For 8 years he has appeared every week on Twitch, up to five days a week, to decipher live news related to the political world.
But for a month, the streamer Jean Massiet, aged 35, had not given any news to those who follow him, only and soberly indicating on social networks that he was “hospitalized for several weeks”.
He reappeared on Saturday in his show “Backseat”, and insisted on discussing in front of the camera, then with Libération on Sunday, his mental state and the illness from which he suffers, bipolarity.
He describes it as a “mood disorder which causes successive phases of depression and others of mania or hypomania”, having plunged him into a mental state requiring his psychiatric hospitalization.
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Particularly striking statements as this Monday, a study published by Public Health France highlights the increase in suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts among 18-24 year olds since the Covid crisis.
“I knew it was going to last at least several weeks”
The thirty-year-old explains that he suffered from “depression, like many French people every year”.
As his condition could no longer be taken care of at home, he was subject to "free hospitalization in a psychiatric clinic", adds Jean Massiet, who specifies that he was unaware of the duration of his stay when he began it.
He stayed there for a month and a half.
“I knew it was going to last at least several weeks, until a new treatment was found for me and it had an effect” on his bipolarity, relates the political streamer, who depicts it as a “difficult to diagnose” mental illness that “affects more than 1% of French people”.
He talks about his daily life: “Moments when I overproduce, professionally in particular, with ideas that flow, language that accelerates, my body too.
And others where I will experience exactly the opposite and experience a sharp drop in mood.
» His Internet activity, “a tiring profession”, which “takes up a considerable place” in his existence, could have caused what he sees as “a burn-out”.
Also read: Suicide thoughts and attempts: warning signs that should worry loved ones
“I had a very difficult time creating content on the Internet, relating to the public,” Jean Massiet also explains to Libération, who admits to being “a public figure, morning, noon and evening, whether I stay up or not.”
After facing this “global professional burnout”, he intends to do prevention among his audience, his “duty”.
“I want him to know the reality, even if it is hard to say,” he insists, saying he is confident about the coming end of a “taboo” with the younger generation.
“It is part of my responsibility to sound the alarm on the mental health of young people, so that the public authorities can mobilize,” continues Jean Massiet.