“All This Music Was Written On Antidepressants”: Lisa Pariente Talks About Her Depression

I’m a singer. I started with covers on YouTube and then I did parodies, especially during childbirth.

“Either that’s it or I’m nobody.”

Little by little I started meeting people, including one who took me to a record label. The record label I signed to today. At the time I was 20 years old and had no confidence in myself. They were like, “You’re great. You’re going to be a star. You’re amazing. I believe in it. So I just jumped in. Especially because obviously the person who told me that was someone older, with more experience.

I agreed to do whatever I was told to do because I basically thought, either this is it or I’m nobody.

Soon I found myself on stage defending a project I didn’t believe in. It was put into my head that I couldn’t write, that I couldn’t compose. In fact, that I couldn’t do anything on my own and that singing well was enough. The only times I tried, even a little, I immediately remembered: “Avoid it, you don’t know how to do it. It’s better not to. You sing well, that’s already fantastic.” But he was never really aggressive.

“I was deeply sad and anxious all the time”

Then I convinced myself that I didn’t know how to write, that I didn’t know how to compose, that I didn’t know how to do these things. The longer it went on, the more it became a permanent sense of guilt. For example, I remember publishing a story in which I highlighted my double chin. I thought it was funny. Eventually I got burned and they said, “How do you think the media will want you after that? No one will want you.”

Then, I heard from my stylist that she had been advised to tell me to put my hips forward even though I was very embarrassed about it, even today. I put on baggy sweatpants that I didn’t like at all and I kind of convinced myself that I liked them because they made me understand: “Oh yeah, that’s super elegant. You have no idea about style. You don’t know anything.” I was deeply sad and anxious all the time. I was always afraid of receiving a text, of seeing a certain name appear on my phone.

Miraculously, I got a call at that point from someone at my label calling me about something else. I burst into tears and she was like, “What the hell is going on?” And I explained everything to her. From there, that was it. That’s when I started to get over it. I hired a lawyer, etc., to get out of it. I thought it was really behind me until the depression caught up with me.

How do I dress? What do I like to wear on stage?” I didn’t know anything anymore

I think it’s related to this whole story. I don’t blame anyone because I actually let myself go in this toxic relationship. I accepted everything that happened. It was very, very hard to get out of it. Because once again there’s this thing: “If I collapse, what will I have left?”

I remember a terrifying thing where I didn’t know who I was anymore. A day or two after the official breakup, I remember calling my best friend and saying, “What do I wear? What do I like to wear on stage?” I didn’t know anything anymore.

One of the things that helped me enormously, although I don’t think I really know the impact it had, was that I made a video with Pierre Croce where there was a singing competition. He asked to present one of our compositions. Except I didn’t have a composition because I’ve never really written. I forced myself to do it anyway.
I submitted this music. I finally won this contest.

From that moment on I was like, “OK, this is it, maybe it’s worth continuing.” I started writing, re-composing, re-signing directly with my label without any intermediary. When I started feeling depressed, I had no idea it was depression.

Need for attention and guilt

Because in fact, when I see on TikTok, on Instagram: “When you’re depressed in bed,” things like that, I’m like, “But that’s not for me.” What I feel is that I literally need attention all the time, guilt for being sad, guilt for telling myself that I don’t deserve to have what I have, that I shouldn’t be depressed, guilt for being sad, guilt for missing out on beautiful moments in my life. So I was very, very afraid to talk about it in music and I still managed to do it at 4 in the morning when I was really sick, with a fever of 104, literally telling myself, “I need attention.” So I sat down at the piano and started singing, “I need attention, to be told that I’m beautiful.” And I actually wrote it like that.

I’ve noticed that one of the things that keeps me depressed is self-centeredness. It’s not, “Yeah, everyone looks at me and tells me I’m so beautiful.” No, it’s, “Everyone looks at me like, who the fuck is this?”
Why is he at this party? We don’t like it. It translates like that more. At the beginning I gave a piece of advice: talk about it. It’s fundamental because otherwise we get stuck in our heads, we think we’re crazy and it’s a disaster. And then we don’t talk about it anymore.

I found myself a bit trapped in this vicious cycle of wanting to talk about it constantly, as if sometimes that justified my behavior.

That is to say, I was actually so afraid that people would find me unpleasant, annoying, uninteresting that I said to myself: “Okay, I’ll say I’m depressed.” I’m depressed, it’s a cover.

My latest EP is called Antidepressant. And actually, all these songs I wrote in the last two years, especially when I fell into depression.

“I also heal myself through music”

All this music was written while I was on antidepressants. This EP was even like an antidepressant for me. I heal myself through music too. I would love to say: “Yes, the EP is out, everything is fine. My depression is behind me”. But that is so wrong. No, unfortunately I am still bad. I live with more and more. It is very, very difficult. It is even more difficult, I think, when you are an artist.