{"id":342895,"date":"2026-03-12T19:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/342895\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T19:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:14:07","slug":"mike-posner-on-his-recovery-after-post-pop-star-depression-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/342895\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Posner on His Recovery After Post-Pop-Star Depression (Column)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSinger-songwriter Mike Posner<\/a> scored several hit singles from 2010 through 2015, and also produced or co-wrote songs for Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Nick Jonas and others. His biggest hit, and the song most commonly associated with him, is\u00a0a SeeB remix of his autobiographical song \u201cI Took a Pill in Ibiza,\u201d which charted in multiple countries and reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 he recently released a new reinterpretation of the song that details how he\u2019s evolved since the original version. Here, he talks about his unusual path to success, the depression that followed his pop star career, and how he dug himself out of it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI arrived at NightBird Studios in a sleek white Porsche. I shut the door and traded my keys to a valet for a pinkish slip of paper. I wasn\u2019t kill-yourself sad. I was just my-life-should-be-better-in-some-undefined-type-of-way sad. There was a subtle resentment towards reality running in the background, like an air conditioner whose hum you\u2019re no longer conscious of, but is there nonetheless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2014, NightBird Studios was a hornet\u2019s nest for B-level recording artists of all genres, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. I was there to write with a country artist named Jake Owen. I was hoping this would result in another hit, which would result in more fame, which would result in\u2026 I didn\u2019t really know. That\u2019s as far as I had planned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I entered Studio B, Jake Owen was strumming a shiny Taylor that somehow reminded me of my Porsche.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe handed it to me and I wrapped my barely calloused fingers around the neck. When I strummed A minor, six separate strands of sadness emanated off the strings and crystallized, making purple in the room. I climbed through the chorus of a new song and emotion steamed off of me like a football player who just took his helmet off. When I finished, the room was silent. Could anyone else feel this?<\/p>\n

\n\tJAKE: That\u2019s cool man. What\u2019s it about?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI shook off my altered state and replied,<\/p>\n

\n\tME: It\u2019s about a girl I had a thing with in New York. But I mixed her story up with another girl I had a thing with in Cleveland. And the rest I just kind of made up.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis annoyingly handsome face made a constipated look. He was trying to decide whether to tell me something.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJAKE: Well\u2014<\/p>\n

\n\tInternal debate settled, he said,<\/p>\n

\n\tJAKE: \u2014why don\u2019t you just tell the truth?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTelling the truth in songs had never really occurred to \u201cMike Posner.\u201d \u201cMike Posner\u201d thought songs were for convincing everybody how cool \u201cMike Posner\u201d was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJAKE: You know there are songwriters who just tell it like it is.<\/p>\n

