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Mental health
K-drama Artists & celebrities

K-pop’s Jae Park on the panic attack that triggered him to deal with his mental health issues

  • In an eye-opening interview, the 28-year-old Korean-American Day6 star talks about facing up to his poor mental health, and why K-pop needs to do the same
  • He’s more or less stopped reading what people say about him on social media, and has co-launched a clothing line to promote mental health

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K-pop star Jae Park of Day6 says a panic attack last April woke him up to mental health issues he has since been dealing with. He hopes that by speaking out, he can help others. Photo: Stefanie Michova
Tamar Herman

Jae Park of Day6 realised he hasn’t been doing well for a long time while on a car ride in April, when he was thinking he was going to die.

The 28-year-old K-pop singer-guitarist later learned he wasn’t having a heart attack, but was experiencing an intense panic attack born out of his struggle with anxiety.

“When you come to this … I wouldn’t say peaceful resolution, but a very frightening resolution that, ‘Yeah, I might die in here and I’m going to have to accept that,’ your perspective on things kind of changes,” he reveals.

“I realised I was putting things off for so, so long that I’d become numb to the fact that it was slowly physically manifesting. I was always a believer that you can just ride things out, even if you’re sick you go on stage and start working, and you won’t feel sick any more. Even if you have a headache, you sleep, you wake up, you feel better. I was always that kind of person. But it didn’t feel like that in that car ride.”

Jae Park has made it his mission to combat toxic positivity that causes people to sweep mental health issues under the rug. Photo: Stefanie Michova
Jae Park has made it his mission to combat toxic positivity that causes people to sweep mental health issues under the rug. Photo: Stefanie Michova

Now Park, who typically is known just as “Jae” in the K-pop world, is in a better place; he’s working on facing the circumstances of his life and making changes to take care of himself, including taking medication that helps take the edge off.

“I’ve been feeling a lot better, and learning more and more. After it happened I started delving deeper into the mental health aspect of what was going on with me as a person,” he says.

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