSA notes that “[m]any musicians live with these illnesses; using creative expression as a way to not only cope, but thrive … Music can truly heal the soul and soothe the spirit.”

Mental Health Notes notes that this is an awesome idea for a contest! I don’t use music as a way to creatively express myself (though I definitely use it as a way to cope), but as someone who uses writing for creative expression, I completely get this.

For more details, visit Facing Us Contest, and if any of you enter I’d love for you to stop by here and share your reasons, thoughts, experience, etc. in the comments of this post.

For more information about famous folk with bipolar disorder, visit Celebrities and Bipolar Disorder. There are several musicians listed.

Image: morgueFile