Anxiety, Football and Thousands of Listens on Soundcloud
Entering Peg’s Glorified Ham n Eggs is a welcoming feeling, with the aroma of coffee and bacon that fills the atmosphere and the service that helps enlighten the time we spend there. One of those working there, as part of several jobs he holds, with a and larger than life bright personality, is Jordan Gipson, also a talented musician, but with a dark, difficult past.
“Summer 2019, two weeks after my birthday, my birthday is July 23,” Gipson said, “I went to Vegas and I came back from a trip. I was working at Peg’s and that’s when everything really hit me.”
Rewind a few years before, and it seems everything externally was fine, from sports to a new path in music.
Gipson was a football player during his time at Damonte Ranch High School and would go on to play college at the University of La Verne. Football was his biggest passion at the time until one day his roommate asked him if he wanted to get on a song with him. Gipson was a little skeptical as he had just rapped for fun and freestyled, but figured he might as well give it a try.
Once the song they made was released, it ended up getting 14 thousand views on Soundcloud.
“The more I got into music, the less football became my passion,” Gipson said. “I decided to quit football and move back to Reno and just started doing music.” After some time of creating and crafting his own sound, like a drug, Gipson became an addict that couldn’t get enough of the doses of serotonin that music would give him.
“It’s like scoring a touchdown when you make a good song or are performing on stage,” Gipson said. “It’s that ultimate feeling that gives you satisfaction.”
Making music gave him an outlet to express himself creatively and therapeutically. Gipson was going through a battle that he didn’t know would wash over him and nearly drown his life and mind over the coming years. During his senior year of high school, Gipson had been dealing with depression and anxiety throughout the entire year.
“I’d have anxiety attacks in class. There would be times I couldn’t get out of bed. There was times like that, but it was nothing compared to what I have now,” said Gipson.
A screengrab from some of his recent Instagram activity @jordan_javon
The Night is Always Darkest before Dawn
After just coming back from Vegas after his 2019 birthday and walking into work, Gipson felt good, but something was off. Something in his mind wasn’t all there. Now we all have come into work with a foggy or a light-headed mind, but something about this was strange.
As Gipson is working these random, horrific thoughts keep coming in-and-out of his head. The thoughts are out of control, but Gipson didn’t understand why they were happening. He was hoping it was just a bad day. Throughout the day he couldn’t eat and would throw up everything that he tried to put down. He was very confused and scared at what was happening to him.
When Gipson got home he was praying that he could just sleep it off and that everything would be better. However, when we awoke from what felt like a nightmare the day before, it was slowly coming to be his new harsh reality that he was going to face as the thoughts still remained in his head day after day.
After a few days, things got worse as Gipson felt like his mind was transferring to another dimension. To the point where you can’t describe or show it to anybody who hasn’t seen this other world. This world creates terrible thoughts and illusions about our current reality. Gipson was thinking everyone could see this world and hear what was going on in his head. He thought everyone despised him and looked down on him, so much so that he thought they wanted him to take his life.
The pressure was weighing down on Gipson and was making him crumble like a rock that degrades to sand. At this point, he says he didn’t want to live life anymore.
Gipson grabbed his microphone cord as he thought it could represent a symbol for him and tied a noose around his neck in his closet. Before he decides to go through with it, he calls his best friend, Trever Schryer, to tell him he loves him and how much he has meant to him. A final goodbye to his lifelong childhood buddy.
As Gipson awaits his final seconds, he puts the cord around his neck, hopeless that life has anymore to offer and makes the final descent into ridding himself of all the pain and suffering. Gipson hangs there in the closet watching slowly as everything turns black. Watching as the happy and upbeat person that he was, fade away into an abyss.
Before he could see his final seconds one of his best friends, Ryan Riggle picks him up and intercepts his voyage to the afterlife as Riggle screams for his girlfriend to grab a knife to cut Gipson down. Riggle cuts Gipson down and throws him on the bed.
The Hospital Experience
Gipson is rushed to the hospital. He hasn’t slept for three days. He has had no food and no water. At this point his mind is still living in this other dimension, the dimension is known as psychosis. Psychosis is where people lose connection with reality and have hallucinations and delusions about everything.
Gipson lays there on the bed as his family is sitting next to him. They’re begging him to hold on for him and his family. They want him to think about the good times.
“While I’m thinking they’re saying think about the good times, in my mind, I’m thinking they want me to die,” Gipson said. “So, I’m like this is my mission right now.”
They made Gipson stay the night and as he was in the psychiatric unit, he found a pen. Without hesitation he started stabbing himself in the neck, about six or seven times until someone tackled him. As Gipson’s hands are covered in blood and there’s blood everywhere a bunch of workers grab him and put him in a bed. Gipson felt his life was fading away on that hospital bed, but the workers just put him to sleep where he was unconscious for three days.