\n\tMIKE: There are?<\/p>\n

\n\tJAKE: Yeah, man. Let me show you.<\/p>\n

\n\tI passed the guitar back to Jake and he played me an old country song that you don\u2019t hear growing up North of the Ohio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI got cuffed on dirt roads, I got sued over no-shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hank Williams Jr. lyric danced with the guitar chords and did some kind of magic on my neurochemistry. Without warning, I felt a tear show up in my left eye. I knew I needed to cry. But like a baby kangaroo, that tear decided it was comfortable right there, and refused to fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat night, I boarded a flight to Russia with Jake\u2019s question, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you just tell the truth?\u201d bouncing off the walls of my mind. I took out my Green Notebook and turned the pages past all pages of songs about how I wanted people to think my life was and wrote one about how my life actually was. That song was, \u201cI Took a Pill in Ibiza.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was quite the departure from the first chapter of my career, which was mostly focused on emulating Justin Timberlake. But I did my best to adjust. I was figuring out who I was post-pop-fame.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe subsequent months included a breakup with a girlfriend, a confusing move into a 1993 Dodge Conversion Van, and the growing of an unkempt beard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut while I was \u201cfiguring it all out,\u201d forces beyond my control were at work. A few executives at Island Records, Matt D\u2019Arudini and Zeke Silvera, cleverly recognized that there was a limit to how popular the acoustic rendition of \u201cIbiza\u201d could get.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo they sent the vocal files to a Norwegian duo named SeeB to create a remix of \u201cI Took a Pill in Ibiza.\u201d A few weeks later, my manager emailed me SeeB\u2019s overhauled version of the song, asking for my approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThough my grungy van speakers had grown accustomed to playing solely Bob Dylan since I left LA, I opened the email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe song cascaded out of the van, sounding like a love letter from outer space. Its high-energy production was almost hostile to my ears, which had grown accustomed to silence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNonetheless, I approved the song, shut my laptop, and picked up my guitar with my now very calloused fingers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the rest of the summer, I drove around the Rockies, buying day passes to local gyms and sleeping in Walmart parking lots. I forgot about the song from my email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the song hadn\u2019t forgotten about me. In fact, it was about to change my entire life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe remix is taking off in Norway. It\u2019s number one.\u201d These were the words my then-manager, Ryan Chisholm, said to me over the phone while I was somewhere in Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI went on Spotify and looked for myself. In some weird turn of events, my little song about how I was no longer famous was making me famous again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the song shot up the Norwegian charts, it did the same thing in Sweden, and then the Netherlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBy Christmas, I knew that the U.S. was not far behind.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow six years older, but only incrementally more mature, I found myself back in the limelight, doing my best to act like I didn\u2019t care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I did. So off went the beard. In came the income, the bleached hair, and the world tour. I was back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Diagnosis\t<\/p>\n

\n\t_______________________<\/p>\n

\n\tJune 2016<\/p>\n

\n\tLos Angeles, CA<\/p>\n

\n\tMy iPhone rang and like a Pavlov dog, I went and retrieved it out of my fancy LA kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d been expecting a call from my manager to discuss an offer that just came in to do a private show for some rich dude\u2019s daughter. 100k.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut instead, the screen read:<\/p>\n

\n\tHome.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisappointed, I answered.<\/p>\n

\n\tI wasn\u2019t expecting Mom to say what she said: \u201cDad was acting strange yesterday so I took him to the doctor. They did a scan and he has a tumor in his left frontal lobe the size of a tangerine. They\u2019re gonna take it out tomorrow. You need to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThat night, I unpacked my fancy Helmut Lang shirts into my childhood dresser, which was still covered with the crooked Ninja Turtle stickers I put there when I was six.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDad was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a terminal form of cancer. And I was now living a double life. One as a born-again pop star. And another as a caretaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong with my family and nurses, I helped shave him, turned him so he didn\u2019t get bed sores, and changed his diapers. None of it felt weird. His body refused direction from doctors, family, and Dad himself, and did exactly what it wanted to. Which was march towards death.<\/p>\n

\n\tI sat on the edge of his bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tME: Where do you think we go when we die Dad?<\/p>\n

\n\tDAD: I think I\u2019m going to take my last breath and then that\u2019s it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis answer caught me off guard. I always thought my Dad believed in heaven. Why else was he so darn joyful all the time?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI tried to persuade him to be more like I thought he was.<\/p>\n

\n\tME: Well I think you\u2019re going to be with Grandma and Uncle Harold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUnconvinced, he retreated inward, leaving me to over-analyze my last sentence. Did I just make a colossal mistake?<\/p>\n

\n\tHis leg was still shaking. I reached out and put a hand on the decaying quadricep. Tears were raging up to my throat, but I managed to halt them there.<\/p>\n

\n\tME: I love you, Dad.<\/p>\n

\n\tDAD: I love you so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI nodded toward my guitar, which I\u2019d left lying next to his bed.<\/p>\n

