We recently connected with Jade Stepper and have shared our conversation below.
Jade , sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
Mental health used to be something I was never vocal about. I was scared of talking about how I felt until I was encouraged to do so. A powerful moment for me. My mother had suffered from a disease called Lupus and was always in and out of hospitals for as long as I can remember. About a month after my 15th birthday she eventually passed and I was left completely distraught. The agonizing pain of never being able to say the words “I love you” was a constant flicker inside my head. I was severely depressed and on a path of self-destruction because I didn’t know how to cope properly. I was isolating and doing everything you shouldn’t do when going through a traumatic loss. The process of grief is a lot more complex than what is understood, to experience an emotion of such magnitude in literal waves and random intervals of time is something to grapple with and to take seriously. Through confiding in others I was able to healthily reconcile with myself and realize that all it takes is one talk. All I did was talk, once. And little by little I poured everything out. Addressing mental health is never easy and apart from speaking up, it is most likely the hardest part. To anyone who may find themselves in similar situations or has gone through it, I understand and please, take care of yourselves. Never suffer in silence!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Hi hi! I love love LOVE recording voiceovers and to voice act! I started out with voice impressions and actually my very first one was David Hayter’s “Solid Snake” in the 5th grade. My voice was nowhere near as low as his but I still had fun with it. Recently I had an amazing opportunity to play one of the main characters in a horror audio drama series called “Cabin Tales”. It was surreal, like an awakening for me. That experience ultimately drove me to pursue voiceover work way more seriously. As for the technical side of things I am well versed with post processing and mixing! I’m currently in college studying to be a great audio engineer! DAWs such as Audition, Reaper, Audacity, Twistedwave, and Pro Tools are all domains I’m familiar with! Recording and editing audio feels the same every single time. I’m left overjoyed with a huge smile on my face. Special side note! One of my major hyperfixations is all about collecting microphones and other obscure pieces of audio gear! Recording and editing audio feels the same every single time. I’m left overjoyed with a huge smile on my face.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
In my opinion, by far one of the most important skills to have is patience. Personally, as a trans girl I reeeeeally really struggled with finding who I was and everything in my life continued to be a big question mark FULL of anxiety and overthinking. Getting to be who I felt I was was not something that happened overnight. It took years to reach the full effect of it and it was a hard pill to swallow. One example is my voice. I couldn’t feel happy without overcoming this hurdle and in turn, I became very self-conscious. It was embarrassing talking in those early stages and as much as I dreaded this, I feel like if given the chance, I would never give up those early days of talking to myself for around 9 hours a day. I developed my voice eventually so I’m grateful I took the time and never gave up. Thode countless days of voice training disciplined me and nowwwwwww I’m a voice actor who can do all sorts of zany, weird, and exceptionally stupid voices! I owe it all to patience and my belief in “trusting the process”.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Uncomfortable situations can literally appear out of thin air so time to mentally prepare for them may never get to properly take place. Whenever something begins clouding my judgement or taking up way too much of my time, I look towards a goal I have in mind. I reassure myself and take time to focus on the positive futures. I especially think of what my life looks like after the “dust settles”, after the hard part is finally over, and after the stress goes away. I find motivating myself with such goals helps a lot in pushing me through days where I want to rip my hair out. Just always ask yourself “well, what am I doing this for?”. List off all of the factors in life that brought you to where you are and become determined to face your current situation! Simply resting is nice too, you never want to dwell on something for too long or the problem may become bigger than what it is. Most of my overwhelming thoughts came from when I was set to perform music! I was nearly going pale but I knew I had to do it. Imagining myself ALREADY performing did me great justice and I was motivated to try to make that future a reality :).
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