Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marie Shanley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Marie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
After years of dealing with Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, Anxiety and more, I recall driving home from work, where I had spent the day in a supply closet talking to my therapist instead of working. All I could think was “If I ever crawl out of this I don’t want anyone to ever feel as alone and scared as I did.” After getting to my lowest, and closest to dying in 2017, I decided it was finally time to write in a way that was authentic to me. I felt like I had no career ahead of me even though I worked really hard to establish myself in my profession until that point. In an odd way from rock bottom I felt free enough to go up and make what I always wanted to make. So I started Mxiety first as a blog: Openly, honestly, with the hope that it would lead others to feel heard and seen. Then I learned about Twitch and tried making it a show since I knew people could respond and share their stories in real-time in chat. I started interviewing friends and went from there.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Well, I talk about mental health and everything else with the goal of making people feel more accepting of themselves, and hopefully translating that to caring more for others. I write, research and do live shows to that end and have cultivated, a diverse, warm and thoughtful community as a result. With my interviews, I hope others will see the unique challengers folks in content creation deal with. In my writing, I share my own story of living with and accepting my ADHD, Anxiety and Depression. I also help brands understand mental health better both from a community perspective and from a safety, ethics perspective. I am also a giant nerd with my interests ranging from Kingdom Hearts to Disney, Tea, Corgis and more. If I love something, I love it with my whole heart. If you want a taste of this, just stop by the community during a stream one day.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Yes. My goal is to help people like themselves a bit more and hopefully, in doing so, be kinder to others. We tend to be crankier if we hate ourselves. If we can create a world where folks are more self accepting, then they’ll be less likely to want to break others down to feel better about themselves.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Since social media is here to stick around, we have to do something about letting algorithms be more forgiving of our humanness. Being forced to create the PERFECT thing X times a week, on a regular schedule is both wonderful and grueling, motivating and stifling. It forces us to need to output perfection we may not be experiencing and that sucks.
Contact Info:
- Website: Mxiety.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/Mxiety
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariashanley16/
- Twitter: Twitter.com/Mxiety
- Youtube: youtube.com/Mxiety