\n\tME: Do you want me to play you a song?<\/p>\n

\n\tDAD: Yes please.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI turned down the lights and sang an especially sad version of Bob Marley\u2019s \u201cRedemption Song.\u201d The dark blue coming out of my guitar harmonized with our black fear and created a rich love. It expanded across the room like a storm cloud.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNobody heard that strange duet but us.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tGrieving is hard for narcissists. Mostly because we believe we don\u2019t have to do it. After all, we\u2019re special. The annoying and burdensome steps of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, are a roadmap laid out for less spiritually evolved people. People who are not geniuses, like us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo after my Dad died, I washed back up on the shores of West Hollywood. But the old tricks I used to convince myself I was happy stopped working. My meditation mantra turned to sand in my mouth. And my fame was exposed for the lame-substitute-for-love that it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI was no longer just my-life-should-be-better-in-some-undefined-type-of-way sad. I was slipping into kill-yourself sad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut on some level, I realized I was already dead. Not in the way Dad and Avicii were. But in an even sadder way.\u00a0The kind of dead where you\u2019re still walking around, saying words, and shoveling food in your mouth, pretending like you\u2019re okay. But deep down you\u2019re just a shadow of the person you\u2019re actually supposed to be. And the worst part is you know it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTo add insult to injury, \u201cI Took a Pill in Ibiza\u201d slowly retreated off the pop charts and into a \u201cremember-that-one-song\u201d territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the second time, I became a guy who used to be famous. And yes, I grew my beard out again. But the defining physical characteristic of this part of my life was the sunken holes where my eyes used to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTSA agents holding my ID sometimes recognized my name. They did double-takes and always asked me the same question:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat happened to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI was doing my best to answer that question. But I needed help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Transformation\t<\/p>\n

\n\t_______________________<\/p>\n

\n\tDecember 2022<\/p>\n

\n\tWest Palm Beach, FL<\/p>\n

\n\tTony Robbins events are what would come out if a church service made love to a Guns \u2018N Roses concert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder harsh fluorescent lights, out-of-date David Guetta hits play at absurd volumes, while markedly uncool attendees wear lanyard name tags and jump up and down with outstretched hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSomething about it feels left over from the \u201990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI arrived skeptical and sick. Was this really going to work? I hoped so. I\u2019d tried everything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTony took the stage and his gravitas as a speaker was undeniable, even to someone as cynical as me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe next two days of Tony\u2019s \u201cDate With Destiny\u201d included tear-jerking suicide interventions, powerful distinctions about human psychology, and soul-riveting \u201cclosed eye exercises.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBy day three, the conference had taken on a momentum of its own.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAvicii\u2019s song \u201cLevels\u201d blasted out of the speakers, echoing like a ghost from my past, reminding me where my life was headed if I didn\u2019t change. Before long, I found myself jumping around with all those lanyard-wearing people I\u2019d judged upon arrival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe song faded, the lights dimmed, and Tony\u2019s gravelly voice instructed me and the other thousand live attendees to close our eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlready, I felt something of great significance was starting to happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTony proceeded to guide us through a visualization where we visited younger versions of ourselves. I was vaguely familiar with so-called \u201cinner-child\u201d work, but this felt different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROBBINS: Visualize yourself walking over a hill and there\u2019s a person there. And as you get closer, you realize you recognize that person.\u00a0 It\u2019s you when you were 16. What do you want to say to this version of you? What do they want to say to you?<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I write this, I realize how absurd this scene may appear to readers. But I don\u2019t care. Because as I \u201chugged\u201d that 16-year-old \u201cme\u201d in my mind, two truth bombs exploded into my awareness and presented themselves as unequivocally true:<\/p>\n

My depression was tied directly to my fear of intimacy. The longer I avoided intimacy, the more pain Life was going to give me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All the pain I\u2019d undergone in my life thus far was the perfect training for me to serve others in the way I was actually supposed to. Life was giving me challenges so I could learn to overcome them. That way I could teach others to do the same. As Byron Katie so eloquently puts it, Life was not happening to me, it was happening for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI looked like the same person but as I stood in that overly air-conditioned conference room, but something about me had changed forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI realized I\u2019d been telling myself a lie. The lie was that I was a depressed genius whose sadness was rooted in the fact that no one understood him. That wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDepression was not something I had. Depression was something I was doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNothing more than a set of negative thoughts I repeated in my mind, a slouchy way I held my body, and a false identity I had created for myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a bad habit. And any habit can be changed.<\/p>\n

