Joanna Levesque, professionally known as Jojo, is a singer, songwriter, and actor who’s recently released project, “Trying Not to Think About It,”  which highlights her experience with mental health challenges. 

In her song Anxiety (Burlinda’s Theme), Jojo shares on Instagram that she finds it helpful to represent her anxiety and depression by giving it the name “Burlinda.” The artist describes that she is speaking to “Burlinda” in the song, breaking up with the anxious part of herself as if it were a toxic partner. Jojo notes that although she is still impacted by anxiety, she is slowly learning how to work with this part of herself. 

The music video for the song is a representation of a psychotropic medication commercial for the fictitious drug “Tryesta.” Jojo plays into the tropes of these advertisements as she recreates imagery commonly used to convey the dramatic effectiveness of a given drug. 

“I wish that I could shut you off, keep you muted
I wish I knew the difference between your voice and mine
And mine
I’m always puttin’ out the fires that you started
And every time I look around, it just looks bad on me
On me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9Kp40X8zYQ

Image Credits:
Feature Image: Marcos Paulo Prado, On Unsplash, Creative Commons