When he finally woke up, he still felt very psychotic to the point that when they were letting him walk around, Gipson tried to jump out of a window. Ultimately, he couldn’t break the glass as the glass acted as a backboard keeping him inbounds in the game of life.
After a couple of days, the terror of this harsh reality still enveloped Gipson’s head, but his aunt was trying to help guide him out of it. His aunt offered a healthy perspective to Gipson because she also suffers from mental illness disorders. He says she helped him come out of his psychosis.
Once Gipson was feeling a little better he stayed in a little room at Saint Mary’s where there were four people watching him at all times whether he was showering, eating or sleeping. After a few days, when the hospital thought Gipson was doing better they released him and he went home. But when he thought this might’ve been the end of a scary movie, the opening credits hadn’t even started yet.
The Rough Road that Follows After
“The next year was torture of intrusive thoughts, pain and suffering and depression,” Gipson said. “Not being able to leave [my] bed. Going job-to-job because I didn’t want to work because I was too scared to go outside. Hurting my family members because I’m in pain and a pain to deal with. And then it all caught up with me again.”
Gipson had become addicted to a prescription drug called Ativan, which is kind of like Xanax. One day he decided to take 12 of them and wash them down with five Truly Hard Seltzers. He then drove to his friends house down the street and they could tell something was off. Gipson left the house after only being there for about five minutes. He has no memory of driving to and from his friend’s house. It wasn’t until he started texting his girlfriend at the time, Haley Beyer that someone noticed he wasn’t okay. Gipson was speaking gibberish and wasn’t making any sense, she got worried and headed straight over to his house.
“I thought I was gonna die that day just because I took so many pills,” Gipson said. “I thought mixing it with the alcohol that I would just pass out.”
Gipson was rushed back again to the hospital for a night before being transferred to Reno Behavioral Healthcare Hospital.
After a week in that hospital, Gipson was released and returned home.
“I spent a week in a psych ward,” Gipson said. “I’m still doing pretty bad, but my friends, they want to move into a house. I’m living in my mom’s house at the time. My friends were like, ‘Jordan come move into this house with us. It’s gonna be good, it’ll get you better’... That house really helped me a lot just moving in with my friends.”
“I got on the right medications. I found the right psychiatrist who truly knew what I was going through because a lot of psychiatrists, a lot of them were confused with what I was going through and thought I was a little crazy. When I found the right psychiatrist they told me that many people go through what I go through, I was very relieved. They put me on the right medications, so I think that was the first step.”
The Journey Back
Gipson moved into the house in South Reno with some of his friends and ended up getting a job at MYNT dispensary where he packages marijuana. He said that the job helped improve his social skills. Ultimately, it was his relationship with his girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, and mom that really helped.
“I just wanna shout out to my ex-girlfriend Haley,” Gipson said. “She was there every step of the way. Out of anybody, I appreciate her and my mom the most.”
After the suffering that Gipson endured over the course of the past two years, things started to trend upwards. He started going out more and expanding his social circle and he was on the right medication. Although he still struggles with his mental health, some days are better than others. He has no plan on ending his life as he has so much to live for and accomplish.
Recently, Gipson, who goes by his rapper name, J Gip has been making and releasing a ton of music solo and with a group of his friends in a group called, Shift the Wave. Shift the Wave recently had a concert at Holland Project in December and are currently releasing a new song every Wednesday for the coming months. (Find their music here: linktr.ee/shiftthewave)
At the concert, Gipson got to perform his song, “Psych Ward Stories” for the first time. The song details his mental health struggles and tells the story of the time when he was at the psych ward.
“It was very humbling,” Gipson said. “I have performed a lot, but I have never felt a type of emotion like when performing. I was holding back tears. I know people were listening to the story. My friends knew what I went through and I had my friends in their feels. Just sharing my story to so many people, it was hard for me to hold back the tears and emotions, but I’m so happy I did and I know I'm going to perform that song again to get my story out.” (The song is available on Apple Music and Spotify)
At the end of the day, Gipson loves creating music and expressing himself artistically. It is one of his best ways to cope with his mental health.
“The music man,” Gipson said. “I just kept making music throughout all of it…It just lets me get my emotions out and tell my story you know. So, I don’t have to hold it in and hold these thoughts in all the time. The music makes me express myself and makes me feel less crazy knowing I can put art into this or something back into the world. Maybe one day people will listen to down the road when I’m long gone and they’ll still feel like and be like ‘wow, like this really resonates with me’. I don’t think I would be here without the music.”
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours in English, Spanish. Learn more here.
Call 800-273-8255 for any urgent situation.