Silence: A Freelancer’s Mental Health Reality
From the outside, the film and television industry often looks glamorous. People see the travel, the productions, and the credits rolling across the screen and assume everyone involved must be doing well. When you tell someone you work in film, they often imagine exciting sets, creative environments, and big paychecks. What they don’t see is the reality of how most of the industry actually works.
Most of us are freelancers. Crew members move from project to project, contract to contract, sometimes traveling across states or even countries for work. When a production wraps, the job ends. Then we wait for the next call. It’s a lifestyle built on uncertainty and passion. Many of us accept that unpredictability because we genuinely love the work we do. Freelance life in the film industry comes with challenges, even when productions are running. Long hours are normal. Twelve-hour days can easily turn into fourteen or sixteen. Many of us spend months away from home, away from our families, our children, and even our pets. We work with constantly changing crews and strong personalities. We’re under high pressure while solving problems in real time. The clock is always ticking. Even during busy years, the emotional and physical demands of the job can take a toll. When the industry slows down, as a result, the pressure doesn’t simply disappear. In many ways, the stress multiplies.
In 2023, something happened that many people in the industry had never experienced at this scale. The strikes shut down productions across the industry. Projects were delayed or canceled, and the ripple effect spread far beyond the writers and actors involved. Entire schedules disappeared overnight. At first, many of us believed it would be temporary. I was fortunate enough to still have work through June of 2024. But after that, the phone stopped ringing. No new productions. No new contracts. Just silence. The difficult reality of freelance work is that when jobs stop, the bills do not. Rent, utilities, and insurance still exist. Financial responsibilities continue even when your income suddenly disappears. But there is another challenge that many freelancers face that people rarely talk about. The silence.
There is a perception that working in entertainment means you’re financially comfortable. You probably made a lot working those jobs. You’ll be fine. The truth is that freelance income is rarely as stable as people imagine. Work can be intense and well-paid for short periods, but those earnings are meant to stretch across months between projects. And even before the strikes, there were times when crew members struggled to find the next job. What makes it harder is the pressure to keep up appearances.
Many freelancers are used to being the ones others depend on. Friends and family see us traveling, working on productions, and building careers that appear exciting and successful. So when things begin to fall apart financially or emotionally, it can feel incredibly difficult to talk about. There is a quiet fear of admitting that you are struggling. You don’t want people to see you differently. You don’t want them to think you failed. And sometimes you don’t want to worry the people who have always counted on you. After my last production ended in June of 2024, the reality of the situation slowly became clear. The work that had once been constant wasn’t returning. As the months passed, the financial pressure grew heavier. Before I made the decision to move back home to Las Vegas, there were moments where the fear of losing everything felt unbearable. Work wasn’t coming in, and the financial pressure kept building. There were days when I was afraid to answer the door because I was worried it might be eviction papers.
That fear sits with you constantly when you don’t know where you would go if you lost the place you’re living. At the same time, I remember having to tell my own children that I needed to borrow money. I worried about food and sometimes chose not to eat much myself because I didn’t want to take food that should be for them. Those are not things people expect someone in the film industry to say. But they are real. The stress and uncertainty can push your mind into places you never imagined it would go. There were moments where the thoughts running through my head scared me, and I realized how heavy the mental health burden of this industry can become when work disappears, and you feel like everything you built is slipping away.
During that time, I also began to withdraw from people. Part of it was financial, I didn’t have the money to go out or socialize, but part of it was emotional. I didn’t feel good about myself. I felt defeated. I slowly became isolated and stopped seeing people. Eventually, I made the difficult decision to move back in with my mother. Financially, it was the responsible choice. But emotionally, it felt like stepping backwards. For someone who had spent years traveling for productions and building a career in film and television, moving home again felt like a huge defeat. And for months after moving back to Las Vegas, there was still no work. Eight months passed before I finally took a temporary job outside of the film industry. The job helped me move forward, but it was also a humbling experience. The pay was the same amount I had been making ten years earlier.
After traveling for productions and working in high-pressure environments, it was a difficult adjustment. Freelancers often tie their identity to the work they do. When you spend years building a career in film and television, the work becomes part of who you are. When that suddenly disappears, even temporarily, it can feel like losing a sense of direction. Mental health conversations in the film industry often focus on the long hours and intense pressure of production environments. Those challenges are real. But the emotional toll of not working can be just as difficult.
When the phone stops ringing, it makes you question your value and future. What has helped me shift my perspective is remembering that the film industry has always been built by resilient people. Every production faces unexpected problems such as weather changes, budgets shift, scheduling issues. Crew members solve those problems every day. The same resilience exists within the people who make this industry possible. Sharing these experiences matters because it reminds us that we are not alone. Behind every film, every television show, and every production credit is a community of people navigating uncertainty while still believing in the work we love.
The industry will recover. It always does. The cameras will roll again. But until then, many of us are learning something important about this career that people rarely talk about: Even the people who look like they have everything together sometimes need support too. And sometimes the most powerful thing we can say to each other during difficult times is simply this: You are not alone.
