Not a Bandwagon： Breaking Down Mental Health Stigma and Embracing Vulnerability
As Priscilla Cherry put it on her debut episode, "Grief is just love with no place to go" — and vulnerability, not silence, is the real strength.
Not a Bandwagon: Priscilla Cherry Launches a Live, Unfiltered Conversation on Mental Health
For the pilot episode of her new show, Priscilla Cherry — who goes by “Miss Cherry” to her audience — stepped in front of a live camera for the first time as part of Hustle Zone TV’s new TGIF lineup, joining a rotation that includes Monica’s show and “The Nomads” (the nomadic entrepreneurs show). Nervous but game, Cherry opened by admitting live streaming was new territory for her: normally she records and edits ahead of time, but this was “live in action,” technical hiccups and all.
The show’s title, she explained, isn’t about jumping on a trend. “Not a Bandwagon” comes from her own life — she shared that her family has struggled with mental health and addiction since she was a little girl, and that talking about mental health isn’t a fad for her, it’s lived experience. She was careful throughout to draw a line around her role: she’s not a psychologist, doesn’t have formal training, and won’t hand out clinical advice. What she offers instead, she said, is her own opinion and feedback based on what she’s lived through — a distinction she returned to more than once.
The episode built around three viewer questions. The first, from a commenter named Santa (or Stan), asked simply what mental health is and how to improve it. Cherry’s answer set the tone for the whole show: mental health, in her words, “is not a diagnosis,” not something prescribed — “it just is who we are.” She pushed back gently on how much society fixates on labels and language around mental illness versus mental wellness, arguing that at the end of the day, having a mind means having mental health, full stop. As for improving it, she said there’s no universal formula — what works for one person won’t work for another — and pointed to her own outlet of artistic expression: dancing, singing, spoken word, and what she jokingly called her “abstract art” painting.
The second question came from a viewer grieving the recent loss of her mother, asking for help getting through the grieving period. Cherry responded with real tenderness, thanking the commenter for her vulnerability and naming vulnerability itself as a strength rather than the weakness society often treats it as. She shared a quote that had stayed with her — “grief is just love with no place to go” — calling it beautiful and clearly moved by it in the moment. She also opened up about losing her own cousin at a young age, saying the way through isn’t to avoid the pain but to hold onto the legacy the person left behind and to honestly acknowledge the emotions that come with loss.
The final question, from a viewer named Tom, asked how to handle the pressure of life, school, and everything happening in the world. Cherry admitted she feels that pressure constantly too — joking about being in the last year of her twenties and feeling like she should already have a house, kids, or a fortune by now. Her take: much of that pressure is self-imposed overthinking, and the healthier move is recognizing that wherever you are right now is exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Along the way, live comments shaped the conversation as much as the prepared questions did. One viewer’s note about structure prompted Cherry to share that she’d built a five-minute daily meditation habit into her own routine — small, but consistent. Another exchange, sparked by a comment from Monica about parental pressure to have grandchildren, turned into a riff on self-validation, with Cherry warning about the “new currency” of likes and follows on social media and how chasing that validation externally can quietly mess with people’s minds.
Cherry closed the show by describing her broader goal: to make people feel seen and heard, tying it back to her work in peer support, which she described as instilling hope in people who often don’t have anyone else to talk to. She invited viewers to reach out with topics or anonymous questions for future episodes and pointed people to her social channels — all under the handle “that girl Cherry” — before signing off ahead of the next two shows in the Friday lineup.
Lessons from this one
Reframing mental health as an identity rather than a diagnosis can lower the emotional barrier to talking about it.
Cherry told her first viewer question that mental health 'is not a diagnosis... it just is who we are,' pushing back on how much energy goes into labeling mental illness versus mental wellness rather than just accepting that everyone with a brain has mental health.
Naming grief openly, even live in front of an audience, is treated as an act of strength rather than weakness.
When a viewer asked for help grieving her mother, Cherry explicitly thanked her for being vulnerable, said vulnerability is strength even though society treats it as weakness, and offered the line 'grief is just love with no place to go' as something that had resonated with her.
Small, consistent daily habits can support mental wellness more sustainably than big, rigid routines.
Prompted by a viewer comment about structure, Cherry described building a five-minute daily meditation practice into her life, noting she isn't naturally a 'structure' person but found that one small consistent habit helped without turning her routine into something rigid or restrictive.
Chasing likes and follows as a stand-in for validation can quietly harm mental wellbeing.
Cherry described social media likes and follows as a 'new currency' tied to a chemical/endorphin reward, warning that not receiving them can make people feel unloved, and urged viewers to build validation from within rather than from other people's reactions online.
Sharing lived experience, rather than offering clinical advice, is presented as its own legitimate form of support.
Cherry repeatedly clarified she is not a psychologist and won't give advice, but described her actual work as peer support — instilling hope in people who often have no one else to talk to — framing personal experience-sharing as valuable in its own right.
Sources
- Corrigan, P. W., & Rao, D. (2012). On the Self-Stigma of Mental Illness: Stages, Disclosure, and Strategies for Change. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 57(8), 464-469.
- Brown, B. (2006). Shame Resilience Theory: A Grounded Theory Study on Women and Shame. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 87(1), 43-52.
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.
- Sherman, L. E., Payton, A. A., Hernandez, L. M., Greenfield, P. M., & Dapretto, M. (2016). The Power of the Like in Adolescence: Effects of Peer Influence on Neural and Behavioral Responses to Social Media. Psychological Science, 27(7), 1027-1035.
- Chinman, M., George, P., Dougherty, R. H., Daniels, A. S., Ghose, S. S., Swift, A., & Delphin-Rittmon, M. E. (2014). Peer Support Services for Individuals with Serious Mental Illnesses: Assessing the Evidence. Psychiatric Services, 65(4), 429-441.
- Runtime
- 31m
- Show
- HustleZone
- Host
- Ryan Perez
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