{"id":69637,"date":"2026-07-18T07:46:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=69637"},"modified":"2026-07-18T07:46:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:46:51","slug":"saved-my-life-how-music-fandoms-help-gen-z-with-mental-health-and-feeling-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=69637","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Saved my life\u2019: how music fandoms help Gen Z with mental health and feeling connection"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Growing up in the US state of New Jersey, Jessica Sikora felt different from other children. Her traditional, religious Filipino parents imposed strict rules and curfews.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents pulled a lot of their traditional Asian parenting from their own upbringing,\u201d the now 34-year-old says, which was often at odds with the more relaxed American parenting style.<\/p>\n

She was not allowed to go to sleepovers and missed out on social gatherings, making it hard to make friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy age 13, I was depressed. I was stuck at home; I was struggling,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She was regularly self-harming<\/span> and attempted suicide three times before she was 17. Her parents did not believe in therapy. \u201cThey suggested I pray instead,\u201d she says.<\/div>\n
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\"Jessica<\/div>
Jessica Sikora holds her son. As a teenager, Sikora was depressed and found hope in music; at 34, she runs Superbands, a platform that uses music fandom as a tool to promote mental health in young people. Photo: LinkedIn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Stuck in her room night after night, she turned to music as a crutch. \u201cI would listen on my old-fashioned desktop computer non-stop; I relied on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Growing up in the US state of New Jersey, Jessica Sikora felt different from other children. Her traditional, religious Filipino parents imposed strict rules and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2619,26731,9679,2831,1714,402,2956,294,22535],"class_list":["post-69637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-connection","tag-fandoms","tag-feeling","tag-gen","tag-health","tag-life","tag-mental","tag-music","tag-saved","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}