\n\tMistaking habits for identity leads to suffering.<\/p>\n

\n\tDistinguishing habits from identity leads to freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I decided to tell myself a new story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tI wouldn\u2019t say Tony Robbins cured me of depression. But I would say Tony Robbins gave me the tools to cure myself of depression.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I left the conference, I was determined not to slip back into my ways. So every day, immediately upon waking, I put on my headphones and play the same songs Tony used at \u201cDate With Destiny.\u201d I kept telling myself my new story. As the music blared, I would go for a run or lift weights or move my body in some way while repeating:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI am joy.<\/p>\n

\n\tI am faith.<\/p>\n

\n\tI am love. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I didn\u2019t just say it. I screamed it and repeated it until I believed myself. Every. Single. Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn this manner, I kept my transformation alive and literally changed my identity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI found vast amounts of energy reserves unlock.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy Mom, someone who easily irritated me in the past, became one of my best friends. My baseline level of happiness increased tenfold. And drum roll please: I faced my fear and entered a real, live relationship with a real, live woman. That relationship ended amicably but eventually led me to my now fiance\u00e9 who I\u2019m more-than-happily engaged to. Even I am sort of surprised at how permanent the effects of \u201cDate With Destiny have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe last few years have still had their fair share of pain and challenges. There have been health issues, deaths in the family, and breakups. But I\u2019ve learned to ask better questions when the challenges come.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is Life trying to teach me right now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBy asking this question, my pain becomes the conduit for further expansion, growth, and wisdom. It still hurts. But I use it to take me somewhere I want to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, we live in an age of cynicism. Our social media feeds are rife with charlatans and \u201clife coaches\u201d who haven\u2019t even figured out how to live their own lives. The words \u201cmental health\u201d have been misappropriated to actually mean mental weakness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I guess I\u2019m a rare example of personal growth work actually working. And I don\u2019t want to mince words: we can change. And our lives can become that good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I reflect on my firsr 38 years alive, although I am still very much building the ship as I sail, I realize my greatest achievement isn\u2019t getting famous, writing hit songs, hiking thousands of miles, or even climbing Mt. Everest. My greatest achievement is that I went from a person whose emotional home base was life-suckingly depressed to someone whose emotional home base is now joy, faith, and even deeper than those, love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut even after I changed my internal story,\u00a0 the larger public still remembered me as the guy who sang \u201cI Took A Pill in Ibiza.\u201d\u00a0 So I decided to change that story too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor over a decade, \u201cI Took a Pill in Ibiza\u201d dragged me around wherever it wanted. But now it was my turn to lead my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNo longer was I going to let my music dictate my life. Now I was going to let my Life dictate my music. I wrote, \u201cI Went Back to Ibiza.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s call a spade a spade, part of my motivation for writing this piece is to get the word out about it. But that\u2019s not the whole story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an age where AI can write darn good pop songs and most people \u201cconnect\u201d via little blue text bubbles on small screens, art is simply one human saying, \u201cThis is what it\u2019s like for me to be human. Anybody else?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd if we\u2019re lucky, somebody else says, \u201cYes. That\u2019s exactly what it\u2019s like for me to be human, too. I couldn\u2019t put my finger on it but that song\/book\/painting\/essay said it just right. Thank you. I feel less alone now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTwelve years ago when I wrote Ibiza 1.0, I had no idea my life was going to get this good. And interestingly, I\u2019m doing a lot of the same things I was doing 15 years ago: playing concerts, meetings with record labels, and social media posts. But it feels completely different. Instead of obsessively using my job to get more money and fame. I\u2019m trying to do it to serve others and make a difference in their lives. That is to say, after all the spiritual seeking, I haven\u2019t so much changed what I\u2019m doing; I\u2019ve only changed how I\u2019m doing it. And sometimes that makes all the difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo if you\u2019re reading this and you\u2019re in a challenging chapter, remember, it\u2019s never too late to change your story. You have no idea how good it could get in the next few years. Keep going. In deep gratitude,<\/p>\n

\n\tMike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer-songwriter Mike Posner scored several hit singles from 2010 through 2015, and also produced or co-wrote songs for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,156841,278],"class_list":["post-342895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mike-posner","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}